Thursday, June 05, 2003

Mass. could be fifth state to adopt anti-UCITA law: No action taken after legislative hearing, by Patrick Thibodeau, Computerworld. The measures adopted by the four anti-UCITA states -- Iowa, North Carolina, West Virginia and, just last month, Vermont-- are called "bomb-shelter" legislation, intended to prevent a vendor from applying, for instance, Maryland's UCITA law provisions on residents in a bomb-shelter state. 12:08:12 PM    comment []

Benton Headlines: QUOTABLES: BELTWAY COMMENTS ON MEDIA OWNERSHIP DECISION "This is the fastest, most complete cave-in to corporate interests I've ever seen by what is supposed to be a federal regulatory agency. This decision advances big corporate interests, and does so at the expense of the public interest. It is a decision that chooses concentration over competition." - Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) http://dorgan.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id 4445 "I want to emphasize that there is not a partisan position here... A lot of Republicans -- in fact, probably most of the Republicans in the Congress, would not agree with this [FCC] decision." - Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413,87~11268~1432144,00.html "We as a society are best served by a diverse marketplace of ideas and viewpoints. This deregulation serves only to accommodate the growth of media giants, and the unavoidable result will be a further stifling of democratic discourse." - Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) http://boxer.senate.gov/newsroom/200306/20030602_cons.html "The FCC has spent considerable resources examining these issues, and the rules they adopted today appear to retain important limitations on media ownership. These are complex decisions, however, and it is difficult to know exactly where to set these limits.... Congress must remain vigilant to guarantee the important values of competition, diversity and localism within our nation's media markets." - Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=NewsCenter.ViewPressRelease&Co ntent_id73 "This is such a disastrous proceeding and finding and rule by the commission itself this morning that I'm convinced that we've got to weigh-in in the Congress... The people, they want to be heard. This concentration is absolutely in opposition to the interests of the public itself. And there's no ground for it. There's no reason for it other than greed." - Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC) http://hollings.senate.gov/~hollings/press/2003602A13.html "Upon close examination, the rules adopted yesterday by the Federal Communications Commission can only be seen as a radical deregulation of the media industry in America. The number of markets in which mergers would be allowed by the rules is increased dramatically; media mergers will now be permitted in over 150 markets across the country representing 98 percent of the American population. The size of the dominant media firms will increase dramatically and the public interest review of mergers is eliminated entirely. The result is certain to be an increase in concentration of local markets and consolidation of the media in national chains. Democratic debate in American will be weakened. Consumers will suffer from less competition. Citizens will suffer from less diversity. Communities will suffer from less local focus in their news and public affairs programming." - Dr. Mark Cooper, Director of Research, Consumer Federation of America http://www.consumerfed.org/FCC_Rule.pdf 12:08:06 PM    comment []

Senator wants limits on copy protection, by Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com. If the Brownback proposal were enacted, the Federal Trade Commission would have the power to ban DRM systems that limit a consumer's right to resell any "digital media product," a category that includes everything from computer software to e-books to copy-protected CDs and movies. It also says that companies selling such products must offer "clear and conspicuous notice or a label on the product" indicating the presence of anticopying techology that follows FTC regulations, starting one year after the law's enactment, unless the FTC determines that industry groups have created reasonable "voluntary" guidelines of their own. At a privacy and politics summit here on Tuesday, an industry representative said the bill-- called the Consumers, Schools and Libraries Digital Rights Management Awareness Act--will likely be introduced at a press conference in the middle of next week. A representative for Brownback said Wednesday that he could not confirm when the event would be held, except to say it would take place "shortly." Brownback, a conservative with a 100 percent vote from the American Conservative Union in 2000, is a member of the Senate Communications Subcommittee. We're going to support it, Mike Godwin, an attorney with advocacy group Public Knowledge, said of Brownback's plan. I think that Sen. Brownback and his staff have clearly made an effort to develop a bill that addresses some of the major excesses that we're seeing in the policy arena at the intersection of copyright policy and technology policy. However, a representative at the Recording Industry Association of America said the legislation is weighted down with a variety of bad public policy judgments hostile to all property owners. The DMCA was a carefully crafted compromise and balance struck by Congress. That's why efforts to cherry-pick particular provisions are likely to fail. 10:07:43 AM    comment []

Tarnishing of Sosa's Image May Hurt His Income. The controversy surrounding Sammy Sosa and the corked bat he used in a game might affect his multimillion-dollar product endorsement deals. By Sherri Day. [New York Times: Business] 6:28:41 AM    comment []

Probing the Power of Corked Bats. The science of corking bats is under new scrutiny after the ejection of Sammy Sosa from Tuesday's game between the Chicago Cubs and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Physicists say the improvement hitters may get from a corked bat is overrated. [Wired News] 6:26:25 AM    comment []

A Greek tragedy starring the Osbournes. Director Andrew Jarecki talks about his explosive documentary "Capturing the Friedmans," in which a family's home videos follow its own destruction in a bizarre child-abuse case. [Salon.com] 5:56:51 AM    comment []

The trivialization of compassion, by Debra J. Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle. (mainly against Peter Singer) 4:05:45 AM    comment []