Don’t cap the overall budget for the various USF programs or alter the USF funding mechanism, asked many replies, worried about prioritizing funds over one another. At least one reply favored halting the fund’s growth at 2018 levels. Replies posted through Tuesday in FCC docket 06-122.
Debra Rubin
Debra Rubin, Deputy Managing Editor, is a longtime editor and reporter. She has worked in both general and ethnic media, having spent most of her career in the Jewish press. Rubin has been editing at Warren Communications News since 2013.
Hamilton Relay supports for traditional telephone relay service, captioned telephone service and speech-to-speech services the provider compensation rates that the interstate TRS fund administrator’s proposed for the July 1-June 30 period. The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau sought comment on proposed per-minute compensation rates for certain forms of TRS subject to the multistate average rate structure plan methodology. Hamilton also wants the FCC to compensate IP CTS providers “at a rate that, at minimum, represents their reasonable costs of providing the service,” it commented, posted Wednesday in docket 03-123. CaptionCall and Sorenson Communications urged the FCC to revisit the rate for IP CTS, saying it “suffers from vulnerabilities and deficiencies.” USTelecom applauded the FCC for “taking steps to be fiscally responsible” but urged the agency to establish a longer time frame “between when the final rates and budget size are announced and the effective date.” Replies are due June 7.
The FCC ranks No. 17 among 27 midsize federal agencies for 2018 in an online list Wednesday by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. Its 64.4 engagement score, based on such aspects as effective leadership, employee skills-mission match, training and development, work-life balance and pay, is up 1.6 from last year, down from a 71.3 high in 2013. The agency’s male-female ratio is 50.6 to 49.4. On racial diversity, it’s 58.3 percent white, 28 percent black or African American, 9 percent Asian, 3 percent Hispanic/Latino, with the remaining Native American, multiracial, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander and unspecified. The Office of Managing Director ranks 196 of 415 for agency subcomponents. In the same midsize category, the FTC rates No. 1 with an engagement score of 84, up 2.6 from last year, continuing its upward trend. GAO ranks No. 4. Among large agencies, the Commerce Department ranks No. 3 of 17 agencies, DOJ is No. 10 and the Department of Homeland Security is last. Rankings for Commerce subcomponents include: the Patent and Trademark Office , 60; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 86; NTIA, 144; and NOAA,154.
Music Modernization Act notice of inquiry comments split between those urging the Copyright Office to make it easy for the public to search sound recordings to determine if they are available for noncommercial use and those wanting a more complex search process. MMA establishes a safe harbor for noncommercial use of pre-1972 sound recordings. Comments were posted Tuesday in docket COLC-2018-0008. Public Knowledge Policy Council Meredith Rose urged the CO to make an MMA checklist “accessible and comprehensible to non-specialists, and to make it as simple as allowed by the statute.” While PK proposed the CO require users “search no more than one to two services,” the American Association of Independent Music and RIAA proposed “dividing the various sources that users should search into different categories and then requiring all users to search in all categories (until a match is found).” The MMA process “doesn’t allow for any negotiation between the user and rights owner,” the groups said, urging it be used as “last resort.” SoundExchange endorsed the A2IM-RIAA comments. Noting noncommercial users under statutory licenses differ from noncommercial use in the context of fair use, RIAA said CO guidance should be clear. IFPI said to protect sound recordings originating outside the U.S. the process should include searches in “the country of origin of the sound recording in question” and in the language of origin. The Internet Archive recommended the process “entail performing a few high quality searches on a small number of large services rather than performing a low quality search across a large number of services.” Also filing were the Music Library Association, Library Copyright Alliance, Association of American Universities, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Copyright Alliance.
James Billington, who retired as librarian of Congress in 2015, died Tuesday. He was 89. President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Library of Congress in 1987. In bringing the LOC online, Billington initiated the National Digital Library Program. Other electronic services created under his watch included Congress.gov, eCo online copyright registration and National Jukebox, providing free streaming access to out-of-print music and spoken-word recordings. A few months before Billington announced his retirement, a GAO report criticized him and other LOC leaders for not modernizing critical LOC IT systems (see 1503310046). Before joining the LOC, Billington was a Russia scholar and taught at Princeton and Harvard before heading the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. Survivors include his wife, Marjorie, four children and 12 grandchildren.
Some of the biggest U.S. municipalities and their associations are opposing an FCC Further NPRM proposing treating cable operators' in-kind contributions required by local franchise authorities (LFAs) as franchise fees that face a congressional limit (see 1811140004). More than 200 filings were posted Wednesday and Thursday in docket 05-311. Counties, cities and organizations, large and small, said the new action is a misreading of the Cable Act and would hurt public, educational and government programming.
The FCC proposed $325,000 indecency forfeiture against Schurz Communications' WDBJ, Roanoke, Virginia, is based on “mistaken assumptions” and “misapplied standards,” the station said in a news release Wednesday. WDBJ filed an opposition to the notice of apparent liability (see 1503240038) Tuesday. In proposing the fine, the commission ignored court decisions that raise doubts about the constitutionality of the commission's indecency policies, WDBJ said. “Even if some penalty could properly be imposed, there was no justification for the FCC to impose a fine 46 times greater than its rules establish,” said the TV station. “We believe that the First Amendment does not allow the FCC to ‘throw the book’ at a station for unintentionally including a fleeting inappropriate image in a newscast about a legitimate story,” said President-General Manager Jeffrey Marks. The station said it has taken steps to prevent the incident from happening again, and asked the commission to withdraw the proposed forfeiture.