Tech Policy Summit blog

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Tech Policy Central is also the new home of Tech Policy Summit and our latest conference, the Regional Broadband Innovation Summit & Expo. The site also features job listings, research reports, a directory of 'Who's Who' in tech policy and podcasts and videos -- a one-stop shop for all things tech policy.

Inventor Files More Patent Suits Involving Visual Voicemail

Klausner Technologies has once again set its sights on a long list of companies that it claims are violating its patents for visual voicemail technology. 

After settling patent suits with Apple, AT&T, eBay/Skype and Comcast earlier this year, Klausner filed a new patent infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Texas today against nine more companies, including Google, Verizon, LG Electronics, Citrix Systems and Embarq.

And there may be others. According to Reuters, inventor Judah Klausner "said he would consider filing lawsuits against additional companies that failed to license his patents, including Web-based phone service providers, but that many smaller companies have opened settlement talks recently." 

Reuters also reported that one company that doesn't seem willing to settle, at this point, is Verizon. The telco filed its own lawsuit against Klausner earlier this month, asking a federal judge in New York to "declare the inventor's visual voicemail patent invalid."

Coincidentally, visual voicemail on my cellphone was malfunctioning today, which made me realize just how much I've come to rely on it as a quicker way to check who's left a message...hopefully, the technology won't be derailed by the litigation.

MIT Students at Center of Free Speech Case

A U.S. District Court judge in Boston decided yesterday not to lift a temporary restraining order imposed against three Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) undergrads who reportedly uncovered security flaws in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's e-ticketing system. He also ordered them to provide more documentation about their research into how the Boston subway system can be hacked.

The 10-day gag order was issued last Saturday after the transit agency filed a lawsuit against the MIT students in an effort to prevent them from discussing their findings at the annual DEFCON conference in Las Vegas. The students are being represented in the case by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which argues that the order violates their First Amendment rights.

According to Computerworld, yesterday's "ruling reopened the schism in the IT security community over the issue of how vulnerabilities should be publicly disclosed." Read more here.

Court Bolsters Enforcement of Open Source Licenses

Supporters of free/open source licenses like the GNU General Public License and Creative Commons are celebrating yesterday's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled violating such public licenses can be considered copyright infringement.

The case involved commercial software developers who had allegedly used code that was made available with the open source Artistic License without meeting the terms of the original license. The defendents had successfully argued in District Court that the license requirements that stated they needed to credit the program's developer and document any modifications were a matter of contract, not copyright, law.

However, the Court of Appeals overturned the District Court decision and, in doing so, stiffened the penalties for violating the terms of public licenses.

Stanford Law professor Larry Lessig, a founding board member of Creative Commons, described the ruling as a "very important victory" and said it offered "important clarity and certainty by a critically important U.S. Court." Stanford's Center for Internet and Society also played a key role in the case by preparing an amicus brief.

For more background, you can download a PDF of the Court's opinion.

Where Are You?

I admit that I've become addicted to the status updates in Twitter and Facebook. Even when I'm not revealing what I'm up to, I enjoy knowing what others are doing. It's an easy way to keep tabs on friends and associates I wouldn't otherwise interact with on a daily, or moment to moment, basis.

Increasingly, though, it's not just about what others are doing. But about where they are.

The social sharing revolution is giving rise to a growing number of location-aware services like Loopt and Dopplr that enable users to reveal their whereabouts to others via mobile and Web-based interfaces. Just yesterday, Yahoo formally launched an open platform called Fire Eagle that allows users to enter their location data and manage its use by third-party developers.

Of course, location-based technologies are not new -- and neither are the privacy and security concerns they raise. What does seem to be changing is the pervasiveness of these services and, at least among early adopters like techies and teens, the willingness to trade their privacy for the convenience (or novelty) of knowing more about the people and neighborhoods around them.

As for me, I'll be sharing my location on a need to know basis.

CA Considers New Cyberbullying Law

California's Senate voted yesterday in favor of a bill that would allow schools to suspend or expel students who engage in cyberbullying. The State Assembly must now reconcile the Sentate's version with its own before deciding to send the legislation to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for signature. If enacted, California will join other states like Iowa, New Jersey, Oregon, Minnesota and Missouri that have passed laws to try and prevent cyberbullying and harrassment.

In late June, Missiouri's Governor Matt Blunt signed a new law that makes electronic harassment by an adult over the age of 21 a felony punishable with up to four years in prison (those under the age of 21 face misdemeanor charges if convicted).

According to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Missiouri law was 'inspired by' the death of 13-year-old Megan Meier, who committed suicide after allegedly being harassed on MySpace.com. The case received national media attention when federal authorities accused Megan's 49-year-old neighbor Lori Drew of being the one behind the electronic bullying.

The case also led to the introduction of a federal bill known as the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, or HR 6123, that was sponsored by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-MO) in May. Like the Missouri law, the federal bill would make it a crime to engage in electronic harassment with penalties including fines and/or up to two years in prison.

For more info on other states' cyber bullying laws, check out this February 2008 USA Today report.

NPR's Take on Tech Policy

I was driving through Southern California on a business trip last Friday, listening to National Public Radio (NPR), when I heard that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially concluded that Comcast had engaged in discriminatory?network management practices.

The news has been well-covered since then, but I've been wanting to share a link to the NPR "All Things Considered" report because it's a critically important story and, selfishly, it featured three of the speakers from Tech Policy Summit '08 (and we always enjoy hearing from prior speakers): Progress and Freedom Foundation's Adam Thierer, Comcast executive Joe Waz and FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell were among the individuals who gave their reactions to the FCC's order.

You can listen to four-minute podcast here.

p.s. Coincidentally, that same NPR broadcast had a segment about the presidential candidates' technology policies. Former FCC chairman Michael Powell spoke about Republican candidate Sen. John McCain's plans, while another former FCC chair William Kennard addressed Sen. Barack Obama's tech outlook.

Court Lifts Ban on Cablevision DVR Service

Cablevision won a legal victory yesterday that enables the company to move ahead with its plans for a remote storage digital video recording (RS-DVR) service that allows consumers to record programs using their existing cable box.

Cablevision first announced the RS-DVR technology, which is kind of a hybrid of video-on-demand and DVR, in March 2006. But the company was quickly sued by a number of film and television studios, including Paramount Pictures, Disney, CBS, ABC and NBC.

The content owners alleged that the RS-DVR service violated copyright by creating and storing a temporary buffer of programs on Cablevision's servers, and they won a lower court injunction that prevented Cablevision from marketing the service. However, yesterday's ruling by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision and cleared the way for RS-DVR.

For more info, check out Ars Technica or download a PDF of the Court of Appeals' decision from the Center for Democracy and Technology.

British ISPs Agree To Landmark Copyright Enforcement Deal

Following negotiations brokered by the United Kingdom's Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), six major Internet service providers in the UK have signed a memorandum of understanding with British music industry group BPI and the Motion Picture Association to curb illegal peer-to-peer file sharing significantly within two to three years. 

The agreement is particularly significant because it marks the first time that ISPs will be "required to work with music and other rights holders" to fight digital piracy. The ISPs, which include BSkyB, BT, Virgin, Carphone Warehouse, Orange and Tiscali, will launch a pilot program that begins by sending warning letters to individuals that have been identified as suspected copyright infringers.

British telecom regulator Ofcom has been charged with overseeing the process and working with the parties to develop and approve a Code of Practice within four months that determines what actions should be taken against alleged "repeat offenders," i.e. suspension or cancellation of users' Internet accounts or criminal prosecution.

Meanwhile, while the British government says it prefers voluntary industry-led efforts, BERR is continuing to explore what it calls a co-regulatory approach that could lead to legislation. Among the regulatory options being considered by the government are:

• Requiring ISPs to provide personal data relating to a given IP address to rights holders on request, without them needing to go to Court.
• Requiring ISPs to take direct action against users who are identified by the rights holder as infringing copyright through file sharing.
• Requiring that ISPs allow the installation of filtering equipment that will block infringing content, or requiring ISPs themselves to install such filtering equipment.
• Allocating a third party body to consider evidence provided by rights holders and to direct ISPs to take action against individual users as required, or to take action directly against individual users.

BERR is seeking comment on the proposed options between now and October 30th; more information can be found in the consultation document released by the government. The 66-page PDF is available for download here.

p.s. We've previously written these posts about ISPs in the U.S. cooperating with the entertainment industry to police for copyright violations.

Qualcomm and Nokia Call Truce In Patent Battle

Wireless communications leaders Qualcomm and Nokia have announced that they're burying the hatchet in their long-standing, trans-Atlantic patent dispute. The companies have signed a 15-year licensing deal that, according to a Qualcomm news release, will "result in settlement of all litigation between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia of its complaint to the European Commission."

Specific financial terms remain confidential, but Nokia received a license enabling it to use all of Qualcomm's patents in its mobile devices and infrastructure equipment. In turn, Nokia agreed to allow Qualcomm to use Nokia's technology in its chipsets.

Businessweek columnist Steve Wildstrom, emcee for Tech Policy Summit '08, interviewed Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs at the 2008 Summit earlier this year and his opening question for Dr. Jacobs was about the company's patent litigation. You can hear a podcast of that interview in the Media Vault.