May 18 - YouTube to launch Food Channel: 'HUNGRY'; Confusion, animosity common in music licensing
Industry Spotlight
iTunes Festival Boasts Usher, Jack White, And Norah Jones
May 15, 2012 – MTV.com (blog)
In TV Race, Microsoft Has Lead, Forrester Says
May 16, 2012 – New York Times (blog)
YouTube to launch Food Channel: 'HUNGRY'
May 16, 2012 – USA TODAY
The BBC Sport app lands on the Sony Entertainment Network
May 17, 2012 – HEXUS
Ashton Kutcher To Return To MTV's 'Punk'd'
May 17, 2012 – MTV.com
Slacker Radio Launches "New 40" Station
May 16, 2012 – Artistdirect.com
Amazon may be prepping new Kindle with built-in light
May 14, 2012 – Seattle Times (blog)
Politics & Policy
I. Intellectual Property Enforcement
Developing economies driving IP piracy
Authored by Jennifer Martinez on May 15, 2012 - POLITICO
Nearly $63.4 billion worth of software was pirated worldwide in 2011, up from $59 billion the prior year, according to an annual study from the Business Software Alliance released on Tuesday.
The study, conducted by IDC and Ipsos Public Affairs, comes as the U.S. negotiates a multilateral trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. The private sector hopes the deal will include tough IP enforcement provisions — and the study supports that argument.
The BSA-funded study attributes the rise in pirated software last year to the influx of personal computer shipments to developing economies that have high piracy rates. About 56 percent of new PCs were shipped to developing markets.
“In most emerging markets, there’s no effective sheriff in town, and computer users tell us that themselves,” BSA CEO Robert Holleyman told POLITICO in an interview.
II. Music Licensing: The Right of Public Performance
Confusion, animosity common in music licensing
Authored by Bill White on May 16, 2012 - Allentown Morning Call
Andy Lee says that after he opened Braveheart Highland Pub in Hellertown several years ago, he occasionally featured live music.
As a result, he has been contacted many times by all three of the major music licensing organizations — Broadcast Music Inc., American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Society of European Stage Authors & Composers — about purchasing a license to play their songs. He ignored their demands and eventually scaled back the live performances to almost nothing.
He said there have been none since two 2010 shows that led to an Oct. 18, 2011, BMI lawsuit against the Braveheart and owner Lee. As I wrote last time, an undercover agent documented the three songs performed those two nights that were written by artists whom BMI represents.
Lee continued to get letters, calls and visits from the music licensing organizations, but he still was shocked when he learned last fall that BMI had sued him and Braveheart — more than a year after those two 2010 concerts — for copyright infringement. The suit asked for damages, legal fees and an order that would prevent him from further infringing on BMI's copyrights.
III. Online Privacy
FTC shifts its approach to protecting online privacy
Authored by Andrew Feinberg on May 14, 2012 – The Hill (blog)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has made a major shift in its efforts to protect privacy online by focusing on any information that can “reasonably be connected to a device or a person," according to an agency official.
Maneesha Mithal, the associate director of the FTC’s privacy division, said the agency’s latest report on privacy moves away from previous rules and regulations that were focused on securing personally identifiable information such as names, Social Security numbers and addresses.
Now, Mithal said, the FTC is taking a broader view of what information is deserving of regulatory protection because the old model is "somewhat obsolete."
IV. Broadband Data Caps & Competition
Pay-per-use bandwidth? Not without some ground rules
Authored by Molly Wood on May 17, 2012 - CNET
Bandwidth caps, the death of unlimited data plans, throttling, "data hog" accusations...I get it. Pay-per-use bandwidth is inevitable: the end of unlimited Internet access is at hand. Bandwidth is a limited resource, especially on wireless networks, and despite all the hand-wringing and hair-tearing, the companies that provide us with that bandwidth are going to insist on being paid to provide, maintain, and expand our access.
But before I go quietly into that dark night, it's time we consumers laid down a few ground rules for these companies and for life in a pay-per-use world. Let's start by facing facts: the reason we're so angry about things like Comcast and Time Warner's data caps, Verizon's killing of its grandfathered unlimited data plans, and T-Mobile's service throttling is that we simply don't believe that these companies are telling the truth about their bandwidth hardships.
More often than not, bandwidth management at the corporate level feels like an exercise in greed than in actual resource allocation.