Songwriters of North America led the filing Tuesday of a lawsuit against DOJ over the Antitrust Division's controversial decision in its review of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees, as expected (see 1608040066). SONA sued on behalf of songwriters Michelle Lewis, Tom Kelly and Pam Sheyne. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., also targets Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Antitrust head Renata Hesse. It follows an earlier BMI legal challenge of DOJ's concluding statement in the case and an ASCAP-led lobbying effort in Congress. Language in DOJ's ruling clarifying that the department continues to believe the existing decrees mandate 100 percent licensing is a violation of songwriters' property rights because of the language's negative effect on songwriting partnerships, the songwriters said in the complaint (in Pacer). The language “is an illegitimate assertion of agency power in gross violation of plaintiffs’ due process rights, copyright interests and freedom of contacts, and needs to be set aside,” the complaint said. DOJ didn't comment Wednesday.

Customs and Border Protection copyright protection during pendency of a copyright owner's application with the Copyright Office (see 1608250024) will last nine months, CBP said. There's also potential for a single additional 90-day extension, said a Monday news release. The new policy is a result of the customs reauthorization law.

Sentinel Worldwide CEO Steve Tepp criticized Public Knowledge's report claiming the Copyright Office's recent rulemakings and policy recommendations exhibit a pro-rightsholder bias at the expense of consumers. The PK report, released last week (see 1609080084), is an “unprecedented and unfounded” attack on the CO “in a transparent bid to bully, berate, and discredit [the CO] in furtherance of the drastic policy goals PK has failed to achieve for decades,” Tepp said in a Medium blog post Monday. “PK has led a relentless campaign that portrays reasonable policy differences as evidence of impropriety.” Tepp is a former CO senior counsel-policy and international affairs. PK criticizes the CO because of recent instances in which the federal government didn't follow the office's policy recommendations, but “there are also many examples where courts accepted and even relied on [the CO's] analysis, sometimes in opposition to the assertion of copyright protection and sometimes in support of it,” Tepp said. “Even PK relies on the judgement of [the CO] when it suits their purposes.” PK's “two dimensional 'Us vs. Them' approach reflects a lack of sophistication that, in itself, indicates that the organization is unqualified to judge the performance of” the CO, Tepp said. “On any given day the Copyright Office is confronted with the differing and often competing perspectives of a rainbow of participants in the copyright system.” The "moral outrage directed at our report is astonishing," a PK spokeswoman said. "Our report does not impugn the integrity of individual [CO] staff. Regulatory capture is a widely recognized risk for government agencies. Examining structural capture at the Copyright Office has nothing to do with 'bullying,'" as Tepp claims. "It’s not the role of the office to act as an advocate for any particular stakeholders in contentious debates," the PK spokeswoman said. "Accountability to the larger public interest is critical for any agency."

The European Commission's likely proposal to introduce a pan-EU 20-year ancillary copyright aimed at allowing publishers to claim royalties from news aggregation services that link to their content is part of a pattern of recent EU policy decisions that “create a blockade on information for Europeans that rivals the blockades on information imposed by Communist countries,” said CTA President Gary Shapiro in a Friday blog post. The possible EU ancillary copyright was outlined in leaked EC documents on the commission's larger EU copyright law revamp proposal, which is expected to be introduced this month (see 1608290062). The EC may roll out its copyright revamp proposal as soon as this week, an industry lobbyist told us. The ancillary copyright proposal, along with the EU's demand for $14.5 billion in retroactive taxes from Apple and the EU's “right to be forgotten” law, “increasingly restrict access to information,” Shapiro said. “They are also dangerous moves for a government to make as they parallel controls and access to information imposed by totalitarian societies.” The recent dearth of new tech startups in the EU is already “a source of embarrassment and concern,” but the ancillary copyright “will hasten the exodus of promising European tech companies to Silicon Valley and other locales more open to the access to information the internet encourages,” Shapiro said. He urged companies to consider a “blackout day” of European websites similar to the one used in 2012 to protest the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act. “Hopefully, it won't come down to engaging angry European citizens,” Shapiro said. “Cooler heads should withdraw or modify these wrongheaded policies.”

Sky joined HEVC Advance as a licensee, the H.265 patent pool said in a Thursday announcement. Sky promised the U.K.’s “most comprehensive” Ultra HD service on Sky Q Silver when it launched the service in mid-August (see 1607140028), and Sky Deutschland recently announced plans to debut two exclusive Ultra HD sports channels this fall (see 1608220001). Sky becomes HEVC Advance’s third known licensee, after Strong TV and Warner Bros. Entertainment, which also joined in June as a licensor (see 1606280012).

The Copyright Office said it's changed its deadline for parties to submit requests for reconsideration of previously denied copyright applications, so a party must have its reconsideration request postmarked by the deadline -- three months after the CO refused to grant the most recent copyright application. Refused applicants previously needed to ensure their reconsideration request made it to the CO before the three-month deadline. The rule took effect Friday and isn't subject to being initially noticed as a proposed rulemaking because the rule change doesn't affect how parties present themselves to the CO, said a notice in the Federal Register. The CO said it's adopting the deadline rule change because it “can be difficult to predict how long it will take for a reconsideration request to be received by the [CO], particularly given security screening related delays." A change to the “postal” deadline rule that covers “requests for reconsideration delivered by the United States Postal Service or dispatched by a commercial carrier, courier, or messenger” will “offer applicants greater certainty while continuing to ensure that appeals are considered in a timely fashion,” the CO said. The rule covers only reconsideration requests postmarked after Friday, the CO said.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has put together a group of 14 academic, civil liberties, law enforcement, privacy and technology experts to study government encryption and surveillance. In a summary about the 12-month project, the National Academies said the group will examine tradeoffs in mechanisms for giving government "access to the plaintext version of encrypted information." The study will include identifying alternative ways government can get such information and seek ways to measure risks weighed against potential law enforcement and intelligence benefits. "The study will not seek to answer the question of whether access mechanisms should be required but rather will provide an authoritative analysis of options and tradeoffs," it said Wednesday. Chaired by Indiana University law professor Fred Cate, the group includes Scott Charney, Microsoft vice president-trustworthy computing group; David Kris, general counsel of Intellectual Venture; David Hoffman, Intel director-security policy and global privacy officer; Worcester Polytechnic Institute cybersecurity professor Susan Landau; Richard Littlehale, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation special agent; Crowell & Moring privacy and cybersecurity attorney Harvey Rishikof; and Google software engineer Peter Weinberger. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the National Science Foundation sponsored the project.

A perpetual "revolving door" at the Copyright Office is allowing major entertainment industries to capture the agency and significantly influence its policies, Public Knowledge said Thursday in a report. PK said the CO “regularly contorts” copyright law issues to “further the monopoly interests of major rightsholders” and regularly advocates for an expansion of copyright law that allows for fewer exemptions and consumer protections. The CO repeatedly inserted itself “into more and farther-flung policy debates," including via its 2015 Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 exemptions triennial review, PK said. The CO prioritized its own views over those of other stakeholders, the group said. Congress, other federal agencies and federal courts also have noted the CO's failings by ignoring or overturning the agency's decisions, PK said. “With limited accountability [and] a pattern of favoritism toward industry and rightsholder groups, it is unsurprising that they have staked out tenuous positions and advocate for expansive copyright monopolies,” said PK Policy Advocate Meredith Rose in a news release. “It is clear from its positions … that the [CO] often acts more as an advocate for profit-maximizing entertainment industries, rather than as an impartial organ of government.” The CO didn't comment.

Leaked proposals for the European Commission’s planned copyright law revamp “raise some troubling issues,” said Center for Democracy and Technology fellow Stan Adams in a Tuesday blog post. The commission may propose a pan-EU ancillary copyright aimed at allowing publishers to claim royalties from news aggregation services (see 1608290062). Similar ancillary rights in Germany and Spain haven’t worked as intended, Adams said. “Despite the questionable legal basis for this proposal, and despite the fact that publishers could easily configure their sites to limit or block automated access to the content therein, the Commission believes that creating this new right will benefit both publishers and consumers, who will enjoy the ‘enhanced availability of quality content in the long-term.’” The EC is also exploring a proposal to require ISPs hosting or storing user-generated content to “take appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with right holders." Even “when dressed in the language of contractual agreements, this looks very much like a general obligation to monitor, which Article 15 of the [EC’s] E-Commerce Directive explicitly bars,” Adams said. “This proposal seems to go against some of the goals of the Digital Single Market Strategy, like making the EU an environment in which digital startups can thrive.”

Thursday's release of the HDMI “Alt Mode” spec will allow HDMI-enabled source devices to use a USB Type-C connector to link directly to HDMI-enabled displays, and “deliver native HDMI signals over a simple cable without the need for cumbersome protocol and connector adapters or dongles,” HDMI Licensing said in an announcement. The Alt-Mode spec “enables two of the most popular solutions for connectivity to come together,” pairing the multipurpose USB Type-C connector that’s “gaining traction” in smartphones and tablets, with HDMI, it said. HDMI Licensing expects nearly 290 million HDMI-enabled display devices to ship globally this year, adding to the installed base of “billions of displays,” it said.