Public feedback on the Copyright Office's preliminary IT modernization plan is expected to be largely supportive, though several copyright stakeholders told us the issue of funding for the CO's plan will continue to loom large going forward. The CO's preliminary five-year IT plan, released in February, focuses on moving the office away from depending on the Library of Congress' large IT infrastructure base and increasing stakeholders' use of copyright registration (see 1602290071). Several copyright stakeholders said their comments will laud the CO's IT plan but declined to offer an early preview of the comments before filing. Comments on the plan are due Thursday.
ICANN pushed back against DotConnectAfrica (DCA) Trust's lawsuit against the nonprofit corporation over its delegation of the .africa generic top-level domain (gTLD), saying in a filing Friday that the DCA Trust waived its right to sue ICANN when it filed its application to become the .africa gTLD registry. DCA Trust disputed ICANN's decision to delegate the .africa gTLD to the ZA Central Registry (ZACR). DCA Trust filed suit against ICANN for not following a binding 2015 independent review process ruling that said ICANN violated its bylaws in its handling of DCA's 2013 challenge to the .africa delegation decision. The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles granted a temporary restraining order earlier this month to halt ICANN's delegation of the .africa gTLD until after an April hearing (see 1603070062). DCA Trust's lawyers didn't comment Monday about ICANN's filing.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said he and many other House members “believe the Copyright Office should remain in the legislative branch of our government.” During an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators set to have been shown Saturday, he said he is open to separating the CO from the Library of Congress. Some advocates of CO independence have proposed making it an independent congressional agency, while others proposed making it a Department of Commerce office (see 1511180063). Goodlatte said he is exploring whether Congress can give the CO “some greater independence so that we can not only target money to them” but also give the Register of Copyrights “the independence to make some of the decisions” on modernization issues without LOC approval.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other World Wide Web Consortium interests differed about the state of support among W3C stakeholders for an EFF-proposed covenant that would obligate all W3C stakeholders not to file or join a lawsuit against entities under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and similar laws for circumventing technological protection measures (TPMs) for security research purposes, they told us. EFF said it's “cautiously optimistic” it made headway during a Sunday-Tuesday W3C Advisory Committee meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in convincing other stakeholders to support adoption of the covenant. Another party said support for the covenant remains minimal.
The House Homeland Security Committee fast-tracked approval Wednesday of the Combating Terrorist Recruitment Act. It would counter terrorist groups’ online recruitment, but some committee Democrats were concerned the bill places too much emphasis on recruitment by Islamic terrorist groups. HR-4820, which Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., filed Monday, would require the Department of Homeland Security to counteract online terrorist recruitment by using the “public testimonials” of former terrorists and their families in “counter-messaging” communications and community engagement efforts. House Homeland Security cleared HR-4820 16-5. Also Wednesday, a conference heard from panelists about spreading terrorism online (see 1603230039)
House Cybersecurity Subcommittee members and industry executives said they're hopeful the developing cyber insurance market could become a major force in improving private sector cybersecurity in the U.S., but executives noted during a Tuesday subcommittee hearing that the market will need to grow significantly first. The cyber insurance market is clearly “in its infancy but it is easy to envision its vast potential,” subcommittee Chairman John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, said. A fully matured cyber insurance ecosystem could incentivize companies of all sizes to improve their cyber risk management, he said.
The Supreme Court partially granted Samsung’s petition for a writ of certiorari seeking a review of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s May ruling that whittled down the amount of damages the company is required to pay Apple in a patent infringement lawsuit Samsung lost in 2012.
Lawyers for the House and Senate Judiciary committees urged copyright stakeholders Friday to be as active in advocating to congressional appropriators on Copyright Office funding as they are in advocating to Judiciary staffers for CO modernization. “I would encourage you to spend as much if not more time talking to” appropriators about CO issues and the degree to which funding can affect the office's ability to function, said Senate Judiciary Committee Democratic Counsel Garrett Levin. CO modernization has emerged as a top policy issue that copyright stakeholders have focused on amid the House Judiciary Committee's ongoing Copyright Act review (see 1511180063).
House Communications Subcommittee members are increasingly at ease with the trajectory of the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, since ICANN's approval last week of two transition-related plans, they said Thursday. They indicated they'll continue to exercise their oversight of the IANA transition process until its completion. ICANN sent NTIA its finalized IANA transition plan and a related set of recommended changes to ICANN's accountability mechanisms after the board passed both plans during its meeting in Marrakech, Morocco (see 1603100070). ICANN stakeholders strongly endorsed the IANA transition plan and the recommendations from the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability), saying during the hearing that the plans collectively meet NTIA criteria for the IANA transition.
The FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council unanimously approved recommendations from five working groups Wednesday on 911 call rerouting and the security of communications systems. FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson assigned CSRIC the task Wednesday of forming an additional working group on security best practices for services using the Wi-Fi spectrum band. Four other CSRIC working groups reported progress toward completing recommendations due before the current CSRIC mandate ends in March 2017.