NAB and NCTA agreed on an election notification process and are pitching it to the FCC. In a docket 17-317 posting Monday, they proposed that, starting with the 2020 election cycle, commercial TV stations must notify cable operators of must-carry or retransmission consent election only if that status changed from the previous election, and notification would go to the email address listed in the cable operator's online public field or in the FCC's cable operations and licensing system (Coals) database. They said that would require some updates to the FCC's online systems and databases -- a new field in the cable operators' public files for carriage election contact information, a new field in the TV broadcasters' online public files for carriage election contact information, and a new field in Coals. They said small cable systems without online public fields would need to update their carriage election contact information in Coals. Broadcasters giving email notice to multisystem cable operators won't have to identify each cable system for which carriage election applies, just the designated market area if it's changing its election for all that operator's systems. They said the agency should have an email address broadcasters will carbon copy when sending election notices to cable operators, acting as a backup to broadcasters. They said a cable operator's email address should generate a response to the broadcaster notification email so the broadcaster knows its election notice went through. The groups told the regulator in September they were working on a compromise (see 1809180041).
The Copyright Office Friday requested comment by Jan. 22 for an interim rule amending regulations for “compulsory license to make and distribute phonorecords of musical works.” Via passage of the Music Modernization Act (see 1810110038), the interim rule took effect Friday.
If Disney is “successful” with its direct-to-consumer streaming service launching in late 2019, it won’t be to the “detriment” of Netflix, Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer, told a UBS investors conference Monday. “There's plenty of room in this business for other players to be successful.” Sarandos doubts a live-sports offering, like that of ESPN Plus, would be conducive to Netflix, he said. “On-demand” is part of the Netflix “core proposition,” he said. With live sports, on-demand “adds almost no value to it,” he said. “People want to watch sports now. They want to know who won.” Should live sports ultimately become “the next best place to spend $10 billion, I would look at it,” said Sarandos. “Relative to the business today and how we’re growing around the world, professional, scripted and unscripted programming is the best place to spend that money.”
TVEyes' petition for Supreme Court review of a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the company's copyright fight with Fox News (see 1809120044) was denied, the Supreme Court said in docket 18-321 Monday.
Apple Music comes to Amazon Echo Dec. 17, blogged Amazon Friday, so those with the subscriptions can ask Alexa to stream radio stations based on genre and by songs, album and artist. Music is one of the most popular features on Alexa, said Dave Limp, senior vice president-Amazon Devices. Other music services available to Echo users include iHeartRadio. In its first report Thursday, Sonos named Amazon, Apple and Google as competitors.
YouTube's ending its "Originals" premium service content, canceling many shows and making the remainder freely available, is "an unsurprising departure from big budget productions and another dead end," nScreenMedia's Lloyd Dixon blogged Thursday. Google's YouTube will rely less on its ad-free premium subscription tier for revenue, meaning ad-supported "is the only business model YouTube has to work with right now," the analyst said. YouTube didn't comment.
Altice USA and Tribune Media signed a new carriage and retransmission consent agreement for Altice to continue to carry Tribune TV stations and carry Tribune's WGN American cable network, they said Thursday.
The idea that Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512(h) pre-empts unmasking lawsuits against John Doe defendants is "a creative argument, but not a meritorious one," Santa Clara University Director-High Tech Law Institute Professor Eric Goldman blogged Wednesday. Section 512(h) covers subpoenas of service providers for identification of an alleged copyright infringer. Goldman cited Monday's docket 18-cv-00571-EAW decision (in Pacer) by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford of Rochester, New York, denying a motion to quash a third-party subpoena that adult film producer and streaming service Strike 3 sought against the defendant's ISP for the identity of the John Doe whom Strike 3 accused of BitTorrent piracy of company content. The defendant argued allowing service of a subpoena on a third-party ISP conflicted with DMCA privacy provisions and the Communications Act, but that doesn't acknowledge a Communications Act exception allowing such a subpoena, or that the vast majority of opinions in similar cases have granted leave to serve those subpoenas, Wolford said. She said most Strike 3 suits end in voluntary dismissal after subpoenas are served, but there's no evidence to back the John Doe's claim Strike 3 "is engaging in copyright troll litigation tactics."
SiriusXM is working through approvals at DOJ and the SEC toward anticipated Q1 completion of buying Pandora for about $3.4 billion (see 1809240030), Sirius Chief Financial Officer David Frear told a Credit Suisse investors conference Tuesday. SiriusXM's free three-month trials of its streaming services to Amazon smart-speaker owners (see 1810240034) is an “opportunity here to diversify our distribution” and attract consumers who wouldn’t listen in the car, he said. “We’re also happy to deepen engagement with our existing subscriber base.”
A legal challenge of an Ohio cyber-harassment statute prohibiting posts “for the purpose of abusing, threatening or harassing another person” failed for the second time, ruled the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The panel Tuesday affirmed a lower court decision dismissing the case brought by political blog Plunderbund Media, blogger John Spinelli and the Portage County Tea Party for lacking standing. Plaintiffs argue the prohibition against abuse and harassment is too broad and they faced “credible threat of prosecution” for “their online articles and posts criticizing elected officials,” the ruling noted said. Since plaintiffs haven't been prosecuted, they haven’t been injured and don’t have grounds to challenge it, the 6th Circuit said. The opinion was by Judge Jane Stranch; Gilbert Merritt and Martha Daughtrey were also on the panel.