Addressing digital trade barriers from foreign countries is of critical importance to the growth of businesses in the U.S., members of the House Intellectual Property Subcommittee and witnesses said during a hearing Tuesday. Witnesses backed a global framework to address issues of digital trade and the way data moves across borders, and pointed to last month's European Court of Justice ruling invalidating the EU safe harbor agreement as a cause of uncertainty for the legality of data transfers. That ECJ ruling was the subject of a separate hearing Tuesday (see 1511030034).
Notable CROSS rulings
Judge David Tatel is expected to play a key role as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hears the appeal of the FCC’s net neutrality order, experts said in interviews. How the court will rule and whether the case is ultimately headed to the Supreme Court is more difficult to predict, they said Wednesday.
The FCC released the text of its AM revitalization order, creating a 2016 window for AM stations to apply for waivers to relocate existing FM translators, and a 2017 window for AM stations that didn’t use the first window to apply for new FM translators, as expected (see 1510220060). “We are very pleased that all five Commissioners came together in a spirit of compromise to unanimously approve this order,” said National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters President Jim Winston in a statement Saturday. The item includes a report and order, plus a Further NPRM and a notice of inquiry that seek comment on possible further policies such as removing skywave protections for Class A stations. The Media Bureau is already taking action on the order, issuing a public notice Monday on the specifics of the 2016 window application process.
The FCC released its order on the methodology to be used during the TV incentive auction to predict interservice interference (ISIX) between broadcasters and wireless providers. The vote was 5-0, though Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly both had quibbles with some decisions. The order largely follows the approach approved last year on ISIX methodology (see 1410170053). The agency affirmed its decision from last year not to adopt a cap on the aggregate amount of new interference a TV station may receive from other TV stations in the repacking process.
There are different layers of meaning in the European Court of Justice’s ruling that invalidated safe harbor, FTC Commissioner Julie Brill said Tuesday during a fireside chat with European Institute President Joёlle Attinger. On a surface reading, the decision focuses on what the court perceived as problems in the U.S. government surveillance system and a lack of judicial redress rights for Europeans, Brill said. A broader reading of the court’s opinion encourages changes not just with government privacy and surveillance law, but for commercial commitments as well, Brill said.
The FCC’s quadrennial review of its ownership rules is seen as being on the back burner and not likely to be a focus for the current FCC, numerous communications attorneys told us in interviews. That’s despite an NAB petition (see 1510130061) to hold the Charter/ Time Warner Cable/ Bright House deal in abeyance filed Sunday asking the FCC to take up the matter. Though Chairman Tom Wheeler has said the commission will address the 2014 ownership review in time for the June statutory deadline, the FCC is known for not completing ownership rule reviews on time. The politically charged atmosphere around the ownership rules, the upcoming TV incentive auction, and the ongoing litigation with NAB and Prometheus Radio Project over the 2010 quadrennial review are all reasons the FCC is unlikely to tackle a review of media ownership anytime soon, attorneys told us.
The European Commission vowed to ratchet up privacy talks with the U.S. following Tuesday's rejection by Europe's highest court of the EU-U.S. safe harbor agreement for transfer of personal data. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled safe harbor invalid and ordered the Irish data protection authority to determine whether Facebook's transfer of European subscribers' data to servers in the U.S. should be suspended on the ground that U.S. privacy protections are inadequate. The decision confirms the EC's approach in its negotiations for a new agreement, EC Vice-President Frans Timmermans said at a news conference.
If DTV receivers and converters aren't properly tuning WJLP Middletown, New Jersey, on virtual-channel 33, the products may be violating FCC rules, said CBS in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 14-150. It responded to WJLP owner PMCM's emergency request last month for Media Bureau relief to grant the broadcaster's virtual channel 3.10 request. "The FCC should take appropriate enforcement action against" makers of equipment that can't tune WJLP, said CBS. "The need for FCC action is particularly important given that the impact of such equipment performance problems is likely to be exacerbated once broadcast television stations are operating on fewer RF channels following the upcoming incentive spectrum auction." PMCM's request said it tested TVs, including smart sets, and digital converters from companies including Hisense, JVC, Panasonic, Phillips and Sony and some of the devices didn't work properly. Representatives for those companies didn't comment Thursday, nor did CEA. When viewers selected Channel 33, PMCM said, the receivers in most sets instead tuned to WCBS-TV New York, which broadcasts on that channel. In August and September, more than 40 sets were tested, some in viewer homes, and most couldn't get WJLP over the air, said broadcast lawyer Don Evans of Fletcher Heald, which represents PMCM, in an interview Thursday. The number of viewer complaints to WJLP is rising, he said. CBS responded to PMCM's filing that the alleged failure by equipment makers to sell receivers that follow FCC rules shouldn't mean that WJLP can use a virtual channel number or a common major channel number that overlaps service contours of stations that have been on-air for "decades" on the same major channel number. CBS, owner of KYW-TV Philadelphia, which FCC records show uses virtual channel 3, and Meredith, owner of WFSB Hartford, also uses that virtual channel according to records, each opposed PMCM's newest request. After winning a court order allowing WJLP to move cross country, it has been seeking FCC OK for what many have said is a technological first in broadcasting: to run on the same main program and system information protocol (PSIP) channel as another station -- WFSB -- while each would have different PSIP subchannels (see 1409160043). Amid "the unexplained tuning anomalies alleged by PMCM, switching WJLP to a virtual channel already duplicated in the market risks extending the confusion and harm to additional stations," said Meredith. "The anomalies that PMCM identifies, if widespread, may well warrant careful investigation by the Commission." Of the sets WJLP tested, "it's not just old, off-brand sets, it’s TV sets from major manufacturers, they are fairly new sets, and for whatever reason, they’re not applying the PSIP channel properly," said Evans. "We agree with CBS that there is some problem with the receivers, because some of them don’t have the problem, and some of them do." He said PMCM isn't seeking enforcement action against the manufacturers, as CBS sought.
Cybersecurity interests urged NTIA to focus its multistakeholder process on vulnerability research disclosure more on increasing vendors' use of third-party researchers as a way of detecting software vulnerabilities than on developing new best practices on research disclosure. The vulnerability research disclosure multistakeholder process is the first in a planned series of NTIA initiatives aimed at cross-sector cybersecurity issues (see 1508280036). Although most at a Tuesday meeting focused on incentivizing vulnerability research disclosures, a few attendees said NTIA isn't empowered to fix legislative issues that create roadblocks to vulnerability disclosures.
NAB intends to press for an overhaul of broadcast ownership rules and insist that the video market is more competitive than ever, during a Friday House Communications Subcommittee hearing on media ownership. Groups opposed to media consolidation will press for more diversity in the industry. The hearing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.