The Electronic Frontier Foundation and a coalition of consumer groups and content industry stakeholders asked the FTC Friday to label e-books and other digital content that has embedded digital rights management “locks” aimed at preventing copyright infringement. The other signatories on the EFF-led letter included the Consumer Federation of America, the Free Software Foundation and Public Knowledge. Amazon, Google and other tech sector companies are duty-bound to inform consumers about the presence of digital locks on products since such locks are not universally used, the EFF-led coalition said. “This matters because the public has demonstrated a strong preference for DRM-free ebooks and other electronic products,” the coalition said. “For example, in 2014, independent DRM-free ebooks across all marketplaces outsold DRM-locked ones 2:1.” The use of DRM is controversial but “what should not be controversial is that a purchaser should be able to tell whether she is buying a DRM-encumbered product before she spends her money,” the coalition said. “DRM advocates argue that the sales of their products are proof that the public accepts DRM as a proportionate remedy for concerns about copyright infringement, but if that’s so, the existence of a consistent labeling process will not reduce their sales.” If consumers are unaware of the use of DRM on products at the point of purchase, “they are being mis-sold a product that comes with unexpected, unpredictable restrictions,” the coalition said. “That buyers prefer DRM-free at the rate of 2:1 suggests that the market would benefit from better labeling across all categories and storefronts.” An e-retailer's indication of the use of DRM in a product should include a “clear explanation of the restrictions imposed on that product,” the coalition said.

Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, praised DOJ Thursday for the “thoroughness” of the Antitrust Division's review of the department's American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees, which concluded Thursday with Justice's release of its final decision. The decision not to alter the existing consent decrees to allow music publishers to partially withdraw from the decrees and its language clarifying that the department continues to believe the existing decrees mandate 100 percent licensing already faces a legal challenge from BMI in the U.S. District Court in New York (see 1608040066). “The complicated nature of the consent decrees and of the market for musical licenses requires such an exhaustive review,” Lee said in a statement. “As we emphasized [in a 2015 Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on the consent decrees (see 1503090051 and 1503100068), any government oversight of this market must encourage creativity by recognizing the value of copyrights and ensure that prices for music remain competitive for consumers.” The decision shows “that the bullet has been dodged,” said copyright and music licensing lawyer Karyn Ablin of Fletcher Heald in a blog post Friday. “DOJ acknowledged that license pricing and royalty distribution have historically been based on fractional ownership interests. But it also recognized that an important pro-competitive benefit offered by ASCAP and BMI is granting music users immediate access to works in those PROs’ respective repertories without fear of infringement liability. It found that fractional licensing would undermine that access and protection from liability.” The combination of a ASCAP-led lobbying push on Capitol Hill and BMI's litigation make it “much harder to predict” whether the decision ultimately will stand, Ablin said. “This division of labor was no accident -- conventional wisdom has it that the rate court overseeing BMI’s operations is more favorable to PRO interests than is the court charged with monitoring ASCAP.”

George Mason University Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property Senior Scholar Adam Mossoff and 27 other U.S. academics jointly urged the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees Monday to “exercise caution” in considering the patent litigation-focused Venue Equity and Non-Uniformity Elimination (Venue) Act. (S-2733), filed in March (see 1603180057). The legislation would revamp rules for placement of patent infringement lawsuits in federal courts, requiring at least one of the parties involved in the suit be connected directly to the jurisdiction in which the lawsuit is filed. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., has said he isn’t opposed to narrowly focused patent bills like S-2733 but prefers to focus on his more comprehensive Innovation Act (HR-9), which also addresses patent litigation venue issues (see 1603250056). A “cautious stance” on bills like S-2733 is needed until the effects of the establishment of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and other changes to the patent system enacted via the 2011 America Invents Act “are better understood,” the academics said in their letter to Goodlatte and other House and Senate Judiciary leaders. Although calls for revamping venue rules sound plausible because of the high concentration of patent infringement suits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the push for bills like S-2733 primarily is coming from tech firms and online retailers “that would rather litigate in a small number of more defendant-friendly jurisdictions,” the academics said. They said other arguments in favor of S-2733 “do not stand up to scrutiny,” including claims the bill would spread lawsuits to other courts around the country. Some S-2733 supporters “have found that restricting venue in a manner similar to the VENUE Act would likely result in concentrating more than 50% of patent lawsuits in just two districts: the District of Delaware (where most publicly traded corporations are incorporated) and the Northern District of California (where many patent defendants are headquartered),” the academics said. S-2733 would “raise costs for many patent owners by requiring them to litigate the same patent against multiple defendants in multiple jurisdictions, increasing patent litigation overall,” the academics said: The bill also “encourages the manipulation of well-settled venue rules across all areas of law by the self-serving efforts of large corporate defendants that seek to insulate themselves from the consequences of violating the law. By enacting the Venue Act, Congress would send a strong signal to corporate defendants that they can tilt the substantive playing field by simply shifting cases to defendant-friendly jurisdictions.”

Limelight Networks reached a settlement Monday with Akamai Technologies to end their long-running patent infringement battle over an Akamai-owned content delivery system patent that was the subject of a 2014 Supreme Court case (see report in the June 3, 2014, issue). Limelight agreed to pay $54 million to Akamai -- spread over 12 consecutive quarters -- in exchange for a patent license and a commitment from both parties to reliquish their right to further appeals of the case. A U.S. District Court in Boston ordered Limelight last month to pay Akamai $51 million damages for infringing Akamai’s patent after the case was remanded from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (see 1607010068). “We are pleased by the outcome of this agreement. It eliminates the continuing risk from [Akamai’s] patent and allows us to extend the $51 million payment over a three-year period at an attractive interest rate,” said Limelight CEO Robert Lento in a news release.

The Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC) performing rights organization said its new tool for linking digital music files to specific copyrighted compositions is the first part of a new performing rights intelligence platform aimed at accelerating royalty revenue distribution. The new secure online tool will integrate with the existing online rights database used by SESAC and its Rumblefish and Harry Fox Agency (HFA) subsidiaries, SESAC said. The tool is currently available only to publishers that license streaming services via HFA but will become available to other SESAC, HFA and Rumblefish clients in the coming months, SESAC said. “By powering our licensing and administration business units with the industry leading combined SESAC Holdings database, we're able to make rights administration more efficient, simpler, and more lucrative,” SESAC CEO John Josephson said in a Friday news release.

Google landed a new U.S. patent that reveals details of the company’s plan to make online streaming look and feel more like over-the-air TV viewing by offering viewers the chance to channel-surf with familiar up-down hopping and instant picture previews. Current content streaming is too much of a computer experience rather than a traditional television viewing experience, says the patent, published July 19 by the Patent and Trademark Office, based on a May 2014 application. The viewer is faced with “vast amounts of content which require navigating through an endless hierarchy of menus and interacting with cumbersome search boxes,” it says. With TV viewing, “users often enjoy the somewhat addictive pleasure of scanning through content in search of something they want to watch,” it says. “In contrast, current on-demand interfaces often include elaborate text guides meant to facilitate quick surveying of available programming. But reading text requires the kind of cognitive effort that a user often attempts to avoid when watching television.” Google’s solution is to propose that as soon as the viewer accesses one content stream, the device automatically accesses a set of different content streams, chosen on a “more of the same” basis or tailored to the viewer’s preference profile, the patent says. So if the viewer chooses an action movie, the system automatically accesses several other action movies, choosing actors that the viewer has previously watched, it says. Some random content may be thrown in for serendipity purposes, it says. If the user previously has changed channels when things get scary on screen, the device steers clear of scary movies, it says. The extra streams -- Google suggests there should be at least five -- are buffered and labeled with names or numbers similar to those used by broadcast TV stations, it says. That way the viewer can get an instant preview of several online TV streams, just as if they were off-air broadcasts, it says. The buffering plays enough of the content to let the stream take over if the viewer chooses one to watch, it says. The system would work equally well with online radio stations or music delivery services, it says. Google didn’t comment on plans to commercialize the invention.

The Copyright Alliance is seeking members' support for an open letter to all candidates campaigning in the November general election that backs a “strong copyright system that rewards creativity and promotes a healthy economy.” Copyright law “should protect creators from those who would use the internet to undermine creativity,” the CA-led letter said. “The internet can be a great tool for creators just as it can be a tool” for other disciplines. “However, when misused, it can harm creativity and stifle freedom of expression,” the letter said. The CA also said content creators should be “part of the conversation” on a potential congressional revamp of copyright law. “Some organizations and advocates, who in many cases are funded by online platforms, repeatedly claim to be pro-creators and pro-audience to mask their own self-serving agenda,” the CA said in the letter. “The creative community is rightfully wary of any company or organization that claims to be 'against piracy' when their actions do not match their words.”

MicroVision sees laser-based 3D-sensing technology called “LIDAR” as an “important growth area for us,” CEO Alexander Tokman said on a Thursday earnings call. He defined LIDAR -- an acronym for light detection and ranging -- as a sensing method that uses pulse-laser light to measure ranges, surfaces and volumes. “Think of it as a detection system that works on the principle of radar, but uses light from a laser as a source,” Tokman said. Many top CE companies “are defining new products for 2018 and beyond that use LIDAR-like technologies,” he said. They include “near-field” 3D sensing for gesture-recognition uses, “mid-field” sensing for “robo-guidance” applications and “far-field” sensing for use in autonomous vehicles, he said. MicroVision believes its “baseline capability” in LIDAR technology “is superior” to those of its competitors, he said. “We've garnered interest from some major consumer electronics OEMs based on what we have demonstrated with paper models of our superior capabilities in this area,” Tokman said. “In order to move to the next stage, we plan to create working prototypes, which could be validated and verified by our prospective partners for products starting as early as late 2017 and beyond. The investments we're making today in 3D sensing technology are necessary precursors for tapping into the growth opportunity we expect to see from this emerging market.”

ICANN's public auction for the registry rights to the .web generic top-level domain concluded with a winning final bid, but the final results aren't confirmed, two domain names industry executives told us Thursday. ICANN and the industry executives separately told us they weren't able to confirm reports the winning bid for .web was $135 million. If true the result would be far higher than the previous highest price paid for a gTLD in a public auction -- GMO Registry's January purchase of the .shop TLD for $41.5 million -- one industry executive said. The identity of the winning bidder for .web wasn't revealed, but the seven parties bidding included Google and domain registry Donuts. ICANN was able to proceed Wednesday with the .web auction after the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles rejected a bid by Donuts to delay the sale amid its lawsuit claiming ICANN was negligent and in breach of contract for not more thoroughly investigating the ownership of rival .web bidder Nu Dot Co (see 1607270027 and 1607250051). ICANN said it would publish the results of the .web auction within seven days of its conclusion.

An independent review of ICANN's Trademark Clearinghouse's (TMCH) services found that few trademark owners are using TMCH's services to register for generic top-level domains (gTLD) during a “sunrise period” before the domains go on general sale or are using the clearinghouse to dispute domain name registrations that include slight variations on their trademarks, ICANN said in a draft report. The Analysis Group independent review was meant to evaluate the efficacy of TMCH's services rather than to make policy recommendations, ICANN said. The independent review found that just under 20 percent of eligible trademark owners have ever used sunrise periods. “Although trademark owners expressed valuing the sunrise period through questionnaire feedback and many apply for sunrise eligibility by submitting proof of use when recording their marks in the TMCH, many trademark owners do not utilize the period,” ICANN said. “This indicates that trademark owners most frequently wait until the general availability period of new gTLDs to register domains of their trademark strings.” Since trademark owners “infrequently dispute resolutions,” an extension of the existing claims service period for disputing domains that match a registered trademark has the potential to be more harmful to non-trademark owner domain registrants than it is to be beneficial to the trademark owners, ICANN said. Public comments on the draft report are due Sept. 3.