The current record on how cross-media ownership would affect minorities is “inadequate,” said officials from the United Church of Christ Office of Communication and the Institute of Public Representation in a meeting Monday with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s media aide Maria Kirby, said an ex parte filing released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1khXnFx). The FCC will need more hard data to meet the standards for such rules imposed by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Prometheus II decision, said the groups. The commission must “conduct analysis of the impact of its media ownership rules on women and people of color before it takes any action to relax those rules,” said the filing. The commission’s previously collected Form 323 data doesn’t provide such analysis because it’s disorganized and out of date, the filing said. “Only a data collection of the intensity of the Critical Information Needs studies would be adequate,” said the filing. The commission should base its decisions in the 2010 or 2014 Quadrennial Review on data collected from such studies, the filing said. Commission inaction on joint sales agreements and shared service agreements (SSAs) “invites broadcasters to quickly usher through as many of these arrangements as possible and then, in the event of later Commission action, to grandfather in the transactions, creating perverse incentives.” The FCC should make a tentative finding that SSAs undermine the goals of the ownership rules and provide notice of upcoming action, subjecting parties to possible unwinding of their arrangements, the filing said.
Notable CROSS rulings
Legislation allowing cross-border licensing of music for online uses won enthusiastic backing (640-18 votes) from the European Parliament Tuesday, and now moves to formal approval by EU governments. The directive on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses in the internal market (FAQ here: http://bit.ly/1nMP44F) is a “cornerstone for the digital single market,” said Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier during the European Parliament’s plenary debate. It will make it easier for smaller, innovative services to offer music-streaming services, he said. Parliament’s response to the European Commission-proposed measure was supported across party lines, said its author, Marielle Gallo, of the European People’s Party and France. The measure also sets EU-wide rules on collective management societies (CMOs), some of which have been accused of non-transparent accounting, embezzlement, failure to pay royalties within a reasonable time and other “unfortunate lacks in efficiency,” said Gallo and other Parliament members (MEPs). CMOs will now play a role in the single digital market by requiring online music providers and platforms to deal with only a limited number of rights organizations, Gallo said. Debate on the draft was “lively” but everyone from the U.K Conservative Party to Sweden’s Pirate Party agreed on it, she said. All MEPs who spoke at the plenary debate praised the Gallo report, and only a few raised concerns. One issue is that the legislation leaves it up to EU governments to decide whether large American music platforms and providers are covered, said MEP Helmut Scholz, of the Confederal Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left and Germany. If U.S. companies don’t have to follow the same rules as European firms, music services could end up being offshored, he said. The EC is taking additional steps to modernize European copyright, Barnier said. There’s an ongoing dialogue on “licensing Europe,” and the EC is making an in-depth study of EU copyright law. Its extensive consultation has sparked so much interest from all stakeholders that the comment period was extended to March 5, said Barnier. The outcome of the inquiry will feed into a potential revamp of EU copyright law, with a discussion paper possible in June, he said. The issue of modernizing copyright will be for the next European Parliament and commission to move forward, he said. The next commission may also delve into notice and take-down of pirated content, he said. Such content must be removed, but there must be a transparent, balanced procedure for doing so, he said. It’s a “sensitive subject matter” that has to do with fundamental rights, so it’s important that Parliament is on board, he said. Separately, the Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA) Tuesday urged the “whole music sector to speak up on copyright in Europe.” With four weeks to go on the EC consultation on copyright reform in the digital age, Europe must “reinforce creators’ fundamental freedoms, instead of seeking to unpick copyright as requested by powerful lobby groups,” IMPALA said. U.K. collecting society PRS for Music said it supported the principles and objectives of the directive all along, because it will deliver high standards for governance and transparency, along with a voluntary framework for aggregation of repertoire for online multi-territory licensing underpinned by agreed-upon standards. It said this will help CMOs “play a role in a more integrated, efficient and valuable single market in Europe.”
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office had planned to circulate a draft order Thursday that would attribute TV joint sales agreements (JSAs) for the purposes of calculating ownership, but the item is expected to be delayed until March, an agency official told us. The order would have treated the attribution of TV JSAs the same way as for radio, counting as 15 percent toward ownership, the official said. It’s not clear why the item may be delayed. The item would also have included a further notice of proposed rulemaking on media cross-ownership, the official said.
Commenters in the FCC AM revitalization proceeding backed the overall effort, and made other suggestions on foreign ownership, AM antenna efficiency standards and other things. The FCC received support from AM licensees for opening an FM translator filing window for AM licensees. Comments were due Tuesday in docket 13-249.
Needing “flexibility in attracting investment in a challenging digital market,” loosening FCC ownership limits on broadcast and daily newspaper properties “would spur greater investment and innovation in the publishing industry,” said the Newspaper Association of America. “Liberalization” of broadcast-paper cross-ownership rules would mean “greater and more innovative news production, without any diminishment in diversity,” said NAA. Its filing posted Friday to docket 09-182 (http://bit.ly/1dCziq3) reported on a meeting of an NAA executive and a lawyer representing the association with aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who earlier pulled a draft order that would have relaxed some cross-ownership rules (CD Dec 16 p1).
Failure to pass the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act (1.usa.gov/1aaMpOS) would marginalize the U.S. from international free trade agreements, forcing U.S. companies to compete with countries that sponsor substandard rules on intellectual property (IP) rights and digital free flow of information, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and several witnesses at a Jan. 16 Finance Committee hearing. The legislation, the 2014 iteration of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), was introduced by Baucus, Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., Jan. 9.
Germany must take the lead in pushing through reform of EU data protection rules, said outgoing European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx. Germany claims a special responsibility and role in the privacy arena, and the new German government can tackle the subject with enough drive and energy to lead Europe to a higher level of data protection, he said in a speech this week in Bonn. Revised data protection rules will define clearer responsibilities for organizations and more consistency and uniformity in privacy across online and traditional markets, so it’s essential that progress on the reform package is made before political and economic interests restrict basic rights, he said. Hustinx also called for an EU-level framework for net neutrality, saying the Internet is a key means of cross-border economic and social exchange. However, he said, the European Commission’s “connected continent” proposal for a regulation on e-communications will unduly limit Internet freedom because it gives almost unlimited rights to providers to manage traffic. Moreover, the large-scale monitoring and restriction of users’ Internet communications made possible in the proposal breach EU data protection legislation and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, he said. Users in democratic societies should be certain their rights to privacy and confidentiality of their communications, and protection of the personal information, are respected, he said.
The House Commerce Committee will increase its focus on data security, cross-border data flows and the Internet Of Things in 2014, said Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., at a Technology Policy Institute event Wednesday. Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen hopes the FTC will look more at data use instead of data collection, she said at the same event.
Through fines proposed on Turner Broadcasting and a consent decree with MMK, licensee of a Kentucky TV station, the FCC Enforcement Bureau is sending a message to broadcasters and distributors that it’s cracking down on use of simulated emergency alert system sounds, said broadcast attorneys who follow EAS in interviews Wednesday. The actions follow an enforcement advisory by the FCC that cautioned against false and unauthorized use of the EAS attention signal (CD Nov 7 p15).
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wants to look at what some call shell corporations, he said on audience queries about those who may be getting around media ownership rules, at an Oakland, Calif., town hall meeting Thursday night. The event was hosted by the Voices for Internet Freedom Coalition in partnership with the Center for Media Justice, Free Press, ColorOfChange and National Hispanic Media Coalition. He also passionately denounced those who try to defraud FCC services like LifeLine. Wheeler spent most of the night sitting alone at the dais of a packed room, listening to community members ask the commission for help. It was a rare opportunity for Oakland residents to appeal directly to the head of the agency, and likely an unusual situation for Wheeler, whose remarks aren’t often preceded by beat poetry by the local youth poet laureate.