WASHINGTON – National civil rights, human rights, consumer, and labor organizations sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission today, urging the agency to adopt a “legally justifiable regulatory framework” so that it may accomplish the goals of its National Broadband Plan.
Tyrone Brown, former FCC Commissioner and President of Media Access Project, issued [...]

Comcast’s quarterly earnings call this week wasn’t particularly startling for Wall Street, but the debate it sparked in the tech world is worth noting. Comcast lost basic cable subs, but revenue per customer of the ones remaining went up. Thus, its revenue picture was not bad. But the question for the techies [...]

Argues that FCC’s failure to force divestiture gives News Corp. “unfair advantage”
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable
Cablevision got a shout-out Thursday for its argument that Fox was “improperly leveraging” its duopoly in New York, one that was secured through a now-expired FCC waiver.
That was the message from Media Access Project in a [...]

WASHINGTON — Media Access Project (MAP) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski today, complaining that Fox’s failure to comply with FCC ownership rules is giving it an unfair advantage in its dispute with Cablevision over TV program carriage in the New York market.
Fox has failed to comply with [...]

In what may be the most important First Amendment case of the year, the Supreme Court will determine the constitutionality of a California statute restricting the sale of violent videogames to minors. The fact that the Court accepted this case for review in the absence of any disagreement among the lower federal courts was [...]

We’re moving closer to the day when micropayments will be economically feasible on a large scale. The technology is pretty much ready, and the costs are coming down. Expect news and other content websites to start experimenting with per article or “day pass” charges with a simple one-click button.
PayPal Unveils Micropayments For Digital [...]

Internet guru Tim Wu’s new book won’t be officially released until next week, but it is already generating a huge buzz, pro and con.  He warns that history teaches that unrestrained market place forces will tend to erode Internet freedoms.  RoadMAP’s favorite libertarian, Adam Thierer, has already launched a frontal attack [...]

Most RoadMAP subscribers probably saw coverage last week of the revelation that three of the four major TV networks are blocking their content from the new GoogleTV service.  (The Wall Street Journal’s coverage is here.)   The confrontation is significant in a number of ways; among other things, it marks another front [...]

Netflix is leading the way towards defining the future delivery of video over the Internet.  Its quarterly earnings call Wednesday showed that its impressive growth continues apace.  Indeed, a new report from Sandvine is reverberating around the tech blogs.  It claims that Netflix now accounts for 20 percent of peak bandwidth [...]

Robert Reich manages to put a human face on an abstract topic: disintermediation in the media.
Steal This Author- In A Few Years, We’ll Be Able To Do Without Publishers.
Several years ago, I was put in the window of a Midwestern bookstore next to a large sign announcing, “Robert Reich is here to sign his latest [...]