FCC Confiscates Remaining TV Channels For Twitter

Shocked and horrified by the geometrically expanding demand for wireless broadband services, the Federal Commfiscation Commission exercised its powers of eminent domain today and confiscated the remaining broadcast television channels not already sold at auction. Most surprising of all was the declaration that this rare and important spectrum is going to be dedicated exclusively to the text messaging service, Twitter.

FCC Chairman Lowon B. Andwidth explained that the Commission just completed an intensive study of Internet usage and found that the Twitter service is growing at such an astonishing rate that it will soon devour all available bandwidth. “While it is bad enough that Twitter will bring web browsing, video streaming, text messaging and email to a halt,” said Mr. Andwidth, “a far worse situation will occur when Twitter users have to take a number and get in line to post their tweets. I don’t want to be in Washington when that mob of anti-social networkers descends on Capitol Hill.”

In shortest supply is wireless bandwidth. Apparently, the lion’s share of cellular phone activity involves posting messages to Twitter rather than the growth previously expected from mobile video and web browsing. One young smartphone user was heard to exclaim, “Does anyone actually surf the Web anymore? Who has the patience to read blogs and web pages? Anything worth saying can be said in 140 characters or less.”

Twitter itself issued a 130 character statement expressing delight at the government’s pre-emptive action to prevent a massive Fail Whale epidemic from sweeping the nation, and requesting re-tweets. They vowed to expand server capacity to match the new wireless bandwidth capacity as best they can. TV stations that follow Twitter have already been tweeted to cease broadcasting immediately and return their licenses. The remaining stations will be getting old school telegrams. “It’s unlikely anyone will be inconvenienced by this change,” explained Chairman Andwidth. “Everybody is on cable and satellite by now, anyway.”

Expectations are that a swift coordinated move by the public and private sectors can ensure adequate messaging capacity at least until after the fall elections. After that, the FCC will likely look at shutting down other less important uses of the electromagnetic spectrum including most AM and FM music stations. “We may even have to shut down microwave ovens and garage door openers if we can’t keep up with texting bandwidth demand,” exclaimed an obviously frustrated chairman.

Also making quick moves to protect its interests, Google announced that it is going to take over non-wireless Internet service by offering 1 Gbps fiber optic connections to every city that performed ridiculous stunts to try to win Google broadband service for its residents. “All other cities that didn’t make fools of themselves will be getting 10 Gbps Google Internet access free of charge,” according to an unofficial Google statement. It went on to say: “There is only one acceptable day for any foolishness and that is April 1.”

Metro Ethernet over Copper

You’ve heard that Metro Ethernet service offers exceptionally good pricing and higher bandwidths than you can get from your copper-based T1 lines. But those huge savings can vaporize once you get the estimates for fiber optic construction. Is there any way you can participate in the cost advantages of Ethernet service without having to come up with a large amount of capital funding?

You bet there is. It’s a technology that combines the advantages of Ethernet connection services with the availability of twisted pair copper cabling. The service you want to ask for is “Metro Ethernet over Copper”.

Just what is Metro Ethernet over Copper and how does it differ from what’s generically called Metro Ethernet?

Actually, the similarities are many and the differences are few. Metro Ethernet over Copper, also called Ethernet over Copper or EoC, is more about the delivery mechanism or physical network than the service itself. Ethernet for the Wide Area Network (WAN) is Ethernet regardless of how it is provisioned. Metro Ethernet refers to Ethernet services that connect your business location to a carrier’s point of presence or an extension of your Local Area Network (LAN) to other locations within a city or suburban area. The copper reference means that multiple twisted pair copper is used to connect your building instead of brining in a fiber optic cable.

Where does this copper come from and why is it cheaper than fiber? The copper is already there. It’s the same multiple pair binder cable that the telephone company installed when the building was constructed. These cables generally have many small gauge copper wires twisted together in pairs. Each pair can carry one analog telephone conversation or be used to transport a digital signal. Metro Ethernet service providers install a special piece of termination equipment at your site to connect the copper pairs they’ll be using. The more pairs they an employ, the higher the bandwidth they can provide.

How much Ethernet bandwidth can you expect with copper-based service? It depends a lot on how close you are to an on-network fiber lit building or a carrier office. The digital signal degrades with distance. Generally, you can get anywhere from 10 Mbps to 50 Mbps Ethernet service over copper. That’s a lot more than T1 lines at 1.5 Mbps and as much bandwidth as most small and medium size businesses need.

Are you interested in finding out if you can get high bandwidth, low cost Ethernet service? If so, check Metro Ethernet over Copper prices and availability for your location now. You may be surprised by how much you can get for your telecom dollar.

Non-profits can’t possibly save the news

An amazing number of smart and sophisticated people continue to harbor the fantasy that philanthropic contributions can take over funding journalism from the media companies that traditionally have supported the press. In the interests of moving discussions about the endangered outlook for professional journalism back into the realm of realistic thinking, we’re going to do the simple math

Harmonization spreads westwards

You thought Europe consisted of 27 member states. It looks like we may soon be joined by another... Canada and the EU have been negotiating the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) to reduce barriers to trade. Michael Geist has obtained a (leaked) proposal and it looks like Canadian IP law may be on the way to becoming more European (rather than European law becoming more Canadian). Harmonization knows no bounds. Well, I guess there are more of us than of them. Why not go the whole hog and bring US law into line too?

40 Gbps Bandwidth Available For Business

XO Communications has upped the ante on business bandwidth options by making two 40 Gbps network services available in all major metropolitan markets of its nationwide fiber optic footprint. Listen to Randy Nicklas, Chief Technology Officer of XO Communications, explain the advantages of the new 40 Gbps wavelength and IP transit services:



You may listen to the interview without leaving this page by using this built-in audio player:




Clearly, we’re entering a new and exciting era of very high bandwidth applications for businesses as well as service providers, such as Cable companies. High speed financial trading demands the lowest latencies possible. You snooze for a millisecond, you lose. This pushes the requirements for both transport speed between cities and also minimal time delays going through the routing and switching equipment.

Content delivery networks may be less latency sensitive than the financial trading networks, but they have an insatiable need for bandwidth. There is no upper limit in sight as of this writing. Surely 40 Gbps is just a incremental level on the way to 100 Gbps and beyond. Why? Because everybody wants the video they want to see when they want to see it, and high definition video has massive bandwidth demands. Every Internet user on Earth couldn’t possibly send enough email, visit enough web sites, or update their software often enough to match even the current demand for video transport. This is why Cable TV companies and other video distributors are moving away from the public Internet to privately run content delivery networks to meet their demands for bandwidth and stability.

Is your company involved in video production or distribution, or perhaps financial services? If so, you certainly have demands for high levels of wide area networking bandwidth at reasonable prices. Other business users may not be pushing the technology limits just yet, although getting the best prices on fiber optic bandwidth is equally important. For all of these situations, you can find highly competitive fiber optic bandwidth pricing from XO Communications and other top tier providers through our GigaPackets bandwidth service and Telarus expert consultants.

Twentieth Century Fox v Newzbin

Mr Justice Kitchen has today handed down a significant judgment in Twentieth Century Fox v Newzbin, holding that the Usenet indexing site Newzbin ‘is liable to the claimants for infringement of their copyrights because it has authorised the copying of the claimants' films; has procured and engaged with its premium members in a common design to copy the claimants' films; and has communicated the claimants' films to the public.’

More discussion to follow on 1709.

How to calculate what your paper is worth

Sliding sales, plunging profitability, contracting credit markets and faltering faith in the publishing business dropped the value of the Daytona News-Journal by 93% in four years. Key operating data from the Florida daily obtained from knowledgeable sources provide a rare case study of the forces that have converged to humble the once-mighty newspaper industry.

Dedicated vs Shared Internet Access

There are fundamentally two types of broadband Internet access. They are shared and dedicated.

You may have been thinking wireless, landline, satellite or fiber optic. Those are delivery technologies that can determine price and availability. But your fundamental decision is whether to go with shared or dedicated Internet access.



What’s the difference? The name pretty much describes the nature of your service. Shared Internet access is something like a buffet. You see that big roast and think that you can fill your plate with meat. But by the time you get to the head of the line, you only get a sliver of beef. “Sorry,” says the chef. “We have to limit portions of this entree because there is so much demand.”

That’s how shared Internet service works. You sign up for what you think is 10 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload. But if you look carefully at the supplier's disclosure, they say that you get “up to 10 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload.” Up to means a maximum, not a minimum or even an average value. In other words, 10 Mbps is the fastest line speed you can ever expect to see and don’t count on seeing it at any particular time.

Why is this the case? It’s the way that the shared Internet connection is organized. The service provider figures that not everyone who signs up for their broadband service will be online simultaneously. Even those who are at their computers aren’t likely to be all downloading huge files at the same time. So they sell that 10 Mbps service to 10, 25 or even 100 different users. If most people are composing email or reading web pages, you’ll have the lion’s share of the bandwidth to yourself. But as soon as one or more users start downloading, that 10 Mbps is divvied up to support as many users who want to use bandwidth at that time.

As you can imagine, the amount of shared bandwidth you have available can vary greatly and will change from minute to minute. If you have an important document to upload or download, you initiate the transfer and take your chances. There’s no guarantee of how long that transfer will take. It might go quickly. It might drag on seemingly forever.

Who puts up with this type of service? Consumers, that’s who. The reason is cost. The provider pays for the 10 Mbps backbone service and divides the cost among the number of users sharing that bandwidth. The price of shared broadband Internet is reasonable for residential users, who rarely are doing anything critical. The worst they experience is streaming audio or video that breaks up, or long delays in accessing their favorite Web sites.

Contrast this situation with dedicated Internet access. Dedicated means just that. The bandwidth you order is dedicated for your use only. You may still experience congestion on the Internet itself, but that 10 Mbps connection to your provider will always run at 10 Mbps.

Most dedicated connections are also symmetrical. That means they run at the same speed in both the upload and download directions. Your 10 Mbps service may be described as 10 x 10 Mbps bandwidth. You get 10 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. That can be very important if you transfer files in both directions. You won’t be slowed down by a lower upload bandwidth.

The other difference between shared and dedicated bandwidth is that dedicated bandwidth is sold as a professional business service. It most often comes with an SLA or Service Level Agreement that describes what service you are ordering and how reliable it is expected to be. If the line goes down for any reason, it gets high priority and should be available again within a certain number of hours.

Shared bandwidth is sold on a “best effort” basis. That means that the carrier will try to keep things running properly, but there are no guarantees as to availability or how long repairs will take. If someone down the street is having service problems, the repair effort might disrupt your service too. That’s just the nature of sharing facilities to save money.

Now you know why home broadband services seem so much cheaper than business grade dedicated Internet access. It comes down to performance and availability. If the Internet is important to your business activities, then you’ll want to check the prices and availability of dedicated Internet access for your location. You may find that prices have come down so much in the last few years that dedicated access is now well within your reach.

Crown copyright and protection for the crown

The March 2010 issue of Informa Law's Copyright World has now been published. It contains, among other things, a review by Navin Katyal (from public sector body Infrastructure Ontario) of the need to reform the Crown copyright provisions that still, perhaps somewhat anachronistically, linger under Canadian law. He argues that, while Crown copyright should not be undermined simply because Government has a regulatory role, consultation should lead to clearer guidance as to what should remain protected: prime source materials, such as legislative acts and government regulations, should be left to the public domain.

On the subject of crowns (as in "Jack fell down and broke his crown ...") here's also a summary by Simon Clark of Berwin Leighton Paisner which explains last December's Court of Appeal decision in the 'Star Wars helmet' case, Lucasfilm Ltd v Andrew Ainsworth and another.

The full contents of this issue can be seen here.

Doing BACKFLIPs with MOTOBLUR

Are you given to doing backflips over your cell phone? I didn’t think so. Here’s a new and unique smartphone design from Motorola that might change your mind. Its called the BACKFLIP.

What’s unique about the BACKFLIP? It’s all in the hinge. Most phones with built-in physical QWERTY keyboards make you open the phone to find another display screen hinged above the keyboard. It’s too expensive to have a full size touchscreen on the face of the phone and other one the same size inside. So, you generally have to contend with a smaller inside screen or the main screen inside and a very small status screen outside.

The BACKFLIP solves this dilemma by reversing the hinge so that opening the phone puts the full size main screen above a large keyboard of similar size. Closed, the screen is on the front of the phone and the QWERTY keyboard is on the back. Problem solved. The photo gives you the idea.

What Motorola has done is give you a more spacious QWERTY keyboard than you expect in a smartphone and a high resolution touch screen to go along with it. It’s like carrying around a small computer as well as a cell phone.

Actually, it’s more than that. MOTOBLUR that runs on the Android operating system is a step-up in mobile access. Your social networks are all collected on one screen that you can access with just a flip of your thumb. Include your messages and favorite apps on the same customizable screen. With AT&T 3G wireless service you can talk and surf the Web at the same time. It’s a multitasking must-have.

What else does this clever phone do? It takes high quality pictures with 5 megapixels of resolution. That’s as good or better than your old digital camera - and it’s built into the phone. It also works as a camcorder at movie speeds of 24 frames per second. That’s something your old camera doesn’t do. That one never let you edit your pictures right in the camera and then send them to your friends immediately with multimedia messaging. This one does.

There are many other features that may also induce you to do backflips. You can put this phone in table-top mode as a digital picture frame or bedside alarm. You can geo-tag your photos, see where you are with Google Maps and listen to music on the Android MP3 player or watch videos. For really high speed operations, there’s built-in WiFi and you’ll have free access to more than 20,000 AT&T WiFi hotspots nationwide.

So much phone for so little money. How little? How about free (as of this writing) with a new AT&T account. That includes free shipping right to your home, all set up and ready to use. So, are you ready to flip? If so, learn more and order your Motorola BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR for AT&T now.

If prefer another model phone, a different carrier, or just want to browse the latest special offers of free and deeply discounted cell phones, check out the selection through Cell Phone Plans Finder now.

Viacom v Google - the gloves are off

Things have been a bit quiet in the Google vs Viacom legal spat, the $1 billion lawsuit which accuses Google of profiting from thousands of unauthorized copyrighted clips owned by Viasom that once appeared on YouTube. But the case documents have now been unsealed and the gloves are definitely off, with Google accusing Viacom’s lawyers of editing emails and Viacom claiming that Google and YouTube had developed "serial amnesia" during depositions and also for failing "to preserve and produce" key documents.

It seems that in Viacom's summary judgment motion filed last week, the company quoted Steve Chen, one of YouTube's co-founders, in an e-mail saying "Concentrate all our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil." Now you could see why Viacom, as a content owner, might not like this. But it now seems what the email actually said was this: "If I were running the show, I'd say, we concentrate all of our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil, i.e., scraping MySpace." Now that might be a blow for MySpace owners News Corp, but it hardly has the same meaning as the edited version presented by Viacom. On the other hand ...... Viacom claims that it has not received emails that should have been disclosed saying that Google hasn’t acted in good faith by failing to turn over documents. Viacom's lawyers said that Google handed over only 19 records from June 2006, the month that Google began evaluating a YouTube acquisition. When Google boss Eric Schmidt was asked why a big acquisition like YouTube didn't generate more paperwork he answered that "(It) has been my practice for 30 years to not retain my e-mails unless asked specifically” adding "It was my practice to delete or otherwise cause the e-mails that I had read to go away as quickly as possible." YouTube boss and founder Chad Hurley told Viacom lawyers that he "lost" his e-mails for the period because of a computer crash. Viacom, however, retrieved many of Hurley's e-mails from the personal computer of Jawed Karim, another one of YouTube's three co-founders. When Hurley was presented with copies of those e-mails Viacom claims that the YouTube CEO "developed serial amnesia."


http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20001015-261.html

Picture at http://www.techshout.com/internet/2007/16/viacom-to-introduce-video-venture-challenges-youtube/

Does Music Matter?

Music Matters “a collective of people across the music industry, including artists, retailers, songwriters, labels and managers” has formed “to remind listeners of the significance and value of music” and has launched a new trustmark to “act as a guide for music fans and help differentiate legal music services from illegal ones, Organisers have said “the Music Matters Certification Scheme is working with legal digital music services to ensure they carry the Music Matters trustmark. This will help audiences differentiate legal music sites from illegal sites”. Supporting sites include Vodafone, BT, MTV, we7, Spotify, ERA, Orange, Amazon, TuneTribe, Play.com, Sky Songs, MySpace and Napster. I do wonder if anyone checked the name out first – there are numerous ‘Music Matters’ that come up in a quick google search – The Hong Kong based Asia/Pacific music conference of the same name, the Chicago based classic concerts gig guide, a campaign aiming to raise awareness and address the need for additional funds for less-privileged schools and college programmes in the USA, a teaching programme, US music summer camps – and even an album by Faithless - to name but a few!

You can read more here http://www.whymusicmatters.org/

EU Internal Market IP Agenda for 2010/11

Hot off the press at Europolitics today, is a report on Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier's agenda for IP initiatives. In speaking to the Euro Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee on Monday 22nd, Barnier identified initiatives on patents, trademarks, and internet piracy.

As far as copyright is concerned he outlined two legislative proposals that will impact authors - one on orphan works and the other on collective management of authors' rights.

Reflecting that "approximately 40% of library collections are "orphans".........Barnier indicated.....that he agreed with the principle of mutual recognition between national systems advocated by the JURI committee and mentioned a proposal by the end of 2010."

As far as collective management is concerned, the very dishy Barnier (no apologies for betraying personal taste here) is supportive of a directive that would "facilitate the obtaining of cross-border licences and encourage development of the 'lawful offering' in the EU at a competitive price" and it appears he may either propose a green paper followed by a directive in 2011, "or a directive as of this year". Handsome and supportive of the administrative convenience, pro-author and consumer-friendly business model of collective administration. Swoon.............this man has everything!

2010 may be even worse for newspaper sales

Last year may have been the worst in the history of the newspaper business but this year could be even worse. After advertising plummeted by a historic 27.2% in 2009 to $27.6 billion, sales continued to fall at mid-teen levels in the first part of 2010, according to anecdotal reports from publishers in diversified markets in various regions of the country. In candid conversations, even

How to be a good host: lessons from AdWords

Tuesday’s ECJ judgment in the three Google France cases isn’t just important for trade mark law. It’s news for copyright too as it addresses the hosting defence of the E-Commerce Directive. The hosting defence limits liability for copyright as well as trade mark infringement. It has therefore been taken as a defence for a wide range of websites for copyright liability, particularly UGC sites, such as YouTube, Facebook etc.

The hosting defence

Article 14 of the E-Commerce Directive states that the provider of an ‘information society service’ that consists of the storage of information provided by a user of the service is not liable for illegal information, so long as the provider didn’t authorize, control or know about the information and removes it promptly when alerted to it. An ‘information society service’ is defined as any service normally provided for remuneration, at a distance, by electronic means and at the individual request of a recipient of the service.

Recital 42 says the service provider’s activity must be limited to a technical, automatic, passive process of operating a communication network over which third-party information is transmitted (or temporarily stored for the sole purpose of making the transmission more efficient).

Areas of confusion

During the Noughties, questions have been raised over who qualifies as an ‘information society service provider’ and what activities can be described as ‘storage of information’. Does Recital 42 really apply to hosts, or just conduits and caching?

Despite the fact that the hosting defence is so heavily relied upon, this is the first ECJ judgment and the defence has received relatively little consideration by the UK courts, though Continental courts have explored it. In the UK it has been successfully relied upon in libel cases: for comments posted on Usenet newgroups (Bunt v Tilley) and bulletin boards on websites (Karim v Newsquest). Google’s search engine was held not to be a host (Metropolitan International Schools v Designtechnica). There appears to be a public consensus that displaying third-party content on websites passes the hosting test – though many sites are not ‘normally provided for remuneration’.

Rather than analysing such simple phenomena, the ECJ finds itself jumping in at the deep end with more complex site-user interfaces: AdWords in the Google France cases and, in a year or two, eBay in L’Oréal v eBay.

The hosting defence in the Google France cases

In the Google cases, the question was: if Google’s use of AdWords does not constitute a trade mark infringement, does Google benefit from the hosting defence? It would appear that the purpose of the question was: if Google was not found liable for infringement itself, could it be liable for the infringement by a party that had paid for an AdWord? The ECJ held that Google’s use of trade marks is not an infringement. However, because advertisers that pay for AdWords are potentially liable, if Google were to have secondary liability for an advertiser’s infringement, would Google be shielded by the hosting defence?

The Court took the view that AdWords is an ‘information society service’. Moreover, AdWords fulfils the criterion of being a service limited to operating a communication network over which information is transmitted. Was AdWords ‘storage of information’ provided by the recipient of that service?

Last September the Advocate General said that AdWords nominally fulfilled the notion of hosting but should not benefit from the defence – it was not a ‘neutral information vehicle’ because of Google’s relationship with the advertisers. The ECJ, however, said that Google’s financial relationship with advertisers is not relevant.

In the view of the Court, Google could be said to be ‘storing data’ because it was holding it in its servers’ memory. However, to benefit from the hosting defence the defendant’s activity must be ‘ “of a mere technical, automatic and passive nature”, which implies that that service provider “has neither knowledge of nor control over the information which is transmitted or stored”.’ The ECJ described such a role as ‘neutral’ and not ‘an active role’. The Court has left it to the national court to determine if Google AdWords fits this description but relevant points include: ‘the role played by Google in the drafting of the commercial message which accompanies the advertising link or in the establishment or selection of keywords’ – the terms of the contract between Google and advertisers would help determine this. Perhaps there is a reference here to Google's Keyword Tool, which advertisers can use to choose keywords? If so, the Keyword Tool could be said to play a role that is both ‘active’ and ‘neutral’ in the sense that it is automated!

Storage

The Court held that Google ‘stores’ third-party data by holding it in the memory on its servers. This is true – but doesn’t AdWords go beyond this?

The storage of third-party data for AdWords is part of a process (cf. the discussion of eBay in L’Oreal para 437). Yes, Google holds the advertisers’ copy unchanged but that’s not all it does. It displays that copy at a given time, in a certain order and for a particular purpose. If I put a bicycle wheel on a shelf without altering it, then I am storing it. If I put it on a bicycle and ride it, I may not have altered the wheel, but ‘storage’ would not be the first word that comes to mind to describe what I have done. The website may not be changing the copy but it may be performing other activities around it: processing it, employing it, deploying it.

Which is not to say that the ECJ’s decision to base immunity from liability on ‘neutrality’ isn’t fair.

Lessons

Has this interpretation of the Directive helped clear things up for other sites?

Context doesn’t matter: the fact that it is acceptable for a host’s activities and deployment of third-party data to stretch far beyond static storage will come as welcome news for many, such as eBay. Similarly, if AdWords passes the test of being an activity limited to operating a communication network, then that must let a multitude of UGC sites off the hook.

Money doesn’t matter: receiving individual payments from users doesn’t weaken the defence – it would have trashed eBay if it had.

‘Storage’: Google ticked this box by holding data on its servers. What about parties that don’t have servers? The question of how freely ‘storage’ can be interpreted remains unclear.

‘Information society service provider’: well at least we now know for sure that it can include a website, not just ISPs. However, AdWords really can justify the claim that it is a ‘service’ and is ‘normally provided for remuneration’ – what about blogs and message boards that are free?

‘Lack of control’: this has emerged as central but hazy. It may suggest that sites should be wary of software that guides users’ choices? UGC is often produced through an interaction between users’ input and sites’ creative tools (examples here and here).

Under Article 21 of the E-Commerce Directive, the European Commission is obliged to re-examine the Directive every two years, proposing changes if necessary to adapt it to legal, technical and economic developments. Unfortunately only one report was ever produced. Another was planned for last year but has not yet materialized. When I asked why, the Commission told me it was its ‘prerogative’ to decide whether to produce reports.

The AdWords judgment has answered a few of the questions, but it looks like we’ll have to carry on making up the rules as we go along.

Ethernet Over Copper Can Be A Steal

We all like a good deal on anything telecommunications related. But some of these Ethernet prices can make you feel like you are getting away with something. Are you wondering just how good they can be? Go ahead, take a second and inquire about Ethernet prices for your business locations.



Why are Ethernet service prices so attractive right now? What’s happened is that technology has changed almost overnight. Yesterday the traditional telco services were all that you could get. Today, there are competitive options that change the whole value proposition.

Ethernet over Copper is a major game changer. You may have heard that Metro Ethernet service was available, but when you last checked you found that it was only available over fiber optic cable. That’s a big negative if your building isn’t already lit for fiber optic service. Construction costs can make Ethernet over Fiber prohibitively expensive.

Well, that was then and this is now. A couple of things have changed. First, that fiber you couldn’t afford to have installed a few years ago may be a lot less expensive now. Competitive carriers have been building POPs or points of presence in most major cities and suburban areas. More and more buildings have been lit for fiber optic service. What that means to you is that the nearest fiber connection may be closer than you think. It might even be next door.

But even if fiber isn’t available, you can get Metro Ethernet bandwidths of 10 to even 50 Mbps delivered over ordinary twisted pair copper wiring. That’s the same telco bundle that comes into your building now. That means little or no construction costs. The carrier will provide you with a router designed to interface with the Ethernet over Copper connections. You just plug-in with a RJ-45 cable and you’ve got higher bandwidth.

What’s more, Ethernet services are often dramatically less expensive than their legacy telco counterparts. You may find yourself saving half or more on your next telecom services lease. The higher the bandwidth, the better the savings.

Of course, location is still important. The range of available services and number of competing carriers depends on your business address. But you only need a minute or so to request a list of Ethernet services and prices for your location. You wouldn’t be the first to think that these prices are a steal.

Advantage of Independent Toll Free Numbers

You may have a toll free number that you got from your telephone company, or you may be considering one. Toll free numbers have tremendous advantages for all size businesses when it comes to sales and customer service. If you shop carefully, they are so affordable right now that even the smallest start-up companies and independent professionals can have their own toll free number. You’ll have the most flexibility if you order an independent toll free number.

What’s an independent number and why is that important? Independent toll free service is not associated with your landline or cellular phone bill. You'll have the ability to have your toll free number ring to any telephone you wish. You can even change your mind and have it ring to another phone anytime you want.

So what difference does that make? It makes a huge difference if you move or want to switch to another phone company. You may or may not be able to take your telephone company supplied toll free number with you. If they allow it, there can be a high fee charged to transfer the number to another service. Otherwise you’ll have to start all over with a new toll free number and change all your advertising and business cards.

You also won’t likely have the ability to decide which phone your toll free number rings to. If it is attached to your landline phone service, that’s the number that will ring when toll free calls come in. That may be no big deal if you are always at your desk or have a full time receptionist to take the calls. Otherwise you can be out and about when you get that important call that means the difference between sale and no sale. If you can’t grab it, the prospect may go elsewhere.

The alternative is an independent toll free service such as Kall8. With Kall8 toll free service, you get to pick from their suite of available 866, 877, 888 or 800 toll free numbers. Find one you like and by the time you are done placing your order online, your number will be ready to accept calls. You get an online control panel that lets you decide if toll free calls will come to your cell phone, home phone, or business phone. Change that any time you like. Some sales people switch it between phones depending on where they happen to be at the time.

You also get Kall8 toll free number features that include voice mail that you listen to online, by calling in or by having a sound file sent to your via email. Any incoming FAX messages will be converted to graphic files and sent to you via email. You also have conference call ability, so that you can conduct a conference call with up to 25 participants at any time for as long as you like. Even use your toll free number in reverse as a long distance calling card at the same rates.

That’s a lot of capability for just $2 to order an 866, 877 or 888 toll free number and $2 per month to maintain the service. Incoming calls are 6.9 cents per minute from the 48 contiguous states and a bit higher for calls from Alaska or Hawaii. Traditional 800 numbers are $5 each and $5 per month for service, plus the 6.9 cents per minute rate for incoming calls.

Yes, you can transfer an existing toll free number to Kall8 if your current provider allows it. If you want to do that, you’ll find forms on the ordering page that you can download and fax-in to start the change process. If you want to start with a ready-to-go number, you can simply order Kall8 toll free service online and be ready to use your number in just a matter of minutes.

Harmonizing European Copyright Law

Harmonizing European Copyright Law: The Challenges of Better Lawmaking, by the talented team of Mireille van Eechoud, P. Bernt Hugenholtz, Lucie Guibault, Stefan Van Gompel and Natali Helberger, was published towards the end of last year. The title is published by Wolters Kluwer within its Information Law Series and is based upon the results of two major studies which the European Commission commissioned in 2006 and 2007 -- not that the Commission has a great track record in taking the reports that emanate from the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Information Law ((IViR) warmly to its heart.

The book's web-blurb states as follows:

"This book will provide analysis of the current state of play of and suggest direction for future development of European copyright law and related rights. The acquis communautaire is reviewed in depth, starting with an analysis of the exact competence of the EC in relation to its declared policy ambitions from the past to the present.

Next, the body of European copyright law is described. This is done not in the traditional way, i.e. on a directive-by-directive basis, but following a scheme of the principal elements that national copyright and related rights law share (e.g. what is protected subject matter, who are beneficiaries, what is the nature and extent of the exclusive rights and limitations, term of protection). Of all principal issues, the degree and scope of harmonization is analysed, put into the perspective of Member States’ obligations under the relevant international treaties (e.g. Berne Convention, Rome Convention, TRIPS agreement, WIPO internet treaties).

In addition, a number of items on the European Commissions current legislative agenda are subjected to a critical review, in light of our findings on the successes and shortcomings of the harmonization process so far".

The principal headings into which copyright is divided relate to (i) what is protected, to whom does it belong and for how long? (ii) the various rights to stop people doing things and the borders of those rights, (iii) those conceptually new-fangled topics, "rights management information" and technical protection measures. Following this, the study focuses on specific areas in which copyright is brought to bear: (iv) extension of term for sound recordings, (v) the term of protection of co-written musical works ('musical', in this context, including works which consist of both music and lyrics), (vi) the increasingly popular topic of orphan works, (vii) an appraisal of harmonisation ("blessings and curses") and (viii) the 'last frontier' of territoriality. Each of these units has its own conclusions and assessment.

Probably the best assessment overall of Europe's attempts at harmonisation may be summarised as follows: difficult task, not always well done; improvements are needed in terms of (i) identifying the issues, (ii) formulating the correct policy for dealing with them and (iii) articulating that policy in the manner best able to facilitate its consistent implementation. Let's hope that the next edition of this work can, without loss of the sometimes painful directness which characterises it, offer news of improved performance in this, the most slippery and intransigent of Europe's IP rights to harmonise.

Bibliographic details: ISBN 9041131302 , ISBN 13: 9789041131300. Hard cover, xviii + 375 pp. Price: $US 145. Web page here.

Papers exiting bankruptcy dump 75% of debt

The four newspaper companies that have exited bankruptcy to date have shed three-quarters of their of debt, collectively trimming nearly $2 billion in burdensome obligations. In so doing, the publishers will take some pressure off their newspapers to produce aggressive profits during an historic – and ongoing – collapse in advertising sales. But that doesn’t mean the staffs at those

PAETEC Adds Intrusion Detection For MPLS Networking

MPLS networks are on the ascendant as the preferred solution for linking multiple business locations. Now PAETEC is offering a new service to further enhance the security of its already secure MPLS network solutions by monitoring for network intrusions. What distinguishes this service is that operation and management is largely transparent to users.

Network security has become a hot topic in recent years. We’re all familiar with the constant barrage of viruses, phishing schemes, hacking and other criminal activities on the Internet. You don’t need a connection to the Internet to worry about electronic security. Any company or organization with a computer network is a target for those who think they can benefit from compromising it. No amount of physical security protects your network once it leaves your premises. But to do business today, you need connections to multiple office locations, factories, warehouses, customers and suppliers.

This is where PAETEC, a telecommunications company with a nationwide fiber optic footprint, steps in. Rather than trying to build a meshed network from dedicated point to point lines and then having to install and manage network security appliances and software, you can simply turn the job over to PAETEC. They provide each of your locations with access to their privately-run network cloud. You define how you want each location to communicate. Built-into the network is the new managed Network Intrusion Detection and Prevention System known as IDPS. You don’t need to buy any special on-site equipment or install and maintain any network security software. It’s all built into the PAETEC MPLS network.

How does this system work? It’s a network based firewall with two components. The intrusion detection part inspects all traffic entering and leaving the network to identify suspicious patterns. It notifies the enterprise system administrator with recommendations on how to respond to any threat it finds. The second part is an intrusion prevention system that looks for potential threats and makes recommendations on how to respond before an actual break-in occurs. PAETEC operates a 24/7 Security Operations Center that can handle alarm responses for customers who don’t have their own full time system administrators.

The addition of an IDPS to your WAN network is more than just a good idea. It’s a requirement for sensitive applications such as PCI for credit card transactions and HIPPA for medical records. Health care modernization initiatives are certain to increase the number of locations connected by high speed MPLS networks and in need of industry mandated security.

Are you interested in starting a secure multi-location WAN network or improving the security of the one you have now? Would you like to do that in a cost effective way? If so, you should take a look at the secure MPLS network options from PAETEC and other competitive network service providers.

Irish hotel bedroom entertainment comes under judicial scrutiny

Via the eagle-eyed Gemma O'Farrell comes this news that the Irish High Court has asked the Court of Justice to give a preliminary ruling on legal issues raised in proceedings brought in an effort to have hotel operators pay a charge for playing copyright music in guest bedrooms. According to the Irish Times,

"The organisation which collects royalties for recording artists, Phonographic Performance Ireland Ltd (PPI), initiated an action last year against the State over its alleged refusal to amend a law which exempts hotels from having to pay copyright fees for music played in hotel bedrooms.

The PPI wants to charge €1 per bedroom per week. With around 50,000 hotel bedrooms nationwide, it estimates it is losing some €2.6 million annually. The PPI claims the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, which provides the disputed exemption, is contrary to EU law.

Section 97(1) of that Act provides there is no infringement of copyright where recorded music is heard “in part of the premises where sleeping accommodation is provided for the residents”.

Last October, the High Court directed that the issue of whether the State is in breach of its obligations under European law should be decided prior to any claim for damages.

Yesterday, in an interim ruling in the proceedings, Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan said she believed it was necessary to refer a number of questions in the case to the ECJ.

Among the issues the ECJ will have to decide is whether a hotel operator, as a result of providing TVs and radios in guestrooms, is a “user” of copyrighted music that can be played in a broadcast for the purposes of EU directive 2006/115/EC.

If the operator is such a user, the ECJ will then have to decide whether the same directive require the operator to pay a charge additional to royalties already being paid by TV and radio station operators.

The ECJ also has to decide whether hotel operators are exempt from such payments on grounds the playing of such music is for “private use” as provided for under the same directive.

A further issue is whether the directive permits the exemption of hotel operators from paying if the music is played by means other than TV or radio.

Ms Justice Finlay-Geoghegan said she would give the parties an opportunity to examine her interim judgment before making further orders and she adjourned the matter to next week".

This decision is not yet on this year's Irish High Court bit of BAILII. This is not the first time that copyright and hotel rooms have been considered by Europe's top court. In Case C-306/05 Sociedad General de Autores y Editores de España (SGAE) v Rafael Hoteles SA, the court ruled that,

"While the mere provision of physical facilities does not as such amount to communication within the meaning of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of copyright and related rights in the information society, the distribution of a signal by means of television sets by a hotel to customers staying in its rooms, whatever technique is used to transmit the signal, constitutes communication to the public within the meaning of Article 3(1) of that directive.

2. The private nature of hotel rooms does not preclude the communication of a work by means of television sets from constituting communication to the public within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29".

News site visitors look like early tech adopters

Far from being fuddy-duddy Luddites, newspaper website visitors actually appear to be early and passionate technology adopters. The surprisingly high interest in high tech among online news consumers is revealed in a ground-breaking poll by Greg Harmon of ITZ Belden, who discovered that news-site visitors own 1.5 times more smart phones than the average American and are eager to get their

Can Ethernet Enable Electronic Health Care?

It’s no secret that there is ample opportunity to improve service and cut costs in the health care field. Much of the “low hanging fruit” involves digitizing, storing & transporting medical records and automating what remains of clerical processes. Beyond that, there are new applications such as remote diagnostics that can bring medical services to remote areas and emergency scenes like auto accidents. Sounds good, so what’s stopping us?

One big bottleneck is the lack of universal broadband infrastructure, both wired and wireless. Until recently, the best connection that many doctor’s offices, clinics and medical centers could afford was the venerable T1 line running at 1.5 Mbps. The sheer size of high resolution medical images, especially when bundled into complete electronic medical records, makes the once speedy T1 line a potential bottleneck to productivity.

The FCC has identified barriers to e-care caused by limited adoption of high speed digital connections and has proposed remedies in its National Broadband Plan. Bringing broadband connections to rural areas for the first time is the focus of stimulus funding. There are also licensing, privileging, and credentialing standards that need to be modernized to enable physicians to practice remotely. Additionally, structures need to be put in place to ensure patient privacy in an insecure online world.

The private sector hasn’t been sleeping through all this. There’s a quiet revolution going on in the telecommunications industry that will be a major factor in enabling the efficiencies of e-health care. The FCC estimates that over $700 billion could be saved over 15-25 years through electronic health records and remote monitoring technology alone. What will be the primary transport technology for these wide band applications? It’s almost surely going to be Metro Ethernet, Carrier Ethernet and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks.

The thing these communications technologies have in common is a core based on packet switching or IP networking. MPLS adds privacy and efficiency for connecting multiple locations in a single mesh network. That could include hospitals, clinics, physicians offices and insurance companies.

One reason why Ethernet will play such an important role in the medical networks to come is cost. Metro Ethernet over both fiber and copper has proven to be less expensive per Mbps than traditional circuit switched telecom technologies. MPLS networks have all but taken over the role of multipoint to multipoint secure networks from Frame Relay. In some cases, Ethernet connections are even cheaper than T1 lines on an absolute cost basis.

There’s no need to wait if you need more bandwidth to improve the efficiency of your operation, or simply want to save money during this challenging economy. See how much you could save with Metro Ethernet services for your business location.

Meltwater: no sign of a thaw in dispute with Times Online

Yesterday the Copyright Tribunal's decision and order in Meltwater Holding BV and other interested parties - NLA Ltd were posted on the Copyright Tribunal page of the Intellectual Property Office website (you can read it in full here). The Tribunal members were Lucy Connors, Philip Eve and Colin Birss QC.

According to paidContent yesterday:

"Public relations news monitor Meltwater has come out fighting - but not too hard - after ... it had been blocked from indexing News International’s Times Online.

It’s issued a 259-word statement in response that says… well, not much. The essential point: Meltwater is sticking to its guns and waiting for what it hopes will be an industry-standard ruling in its favour from the UK’s Copyright Tribunal, to which it took the Newspaper Licensing Agency’s (NLA) new online use license.

The sticking point: News International’s Times Online, here, is operating a similar principle to the NLA, of which it is a member - but it’s not operating the agency’s new licenses; it’s acting unilaterally…"...”

The blocking has been effected by updating Times Online's robots.txt file to block Meltwater, along with NewsNow, which was previously blocked.

The Meltwater statement reads as follows:

"Earlier this week, Times Online, published by News International, took the step of blocking Meltwater from indexing its website. We find this move both surprising and disappointing as Meltwater has sought a ruling by the UK Copyright Tribunal to provide clarity on current UK copyright law. Yet, despite the fact that the Tribunal is still months away from reaching a decision, News International has chosen not to wait for a judgment, but to pursue its own course of action unilaterally.

Meltwater acknowledges that there are different interpretations of the current UK copyright law today. However, we firmly believe that our services do not infringe upon anyone’s copyright because our services do not keep nor provide our clients with copyrighted content. To create clarity on this issue, Meltwater has brought the NLA’s (Newspaper Licensing Authority) proposed licensing scheme for online news to the UK copyright tribunal (Meltwater press release). Meltwater believes that the entire industry will benefit from a clear ruling on this complex issue, which is so important for all players in the online media industry. The Copyright Tribunal recently rejected the NLA’s claim that Meltwater was not entitled to have its case heard.

Times Online’s recent action is just the latest development in the ongoing copyright discussions in the UK market, a discussion that is far from over. Meltwater continues to serve the needs of its customers and we are reviewing all the options available to us – including the relevant technical and legal considerations – to ensure we continue serving our clients long into the future".

In brief, the Tribunal has upheld Meltwater's right to challenge Times Online's Web Database Licence/Web End User Licence set-up: Meltwater has the credentials to make its application and the Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear it. The Tribunal has also set a timetable for hearing the dispute. The main diary dates are June 2009 (case management), October 2009 (pre-trial hearing) and 7 February 2011, where a hearing of between 5 and 7 days' duration is expected.

This one will run and run ...

The Motorola ROKR Rocks On

The original iTunes cell phone was the Motorola ROKR “rocker” phone. It was extremely popular when introduced. Rather than just making a splash and fading from the scene as many cell phone designs have done, the ROKR has morphed into the latest technology as the ROKR E8 for T-Mobile. Does it still rock? You decide.

Now a sleek black, with glowing red detail, the Motorola ROKR E8 is one hot multimedia phone. In fact, it’s three devices in one. It’s a cell phone, it’s a music player, and it’s a digital camera. The touch sensitive keypad morphs to fit the profile of the device you want to use at the moment.

Any decent music player has a scroll wheel. Most cell phones don’t But the ROKR E8 has this control feature right in the middle of the case, below the display screen. It’s just what you want to control your music, but also helps you navigate other menus.

Does the latest Motorola ROKR model still support Apple’s iTunes? Of course. The built-in music player supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV and Real Audio files. You can have polyphonic ringtones with up to 48 chords. Hey, it’s a music phone. It should sound like one!

The ROKR E8 is also takes pictures and short video clips. It sports a 2.0 Megapixel resolution for pictures good enough to print as well as send to your friends via multimedia messaging. Of course you can text message and instant message as well.

Will you run out of memory with all this multimedia capability? Motorola planned ahead so you won’t. The ROKR E8 has 2 GB of internal memory, a lot for a cell phone. If you need more, there’s a microSD card slot for additional storage. When you've loaded it up, just plug in your headset and enjoy the music. You have the option to stream your tunes to compatible A2DP Bluetooth stereo headsets or stereo systems for that truly BIG sound.

Does the new “rocker” phone sound like the one you’ve been waiting for? If so, learn more and order your Motorola ROKR E8 Black with T-Mobile service online so you can get it FREE with free delivery via FedEx. This deal isn’t going to last indefinitely, so don’t wait too long if this is the music phone you want.

If you prefer a different make and model cell phone or smartphone, or just want to shop around for the best deals on deeply discounted and free phones, check “Today’s Special Deals” at Cell Phone Plans Finder now.

What the Gamato ...! EPOE complaint leads to takedown

From Greek IP practitioner Nikos Prentoulis comes the news that last week, following the filing of a criminal complaint by the EPOE (Society for the Protection of Audiovisual Works - a collective rights management society), the Electronic Crime Unit of the Greek police took down the most famous Greek site for illegal music and movie downloads -- gamato.info. [Explanation by Nikos: "gamato" means very cool, but it stems from the greek word gamo, rendered in the English language by a four-letter expletive much favoured by TV chefs and footballers]. The police raided premises in four Greek cities, including Athens and Thessaloniki, and arrested six people, as moderators and/or "VIP" members of the site. Criminal procedure has been initiated against five more people, two of whom are said to be living abroad.

According to the news (here in English; here in Greek), Gamato essentially provided torrents for P2P file sharing and apparently had more than 850,000 to 900,000 member-users. There was also a good deal of protest against the takedown of the site, including creation of a relevant Facebook group.

Bits and pieces

A new podcast has arrived at the headquarters of the 1709 Blog from Copyright Clearance Center’s Beyond the Book site. It features Sree Sreenivasan (Dean of Student Affairs at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; former technology reporter) discussing about new media and innovation in the realm of copyright. He focuses on the topics of Hulu [note for non-US readers -- Hulu is a website offering commercial-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies from NBC, Fox, ABC, and many other networks and studios; these videos are currently offered only to users in the United States and, to ensure that no international users outside the US have access to them, Hulu blocks many anonymous proxies and virtual private networks] and new media copyright (podcast here; transcript here).


Also from the Copyright Clearance Center comes news of this article in Ad Age which offers a thorough yet concise summary of the CCC's OnCopyright conference -- an event designed to explore how copyright applies in the digital age. Judy Shapiro, author of the article, highlights sessions with Google’s Senior Copyright Counsel Bill Patry, entrepreneurs, artists and media people who are all coping with working within a copyright compliant manner while being able to monetise their works (photo, left, by Duncan Davidson).


"Copyright's Private Domain" is the title of the Fifth Annual international Intellectual Property Lecture (funded by the Herchel Smith bequest), which will be held on Tuesday, April 27 5.30 pm for 6 pm. The speaker is Professor Graeme W. Austin (University of Arizona). What's this all about? Explains the publicity information:

"The public domain is valorised as the repository of raw material that makes all creativity possible, but it is not the only counterpoint to copyright's system of exclusive rights. With the current emphasis on the public domain in copyright commentary and political activism, we risk losing sight of the importance to creative processes of private imaginative activity, including private engagement with copyright-protected works. This lecture will examine ways that copyright and privacy law work together to create a "private domain," in which intellectual, imaginative and artistic experimentation and creativity can occur, away from public scrutiny and judgement. In the era of YouTube and MySpace and the like, with their relentless encouragement of public dissemination and display, it is useful to recall the importance of private contemplation and experimentation to the "learning" that copyright is meant to encourage.

Key copyright doctrines and policies map out copyright's private domain: copyright's protective attitude toward unpublished manuscripts, its exclusion of "private" performances from copyright owners' exclusive rights, defences for research and study, private copying provisions. On the privacy side, there are venerable links with copyright: copyright's solicitude toward privacy interests contributed to the development in some jurisdictions of a common law privacy right. Copyright's private domain is not a substitute for the public domain. Even so, recognition of the links between copyright and privacy, including of the ways that both foster creative and imaginative activity, might usefully contribute to debates about how best to fashion copyright law in a manner that serve the interests of both owners and users of copyright-protected works".

This lecture is by invitation only. Those wishing to receive an invitation should write to Carol Hosmer here.


A reminder for our readers: judgment will be given on Thursday 15 April in Case C-518/08 Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Visual Entidad de Gestión de Artistas Plásticos v Société des Auteurs dans les arts graphiques et plastiques, Juan-Leonardo Bonet Domenech, Eulalia-María Bas Dalí, María Del Carmen Domenech Biosca, Antonio Domenech Biosca, Ana-María Busquets Bonet, Mónica Busquets Bonet, a reference to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on the legitimacy of the French provisions relating to the artist's resale right. The questions which the court is asked to address are:

"1. Can France, subsequent to [Directive 2001/84/EC] of 27 September 2001, retain a resale right allowed only to the heirs to the exclusion of legatees or successors in title?
2. Do the transitional provisions of Article 8(2) and (3) of [Directive 2001/84/EC] of 27 September 2001 allow France to have a derogation?".

The Advocate General's Opinion, delivered on 17 December last year, can be found here (noted by the IPKat here).

1,000,000 Miles of Metro Ethernet Fiber And Growing

If you’ve been thinking that Metro Ethernet is just some little niche service that probably won’t catch on, here’s an eye opener. XO Communications alone has about a million miles of metro fiber and more than 3,000 fiber-fed buildings on net. That’s not even counting all the Ethernet over Copper delivered to buildings that aren’t yet lit for fiber. Oh, and that’s just one carrier.

Metro Ethernet and its long haul equivalent called Carrier Ethernet are no niche services. This is the future of telecommunications. Why? Because the whole world is transitioning from switched circuit TDM communications to packet switched IP networking. It’s happening faster than you might think or experience in your everyday telecom usage. You may currently be connected to the Internet by a T1 dedicated Internet connection. It’s a telco-based legacy service based on TDM channels. Yet once your packets are transported to the carrier’s point of presence, they are passed to an IP-based Internet backbone. Protocol conversion circuitry makes this process transparent to the end user, so your last mile connection can be just about anything.

This suggests that it would be more efficient to keep everything in the Internet Protocol from the computer on your desk all the way to the servers you are communicating with. That’s a correct assumption. Now that Ethernet in the WAN (Wide Area Network) is becoming as available as Ethernet for your LAN (Local Area Network), it is more efficient and generally less expensive to keep it Ethernet all the way.

How much less expensive? You can find that out with a quick check for Metro Ethernet prices and availability. The Ethernet Buildings site makes that as easy as it could possibly be. You simply enter your building’s address and check the map that comes up.



Even if your building isn’t already lit for fiber optic service, you may still have the options of getting service via Ethernet over Copper or wireless service. XO Communications owns 28-31 GHz spectrum in 75 markets specifically for this purpose. Other carriers also want to compete for your business and they are rapidly deploying their own Ethernet solutions nationwide.

Have you been missing out on the opportunity to save considerably on your monthly telecom lease costs? Well, there’s no time like the present to check your options. It only takes a few minutes and may save you as much as 50%. Can you think of a better way to spend the next few minutes? If not, check Ethernet service availability for your business location right now.

Piracy to cost 1.2 million jobs, says new survey

The blog is grateful to the Pirate Party UK for spamming it with a press release and thereby drawing its attention to the report published today by a coalition of relevant trade unions and other industry bodies which believes that 1.2 million jobs are at risk from the impact of piracy.

The study was undertaken by an independent consultancy firm TERA, with the team led by an economics professor, Professor Patrice Geoffron of Paris-Dauphine University. The report weighs in at 68 pages and explains in detail how it derives the figures from which it calculates the loss of jobs.

While reluctant to grant more publicity to the Pirate Party, it is notable that their press release (no, there is no active link on this page - those who are interested enough can find the original) criticises the report's content for "containing dubious facts, inconsistencies and sloppy methodologies" while not appearing to notice that it is workers' representatives rather than "big business" that was the primary mover behind the report. Indeed PPUK's primary criticism appears to be the report's reliance on "lost sales" as the starting point for calculating piracy losses, although from a brief scan of the report, it appears that, for example, the authors recognise and build into their modelling the realisation that only a small proportion of "illegal" copies which are prevented would result in legitmate sales.

In these pre-election times and in the interests of balance, 1709 is inclined to say "other single issue extremist parties may be available in your constituency."

For the outcome of a recent Cambridge Union debate between (inter alia) this blogger and the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, who did proclaim at length about the blessed Statute of Anne after whose year this blog is named see here.

CLEAR Sailing for 4G Wireless

You’ve heard that 4G wireless is coming. Well, CLEAR is deploying 4G WiMAX wireless services right now. If you are one of the lucky ones living in an area where CLEAR WiMAX high speed wireless broadband Internet is available, you’ll enjoy bandwidth similar to what you get from DSL or Cable, but without the wires. Various plans are available for home, mobile or both.

So, what’s WiMAX and what is the difference between 3G and 4G? WiMAX is an international standard for wireless broadband service. It’s been described as WiFi with a city-wide coverage area. Technically there are a lot of differences between WiFi and WiMAX, but that’s probably how you’ll use it.

WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It’s defined by IEEE standard 802.16. You’ll remember that WiFi is also an IEEE standard, 802.11. One difference between WiMAX and WiFi is that WiMAX uses licensed frequencies at high power. WiFi shares unlicensed frequencies with microwave ovens, Bluetooth headsets, cordless phones and other devices that operate at relatively low power levels. This is why you can get WiMAX in your car or at home, while WiFi disappears as soon as you drive away from the restaurant or leave your driveway.

Remember all the hoopla about kicking analog TV stations off the air so their channels could be sold to the highest bidder? Clearwire was one of the big winners in that spectrum auction and CLEAR WiMAX is the service they are offering on the channels they won. With no interference and towers transmitting powerful signals, WiMAX service can go for miles and even penetrate buildings. You’ll need a modem for your PC or MAC. It sits next to the computer on your desk or plugs into your WiFi router just like any other broadband modem. A WiMAX picks up its broadband Internet connection through the air. A smaller version looks like a USB memory stick and plugs into your laptop computer for mobile use. But WiMAX gives you service all over town, even in your car.

Isn’t that also true of 3G cellular broadband? Indeed it is. What WiMAX has to offer is generally higher speeds than 3G. That’s why it’s called 4G or fourth generation to indicate that it is a step up technically from 3G or third generation. How fast does WiMAX run? CLEAR says that the average expected download speeds are in the range of 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps, with occasional bursts up to 10 Mbps. Sustained rates of 3 to 6 Mbps are pretty rare for 3G mobile broadband.

Where is CLEAR WiMAX available? Right now it’s in selected areas of the country with more cities on the way as the build-out continues. The greatest concentration of service is in Texas, in almost a dozen cities. You’ll also find CLEAR in Hawaii, the Seattle-Portland area of the Pacific Northwest, Boise, Chicago, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Milledgeville, Georgia, and Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Another advantage of CLEAR WiMAX 4G is cost. Plans start at $30 a month, which is less many DSL and Cable broadband plans and much less than 3G cellular broadband. Being wireless, the equipment is shipped to you and you install and activate it yourself. No waiting around for the cable guys. Plus you can get combined home and mobile service, which is something DSL and Cable can’t offer.

Does this sound like a broadband service you might like to have? If so, learn more and order your CLEAR WiMAX 4G broadband service online now.

Time for a Euro copyright?

Look out across the plains of the Information Society and you will see that they are now heavily populated by a new species. Homo digitalis has arrived, with his insatiable appetite for electronic stimulus. He is perfectly adapted for online existence: teeth that glint ironically as they mash up, a gaping data tract, a huge stomach (sometimes expanded by pirated material), a rich culture in his super-absorbant intestine and a super-fast metabolic click rate. Rightsholders desperately try to satisfy him using those so-called ‘new’ business models, Advertising and Subscription. These models require content, more and more of it. But each piece of content has a copyright owner or two. Permission must be granted. Is it possible to keep up? Is there anything the EU can do to speed up copyright licensing?

Territorial licensing

On 22 October 2009 the European Commission published a consultation paper ‘Creative Content in a European Digital Single Market: Challenges for the Future’. Responses were to be submitted by 5 January 2010 – they can be read here. The paper looks at several ways of making copyright licensing more efficient including amalgamating the digital reproduction and performance rights, aggregating different people’s rights (so you can clear music in one hit), a central collective management rights database, extended collective licensing for orphan works, transposing the Satellite and Cable Directive to the Internet, an Internet flat rate – and a single European copyright, probably replacing existing national copyrights.

The Euro copyright is advocated as a solution to the territoriality of copyright. The paper argues that homo digitalis’s copyright habitat has been impoverished by territorial licensing. Content that is available in some parts of Europe is absent elsewhere. Citizens, it says, should expect to be able to access the same content across borders without impediment. This regional variation is caused both by individual rightholders licensing works differently in different countries and by collective management practices: businesses that offer music services across Europe are hampered because they need to clear public performance rights several times over with collective management organizations in different countries.

Could a Euro copyright be territorially indivisible?

It is suggested that the Euro copyright could make territorial licensing a thing of the past. The paper states that it is because an EU rightsholder currently has 27 separate intellectual property rights that he can license a right in one country but not in another. An EU copyright title would restrain rightholders from this antisocial habit.

Could a Euro copyright be indivisible? This is not be an unprecedented concept – arguably the UK’s copyright is territorially indivisible (e.g. you wouldn’t be able to license rights in Scotland without licensing them in the rest of the UK). However, if a Euro copyright was made territorially indivisible, rightholders could resort to other cunning means to PARTITION (gasps!) and FRAGMENT (more gasps!) the Single Market – e.g. have separate licences in different languages or stipulate that the licence is only for use via a named (localized) service. Perhaps the ECJ would respond with a new body of law: ‘measures having equivalent effect to territorial restrictions’? Let’s suppose this happened. Do consumers across the EU all want identical fare? And how many licensees are able to afford to buy and successfully exploit rights across the entire EU? If rightsholders were limited to offering only pan-European licences, the number of companies that could exploit them would be extremely limited and the EU would have destroyed a competitive market in one fell swoop.

Perfecting harmonization

The paper says that the Euro copyright would also harmonize copyright exceptions that are currently discretionary. Further harmonization of copyright exceptions, it is argued, would create more certainty for consumers. Are consumers confused about the lack of harmonization of copyright exceptions? Is homo digitalis in Warsaw disorientated when he reflects on how his exceptions differ from those in Spain? Homo digitalis doesn’t care if copyright law is inconsistent – he just wants less of it.

Anyway, discarding 300 years of copyright law (and embarking on a 150-year transitional period before national copyrights expire) seems a drastic way of fine-tuning exceptions – though some believe that the piecemeal harmonization of copyright has been so flawed that there’s a case for starting from scratch. Mireille van Eechoud expressed this view at a combined BLACA/BCC meeting last week. Piecemeal harmonization, she said, has been overly influenced by fleeting political agendas and has resulted in an incremental ratcheting-up of copyright protection.

Enforcement

A Euro copyright has potential value for enforcement, particularly when copyright has been infringed on the internet. When copyright-infringing content is uploaded to the internet, there still appears to be a lack of consensus in Europe as to whether there is only an infringement where the material has been uploaded or also where it is viewed. UK academics are divided on this point. German courts have held that making available happens in both places and last year a Scottish sheriff’s court held that someone who sets up a website ‘can be regarded as potentially committing a delict in any country where the website can be seen’ (Mackie v. Askew).

If it is held that infringement does take place where content is viewed, then a judge in one member state could have to apply the copyright laws of all 27 European states – Rome II provides that the law where the infringement takes place governs the basis of liability, grounds for exemption from liability (i.e. exceptions) and the nature and assessment of damage. A Euro copyright would simplify this process – one law, one set of exceptions. Having said this, there are other less longwinded ways of sorting this out such as agreeing that the law most closely associated with the infringement should be applied (or perhaps something slightly more nuanced).

Maybe a little less theorizing and a bit more pragmatism is in order. A question came from the floor at the BLACA/BCC meeting: ‘What empirical evidence is there for benefits arising from harmonization of copyright?’ ‘The evidence is not impressive,’ the reply came. The ECJ’s stats came out yesterday. Why, for example, are the answers to pressing questions of telecommunications law raised in the FAPL case in 2008 not expected until 2011? If Europe is to facilitate commerce, first it should make sure that it is not actually hindering it by jamming on the breaks every so often and putting everything on hold.