The European Parliament Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee deleted a proposed pan-EU ancillary copyright aimed at allowing publishers to claim royalties from news aggregation services like Google News (see 1609140010), in a published draft opinion Thursday on the European Commission's proposed copyright directive for the digital single market. The proposed ancillary right drew flack from the Computer and Communications Industry Association, Center for Democracy and Technology, CTA, Mozilla and other U.S. stakeholders (see 1608290062, 1609060078, 1609120026 and 1609150053). Catherine Stihler, MEP for Scotland, deleted the ancillary or “publisher's right” in the draft opinion, saying it lacked “sufficient justification.” Some EU-based groups also opposed keeping the ancillary right in the copyright directive, saying this month it was “fundamentally misconceived.” The EP committee's draft opinion also amends language on intermediary liability and filtering, adds a user-generated content exception to copyright, and broadens the scope of the copyright exception for text and data mining. CCIA “welcomes” the EP committee's draft opinion as a “good first step in the right direction,” said Europe Public Policy Manager Maud Sacquet in a news release. “CCIA urges the Parliament and Member States to follow this first step, to stand up for the deletion of the publishers’ right in the EU and to go even further by entirely deleting all provisions undermining the e-Commerce Directive.”

SoftBank, Sprint and TBCASoft said they're working toward a technology partnership jointly developing blockchain technology for telecom carriers. Blockchain technology is used by companies to jointly manage the database that records Bitcoin transactions. SoftBank owns a majority interest in Sprint. “TBCASoft is a startup company developing consortium-based blockchain technology specifically for telecommunication carriers,” said a Friday joint news release. “SoftBank, Sprint and TBCASoft will promote research and development with the aim of building a cross-carrier blockchain platform for various services, such as secured clearing and settlement, personal authentication, IoT applications, and other services provided by telecommunication carriers.” The three plan a technical trial starting in June that connects TBCASoft’s blockchain platform to carriers’ systems, the announcement said: “The three companies will collaborate closely on issues related to technology, business and the regulations of various jurisdictions.”

Verizon leads wireless carriers in national coverage and network reliability, but rivals aren’t far behind, RootMetrics reported for the second half of 2016. Verizon had the best reliability among all carriers at the metro, state and national levels during the period, it said. AT&T deployed the greatest amount of LTE spectrum among carriers across the 125 metro markets tested, increasing the carrier’s median download speeds significantly, the researcher said. “While Verizon’s performances on the national stage remained outstanding in all test categories, AT&T offered strong competition, finishing second in five out of six performance categories,” RootMetrics said. “Sprint, meanwhile, delivered particularly strong results during call and text testing.” AT&T finished second to Verizon in all national-level tests except call performance, where Sprint finished second and AT&T finished third. Sprint and AT&T tied for second place in text performance. T-Mobile finished last in all national categories, but generally performed better in metro areas, RootMetrics said. On network speed and data performance metrics, T-Mobile finished second place for total number of metropolitan areas where it was the outright or shared leader.

Audio and home theater distributor AVAD added Onkyo and Integra as vendor partners, it said in a Friday announcement. Bringing on Onkyo and Integra is part of AVAD’s push to add value for custom installation dealers, said the company.

Acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen should be made the agency's permanent head, said Lawrence Spiwak, president of the Phoenix Center, in an opinion piece for The Hill. He said Ohlhausen will "judiciously" wield the commission's power by focusing on "substantial harm" on consumers rather than speculative injury. He also said Ohlhausen has a "close relationship" with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and, like him, could "implement thoughtful policy on day one." Ohlhausen will be fair and wants to get better understanding of the economics of digital privacy, especially the link between access to consumer data and innovation, Spiwak said. "As a genuine respect for economics is in very short supply in Washington policy circles -- although lip service regrettably is always in abundant supply -- it's important for us to give credit where credit is due," he added. Ohlhausen plans to cut unnecessary regulations and provide businesses with more transparency, he said, but "one should not equate her philosophy of 'regulatory humility' with being soft on those who would harm consumers."

More than 220,000 people were directly or indirectly employed in the U.S. videogame industry, which had nearly 2,500 companies operating in 50 states in 2015, the Entertainment Software Association said in a report Tuesday. Of the 220,000 workers, roughly 65,000 people such as game designers and programmers were directly employed by the industry, while 155,000 workers, who supported the Android or iOS platforms, R&D and manufacturing assembly jobs related to gaming, were indirectly employed, emailed an ESA spokesman. Employees earned an average of $97,000 in 2015. ESA said total videogame software sales exceeded $24.5 billion last year. “The data we share today details a roadmap for economic growth, and the power of cultivating high-paying, technical careers in interactive entertainment," said CEO Michael Gallagher in a news release.

ProSource added Windy City Wire to its vendor list, said the buying group Tuesday. The low-voltage wire provider, formed in 1994, has 17 stocking locations around the country.

Four software stacks from ARM, NXP Semiconductors, OpenThread and Silicon Labs completed interoperability testing, becoming the first stacks to achieve certification as Thread Certified Components, the Thread Group announced Thursday. Other members can now begin submitting components or products for certification, said the group, which also said it will release the Thread 1.1 specification to the public this month, allowing members and nonmembers to develop compliant products. Thread Group members can submit components and products for testing and certification, and then have access to Thread test harness and tools software to accelerate development and the UL-led certification process. Certified Thread-based products are expected to be available first half 2017, said the group. Nonmember companies interested in building Thread products can use the 1.1 spec to begin development, and then join the group to complete product certification and gain the intellectual property rights to ship Thread products, it said. “By making an open-source, certified stack available, Nest is providing device manufacturers with the flexibility to choose from multiple silicon vendors when becoming Thread certified,” said Jonathan Beri, product manager-platform of Google's Nest. Skip Ashton, Silicon Labs vice president-software, called the opening of Thread certification a “major milestone for the delivery of ubiquitous, low-power IP mesh networking technology for the connected home." Availability of certified stacks marks the first step in delivering on Thread Group’s vision of “true multi-vendor choice for the connected device ecosystem, spanning modules, silicon devices and end-products,” said Thread Group, which expects more components and products to be submitted for certification in coming weeks.

Viacom's turnaround plan will focus primarily on six flagship brands, rebranding its Spike channel as the Paramount Network next year, and be "highly selective" in any over-the-top deals, with those being mostly for library content, CEO Bob Bakish said in an analyst call Thursday. The flagship brands are Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., MTV, BET, Comedy Central and Paramount, with Viacom planning for each brand to contribute a film or two per year to the Paramount slate, Bakish said, with one example being the four Paramount films planned through 2020 using Nickelodeon intellectual property. Other branded networks, like VH1, "will not go away" but will work to reinforce the flagship brands, Bakish said. He said Viacom's turnaround plan also involves using company resources like ad sales and data to help grow multichannel video programming distributor partners as it looks to deepen its MVPD relationships instead of what has been transactional relationships "related to zero-sum economic negotiations." Bakish said Viacom is creating a new business unit to produce short-form video content for distribution by owned-and-operated and third-party platforms. Chief Financial Officer Wade Davis said the company expects strong growth starting in the second half of the year from the changes. Viacom said fiscal Q1 revenue rose 5 percent to $3.3 billion from the year-ago quarter, due mainly to better theatrical sales and growth in domestic affiliate revenue from subscription VOD and OTT agreements. In a note to investors Thursday, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said the results "prove to us that the turnaround is real and likely to continue." She said Viacom's plan "makes sense" and likened it to past Time Warner efforts at breaking down silos between its brands, "which seems to have worked." She upgraded the stock to "outperform." The emphasis on the six flagship properties makes sense but doesn't go far enough, and there should be a wind-down of niche networks over time, Citi analyst Jason Bazinet emailed investors. Viacom shares closed up 4.3 percent on Thursday at $43.89.

A lack of racial diversity within technology companies could hurt their financial performance, Open MIC reported Wednesday. It said tech companies in the top 10 percent of racial and ethnic diversity are about two-thirds more likely to produce more revenue than those in the bottom 10 percent. "Similarly, companies that lack racial/ethnic diversity are about 20% more likely to fall short of median operating margins," said the nonprofit. “Given the growing social, political and economic influence of tech companies, the lack of diversity in the sector has implications that extend far beyond the industry itself,” said Executive Director Michael Connor in a news release. The report recommended tech companies measure their progress by collecting and disclosing data on race and gender, such as employees' functions, seniority, tenure, status, salary and other information. "Tech companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft have begun to disclose employee salaries, broken down by gender and sometimes but not always by race," the report said. Another recommendation is linking "time-bound goals" such as hiring and advancing women and minorities within organizations to leaders who are responsible for hitting those targets. Last year, Microsoft said it would tie executive bonuses to workforce diversity goals, and Pandora said it plans to increase percentage of U.S. employees of color to 45 percent by 2020, up from 35 percent, the report said. Open MIC said white executives, who hold a disproportionate power in tech companies, need to be fully committed to improving diversity and inclusion or those efforts will fall short.