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PFF in the News...
 
May 2007
  • "Body Blow for Martin in Violence Bill," Multichannel News, May 30, 2007
    "'It is a very broad mandate. It's a completely open-ended mandate to let Kevin Martin, presumably, engage in his regulatory wish list,' said media analyst Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation in Washington, D.C."
  • "Coalition Pushes for US Broadband Plan," PC World.com, May 24, 2007
    "Scott Wallsten, a senior fellow at free-market think tank the Progress and Freedom Foundation, called the term 'open access' a brilliant branding strategy.
    "'How could anyone oppose proposals with names like net neutrality, Internet freedom, and open access?' Wallsten wrote in a newsletter. 'But ... these proposals, if implemented, would create a regulatory hell of complicated rules and endless lobbying while undermining incentives to invest in critical wireless and wired broadband infrastructure.'"
  • "Congress Unlikely to Pass TV Violence Regulation Law Soon," Communications Daily, May 21, 2007
    "Cable operators aren't likely move soon to offer a la carte programming, because that step won't address the problem of TV violence and makes no financial sense, PFF panelists agreed.
    "[An audience member] told the Hill gathering that a la carte is 'really just a free-market solution.' PFF's Adam Thierer disagreed, saying he can't recall any cable network that favors a la carte."
  • "Web Innovator Challenges Smithsonian Over Images," Tech Daily, May 18, 2007
    "[T]he Progress and Freedom Foundation's Solveig Singleton said [the] uploading of images [from the Smithsonian Institution website] and re-releasing them 'does not enormously enrich the public,' as compared to the work museums do to preserve and provide the historical context for images.
    "She said the Smithsonian's site is consistent with its mission to disseminate knowledge 'even if it does not do so instantaneously or for free.' Singleton said, 'For-pay mechanisms in the long run offer a more sustainable economic basis for preservation of historical works.'"
  • "ESA Selects New President," Gamespot.com, May 17, 2007
    "The ESA today announced that founding president Doug Lowenstein will be succeeded by Mike Gallagher, former assistant secretary of commerce for communications and chief telecommunications and policy advisor to the Bush administration. "
    "Gallagher starts later this month, leaving behind his position as communications practice chair at Perkins Coie law firm. He has also served on the board of directors for Web hosting company GoDaddy and has been an adjunct fellow with the Progress and Freedom Foundation, which describes itself as 'a market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications for public policy.'"
  • "Cable Lobby Group: Gutting the FCC Would Be Better For Everyone," Arstechnica.com, May 16, 2007
    "This rising competition means that it's time for new rules to govern the industry, and [Kyle] McSlarrow fortunately has some ideas to draw on; throughout the speech, he mentions the work of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a strongly market-oriented think tank that is supported in part by the NCTA, Comcast, and Time Warner.
    "The PFF has been working for several years on a 'Digital Age Communications Act Project' that counts Ken Starr, Esther Dyson, Dick Armey, and Ira Magaziner among its advisory committee. The DACA Project has called for a basic change in the structure of the FCC, one that McSlarrow supports. In his view, the agency should only have the authority to introduce regulation 'if it determines that marketplace competition would not adequately protect consumers against unfair methods of competition or unfair and deceptive practices.' All FCC regulations would expire in five years, and there would be a 'presumption against regulation.'"
  • "Muscling MySpace," Forbes, May 12, 2007
    "[Adam] Thierer, Director of the Center for Digital Media Freedom at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, accuses the attorneys general of political posturing. 'What troubles me is the question, "Why are these people out of jail and behind keyboards?"' Thierer says. He cites Department of Justice statistics showing that sex offenders have an average sentence of seven years, with most achieving parole in just three. 'This letter [demanding MySpace disclose Sentinel data] points to a fundamental failure of law enforcement officials to deal with child abuse in this country. We need to find these people and bring them to justice. Instead, we're playing political games, passing the buck to MySpace.'"
  • "Editorial: Best Internet Protection for Kids Is Right in Their Homes," The Herald Argus, IN, May 14, 2007
    "Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, noted for McClatchy Newspapers that 'I would actually rather our kids and their parents be a little uneasy about what social networking sites they visit. I want kids to have questions in their heads, and I want parents to be asking them questions about those sites.'"
  • "Parent Consent for Sites Urged; Plan Would Curb Web Predators," The News & Observer, NC, May 11, 2007
    "[Adam] Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, questioned whether the state should require age verification knowing they won't protect all children.
    "'Are we creating a false sense of security online?' Thierer asked.
    "Thierer's employer is a non-profit technology think tank based in Washington, D.C. He said the foundation has received some funding from MySpace.com's parent company, News Corp."
  • "Stanford Center Advocates for Fair Use on Web," NPR News, May 7, 2007
    "SYDELL: [James] DeLong of the Conservative Progress and Freedom Foundation thinks intellectual property is a commodity that should be more tightly protected.
    "Mr. JAMES DELONG (Senior Fellow, Conservative Progress and Freedom): Our concern is that there are elements, largely in the universities, which really do not favor intellectual property and would like to see it more or less undermined and destroyed. And our view is actually that Fair Use, to a certain degree, should be constricted rather than expanded."
  • "Supreme Court Rules on Patent Obviousness in KSR v. Teleflex," Tech Law Journal, May 7, 2007
    "Solveig Singleton, of the Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF), wrote in a release that 'A more narrow opinion that still addresses the substantive issue of obviousness is hard to imagine. There was little guidance from the Court on the systemic issues raised by amici and the parties, such as evidentiary standards, presumptions of validity, how or why to improve the examiner’s and the courts' access to the opinions of "persons of ordinary skill in the art," and so on.'"
  • "States Ponder Laws to Keep Web Predators from Children," The New York Times, May 6, 2007
    "Adam D. Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation who has studied sexual predators on the Internet, said that while age verification is the 'argument du jour,' research shows that limiting convicted sex offenders' access to the Internet would be more effective. Several states, including New York, have enacted legislation requiring sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses with law enforcement; New Jersey has a similar proposal pending.
    '''It's the same thing as saying to a kid, "You can't hang out in video arcades, because someone might try to come and get you,"' Mr. Thierer said. 'The better thing to do would be to stop the criminal from getting there. This worrying just creates a new kind of moral panic.'"
  • "Will: Why Howard Dean Wants to Re-regulate the Media," Newsweek, May 7, 2007
    "Adam Thierer, writing in the City Journal, notes that today's 'media cornucopia' has made America 'as information-rich as any society in history.' In addition to the Internet's uncountable sources of information, there are 14,000 radio stations—twice as many as in 1970—and satellite radio has nearly 14 million subscribers. Eighty-seven percent of households have either cable or satellite television with more than 500 channels to choose from. There are more than 19,000 magazines (up more than 5,000 since 1993). Thierer says, consider a black lesbian feminist who hunts and likes country music:
    "'Would the "mainstream media" of 25 years ago represented any of her interests? Unlikely. Today, though, this woman can program her TiVo to record her favorite shows on Black Entertainment Television, Logo (a gay/lesbian-oriented cable channel), Oxygen (female-targeted programming), the Outdoor Life Network and Country Music Television.'"
  • "Big Day @ SCOTUS," Tech Daily Dose, May 1, 2007
    "Solveig Singleton of the Progress & Freedom Foundation said the court, which ruled in favor of KSR [against Teleflex], 'reached the right result.' 'The case is on the right track in paving the road for a more stringent standard of non-obviousness,' she said.
    "Congress should exercise caution in the wake of the decision, Singleton said. 'Rather than tackling the statutory standard of obviousness directly, address the better-understood institutional and legal process issues,' she said. More circuit courts should hear patent appeals to give the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit some feedback, she said."
  • "Gaming the System," National Review Online, May 1, 2007
    "As Adam Thierer of the Progress and Freedom Foundation extensively details in his paper, 'Parents Have Many Tools to Combat Objectionable Media Content,' industry groups and other private organizations provide a vast array of methods for parents to block or filter media content.


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