Alibaba's Taobao.com mobile commerce site, the Pacific Mall in Markham, Ontario, and online sites like Convert2mp3.net and ThePirateBay.org are among prominent physical and virtual marketplaces that facilitate or ignore rampant piracy and counterfeiting, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said Friday in its annual notorious markets report. Citing growth of illicit streaming devices globally, USTR added several apps and portals that link such devices to illicit content -- TVPlus, TVBrowser and Kuaikan -- to the list. It said closer cooperation between governments and stakeholders is needed to tackle such video streaming piracy. Alibaba and mall management didn't comment.
The nonprofit Sports Fans Coalition (SFC) launched an over-the-top translator service in the New York area Thursday that aims to allow watching live streams of local broadcasters online. But broadcast experts see the Locast.org service raising copyright, retransmission consent and programming contract questions. "We are kind of in uncharted territory," said SFC founder David Goodfriend, a lobbyist and lawyer. "I'm not naive enough to think" there won't possibly be legal challenges, he said.
The FCC, already processing an array of non-geostationary orbit applications and now some proposed major amendments, will likely see numerous other amendments for other NGSO proposals, satellite industry experts told us. The FCC, having amended its NGSO rules in September (see 1709260035), has to expect operators are going to look at the increased flexibility in the new rules and see how it might lead to better network designs, said a lawyer with satellite clients. The agency didn't comment.
"Quirks" in the must-vote deadline process mean items -- even noncontroversial ones -- can sit in limbo for a month or more, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly blogged Tuesday, pushing for changes in the agency's must-vote procedures. He urged replacing the 21-day time frame with a 14-day one, if not shorter, as a means of speeding up the process. Chairman Ajit Pai's office said it's reviewing the suggestion. The offices of minority Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel didn't comment.
The FAA doesn't regulate the noise of space launch vehicles, but NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service apparently does, space lawyer Laura Montgomery blogged Monday. She said the incidental harassment authorization that SpaceX received for its sonic booms raises questions about why NOAA has such authority and whether the Marine Fisheries Service falls under the Commercial Space Launch Act exceptions for approvals that space launch operations need.
DOJ and AT&T have big motivations for settling the agency's lawsuit to stop the takeover of Time Warner, and doing so could depend on Justice flexibility, antitrust experts told us. Whether the sides are still discussing a settlement isn't clear as neither commented, with no consensus among antitrust experts about the likelihood. Meanwhile, the Brookings Institution Friday recommended antitrust enforcement reforms.
Having closed Thursday on its $1.4 billion MetroCast acquisition, Atlantic Broadband is considering additional mergers and acquisitions. "We have an appetitive for more" once the MetroCast integration is complete, President Dave Isenberg told us Thursday. He said Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is a co-investor in the MetroCast deal, with the idea of future acquisitions. "They see this as a platform for growth," Isenberg said, saying opportunities range from cable operators to regional fiber networks perhaps contiguous to Atlantic Broadband service areas. The MetroCast deal was announced in July (see 1707100040). Atlantic owner Cogeco Communications said it now operates in 11 states. It said MetroCast will keep its existing brand and will offer a variety of enhanced services under the Atlantic Broadband brand starting in the spring. Isenberg said Atlantic will use the same strategy with the rest of MetroCast that it employed with its 2015 takeover of MetroCast operations in Connecticut (see 1508210008): a variety of new products and services aimed both at residential customers, like gigabit Internet speeds and Atlantic's TiVo-based video platform, and at enterprise customers, such as hosted private branch exchange services. He said Atlantic continues to see broadband growth, and doesn't anticipate incoming 5G services providing significant competition to its wireline services in the near future since the company largely focuses on suburban and rural territories. It "will be an incredibly long time" before a wireless solution replicates terrestrial service, he said. Programmers increasingly are open to skinnier cable bundles, though there's not consensus among programmers, Isenberg said. "We're not at an inflection point, but the trend is clear," he said. He said video remains profitable and an Atlantic priority, and the Connecticut territory went from losing video customers at faster than industry averages to adding customers profitably.
The satellite industry is at odds over the FCC-proposed elimination of the domestic coverage requirement for non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) fixed satellite service systems. Though there's not agreement, the agency still could move forward on some change since there's obviously need for a more flexible regime, said satellite industry lawyer Jeff Carlisle. An industry consultant said the deregulatory aspect of the NPRM could carry particular weight with the FCC. Also potentially trumping objections is the added flexibility NGSO operators would have to bring more satellite broadband connectivity at least to the lower 48 states, the consultant said.
Altice USA's dropping of Starz Jan. 1 is the latest clash in a fight between MVPDs and programmers over traditional carriage models in a time of multiplying direct-to-consumer (DTC) offerings, industry experts said. But that cable model evolution is happening slowly, and the fight is simmering more than boiling, with other cable network blackouts not immediately expected, we were told.
Despite 2017 being a particularly active year for retransmission consent negotiations, cable and broadcast experts weren’t expecting a notable wave of new blackouts on Jan. 1 triggered by contracts that expired Dec. 31. The end of 2016 had a slew of retrans disruptions, and there were worries about sizably more at the end of 2017 (see 1701030046). Alaska's GCI emailed customers last week that they might lose local ABC and CW stations from their cable lineups on Jan. 1 and the local Fox station on Jan. 15 due to a retrans impasse with the stations' ownership.