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TOTM Yesterday a federal district court in Washington state granted the FTC’s motion for summary judgment against Amazon in FTC v. Amazon — the case alleging unfair trade . . .
Yesterday a federal district court in Washington state granted the FTC’s motion for summary judgment against Amazon in FTC v. Amazon — the case alleging unfair trade practices in Amazon’s design of the in-app purchases interface for apps available in its mobile app store. The headlines score the decision as a loss for Amazon, and the FTC, of course, claims victory. But the court also granted Amazon’s motion for partial summary judgment on a significant aspect of the case, and the Commission’s win may be decidedly pyrrhic.
Read the full piece here.
TOTM On Friday the the International Center for Law & Economics filed comments with the FCC in response to Chairman Wheeler’s NPRM (proposed rules) to “unlock” . . .
On Friday the the International Center for Law & Economics filed comments with the FCC in response to Chairman Wheeler’s NPRM (proposed rules) to “unlock” the MVPD (i.e., cable and satellite subscription video, essentially) set-top box market. Plenty has been written on the proposed rulemaking—for a few quick hits (among many others) see, e.g., Richard Bennett, Glenn Manishin, Larry Downes, Stuart Brotman, Scott Wallsten, and me—so I’ll dispense with the background and focus on the key points we make in our comments.
Our comments explain that the proposal’s assertion that the MVPD set-top box market isn’t competitive is a product of its failure to appreciate the dynamics of the market (and its disregard for economics). Similarly, the proposal fails to acknowledge the complexity of the markets it intends to regulate, and, in particular, it ignores the harmful effects on content production and distribution the rules would likely bring about.
ICLE White Paper "It’s no surprise to anyone that illegal activity happens online. What may be surprising, however, is that one of the central figures in administering core Internet functions is deeply ambivalent (at best) about its role in preventing illicit online activity..."
“It’s no surprise to anyone that illegal activity happens online. What may be surprising, however, is that one of the central figures in administering core Internet functions is deeply ambivalent (at best) about its role in preventing illicit online activity.
Since 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been the organization tasked by the U.S. government with overseeing the Domain Name System (DNS). The DNS is the system that enables domain names to resolve — meaning that when you type “google.com” in a browser address window you will reliably receive Google’s search engine each time. That reliability is a boon for Internet users, most of the time. But much mischief can be conducted through web sites, as well, and a system that reliably serves up these sites imposes costs on its users.
Take one recent example. In July 2015, a Bloomberg News piece from “bloomberg.market” indicated that Twitter was in talks over a $31B USD buyout. Naturally, the value of Twitter stock shot up before returning to normal. The problem, however, was that it was a totally fabricated event, one that the currently lax accountability regime underlying the DNS only makes easier.
One would think that ICANN would have effective procedures in place for removing (or otherwise sanctioning) domain names created or used for illegal purposes. However, even though it possesses contractual control over its registries and registrars (the entities responsible for managing and registering top level domains and domain names), the practical reality is that illegal conduct is rarely ever deterred by ICANN.
The consequences of ICANN’s non-action are evident. ICANN has refused to effectively deter content piracy on the Internet, and pirated content currently constitutes something on the order of 25% of Internet traffic. It has also overseen an inexorable increase in websites dedicated to phishing scams. As of December 2014, phishing occurred in 19% of the new gTLDs — and nearly two-thirds of the phishing occurred in just one gTLD (.XYZ). To date ICANN has steadfastly refused to take action despite the significant cost that its refusal — ostensibly rooted in its desire not to regulate Internet content — imposes on community members.
ICANN has an accountability problem.”
TOTM It seems like debates that involve the ability to access the Internet fall into absolutism very quickly. One could almost construct a corollary of Godwin’s . . .
It seems like debates that involve the ability to access the Internet fall into absolutism very quickly. One could almost construct a corollary of Godwin’s law…
TOTM On balance the Second Circuit was right to apply the antitrust laws to Apple. Right now the Supreme Court has before it a petition for . . .
On balance the Second Circuit was right to apply the antitrust laws to Apple.
Right now the Supreme Court has before it a petition for Certiorari, brought by Apple, Inc., which asks the Court to reverse the decision of the Second Circuit. That decision found per se illegality under the Sherman Act, for Apple’s efforts to promote cooperation among a group of six major publishers, who desperately sought to break Amazon’s dominant position in the ebook market. At that time, Amazon employed a wholesale model for ebooks under which it bought them for a fixed price, but could sell them for whatever price it wanted, including sales at below cost of popular books treated as loss leaders. These sales particularly frustrated publishers because of the extra pressure they placed on the sale of hard cover and paper back books. That problem disappeared under the agency relationship model that Apple pioneered. Now the publishers would set the prices for the sale of their own volumes, and then pay Apple a fixed commission for its services in selling the ebooks.
Amicus Brief Although the immediate question presented in this case is whether Internet-based retransmission services are eligible for the compulsory license made available by Section 111 of the Copyright Act, this statute does not exist in a vacuum.
Although the immediate question presented in this case is whether Internet-based retransmission services are eligible for the compulsory license made available by Section 111 of the Copyright Act, this statute does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, Congress has established a comprehensive statutory regime governing the retransmission of broadcast television through several laws that span two titles of the United States Code. In particular, Section 111’s compulsory license is available only to a “cable system”—a type of broadcast retransmission service that is also subject to, and defined by, a host of statutory requirements enacted by Congress in the 1992 Cable Act. When the Copyright Act is read in conjunction with the Cable Act, as it must be, along with other provisions of the Communications Act and a long line of judicial decisions, the unmistakable conclusion is that Defendants’ service cannot be a “cable system” within the meaning of the Copyright Act.
Of greatest importance to Congress’s legislative framework governing retransmission is the requirement that any entity retransmitting broadcast television—regardless of the technical means—first obtain consent from the owner or primary transmitter of the television programming. By interpreting the Copyright Act’s compulsory license to make it available to Internet-based retransmission services, the lower court undercuts that legislative framework. Although cable systems (and satellite carriers) are eligible for a compulsory copyright license for which they do not need explicit permission from television program owners, under the Communications Act they must still generally obtain a broadcast station’s consent before retransmitting its signal. To obtain this consent, cable companies must generally pay an agreed upon amount to broadcasters on top of statutory copyright royalties. For all other entities that wish to retransmit broadcast television, no compulsory copyright license is available; they must bargain for the right to publicly perform television shows with the shows’ owners.
Defendants seek to sidestep both of these obligations by concocting a supposed loophole in federal law—engaging in a sort of regulatory arbitrage between the Communications Act and the Copyright Act. Thus, Defendants claim that they are both eligible for the compulsory copyright license available to cable systems, and also that their service is technically configured to escape the reach of the Communications Act’s provision empowering broadcast stations to decide whether to consent to a cable system’s retransmission of their signals. Not surprisingly, and as the text and purpose of the Copyright Act and the Communications Act reveal, Congress never authorized this ploy.
TOTM The Federal Circuit handed down a victory for free expression today — in the commercial context no less. At issue was the Lanham Act’s § 2(a) . . .
The Federal Circuit handed down a victory for free expression today — in the commercial context no less. At issue was the Lanham Act’s § 2(a) prohibition of trademark registrations that…
Popular Media The forum was focused on a recent Federal Circuit decision, ClearCorrect v. ITC, in which a divided three judge panel overturned a 5-1 majority decision of . . .
The forum was focused on a recent Federal Circuit decision, ClearCorrect v. ITC, in which a divided three judge panel overturned a 5-1 majority decision of the ITC holding that the Tariff Act granted it the power to prevent the importation of digital articles that infringe a valid U.S. patent. Key to the Federal Circuit’s decision was a hyper-textualist parsing of the term article as understood in 1929“a move that stands in stark contrast to the Federal Circuit’s recent en banc decision in Suprema, which was crucially based on a wider reading of the context of the Tariff Act in order to understand the the full meaning of the phrase articles ¦ that infringe as contained therein.
Critics of the ITC’s interpretation in this matter contend that such jurisdiction would somehow grant the ITC the power to regulate the Internet. However, far from being an expansive power grab, the ITC’s decision was in fact well reasoned and completely consistent with the Tariff Act and Congressional intent. Nonetheless, this remains an important case because the cost of the Federal Circuit’s error could be very high given the importance of IP to the national economy.
Mr. Manne’s slides from the event are available here.
The video (streaming below) can be downloaded here.
Presentations & Interviews On December 9, 2015, Geoffrey Manne, Executive Director of the International Center for Law & Economics was a panelist at the Cato Institute’s Policy Forum, The . . .
On December 9, 2015, Geoffrey Manne, Executive Director of the International Center for Law & Economics was a panelist at the Cato Institute’s Policy Forum, The ITC and Digital Trade: The ClearCorrect Decision He was joined by Sapna Kumar, Associate Professor, University of Houston Law Center and Shara Aranoff, Of Counsel, Covington and Burling LLP, and former Chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).
Geoff’s slides from the event are available here. Video of the event is embedded below.
