The National Broadband Map was brought about by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in order to research communities across the U.S. to help create a visualization of broadband availability.  The map launched within the last week and has seen a massive amount of hits (and can be found here). Geographic Information Officer, Michael Byrne, [...]

Michael DeGusta does a nice job analyzing “The REAL Death of the Music Industry” at Business Insider. In terms of revenue per capita, the recorded music business has gone down from $71 in 2000 to $26 in 2009 (2011 dollars).  In terms of raw revenue, the take fell from about $15 billion in 1999 [corrected] [...]

Harris and Wong comment on “Internet Freedom” and believe the government should be doing more to promote solutions to ongoing issues that threaten the existing state of the Net. The two comment that circumvention tools that were used in Egypt to get around blocking attempts and censorship were not enough and were not a solution to Internet blackouts.

Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) grilled FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski about the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules, and whether the rules would cover disputes like the one between Level 3 and Comcast. Genachowski evaded the question and even misrepresented his own rules to preserve the flexibility for future FCC intervention and overreach.

A 57% majority of the US House of Representatives has voted to block funding for the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules passed by a slim FCC majority last December. The vote now heads to the Senate and then the President’s desk. We found the FCC rules to be incoherent because the FCC ignored the record and overreached when it outlawed Paid Prioritization.

Today’s NYT has  an article by Scott Turow, head of the Authors’ Guild, and some colleagues entitled Would the Bard Have Survived the Web? that defends copyright and intellectual property, and the importance of institutions that allow creators to monetize their work. By the time Shakespeare turned to writing, . . . “cultural paywalls” were [...]

The testimony is available from last Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing on “Targeting Websites Dedicated To Stealing American Intellectual Property.” I could not go, unfortunately, so I will have to await the transcript to read the discussion, but the prepared statements are fine. Witnesses included the content side – the CEO of an innovative content company [...]

Programmers should follow Warner Bros lead and immediately start thinking of ways to protect their content within their own apps. Why give the content away for free through Hulu, or your own website, when you can do it through an app, and protect the content.

Video delivered via apps (whether desktop or mobile) would allow rights management, and provide a revenue stream, not a revenue hole. Want to watch Lost via your iPad? There’s an app for that.

Facts of Life: The Citizen’s Guide to Network Engineering The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation Richard Bennett February 2011 In Bennett’s latest white paper, he focuses his attention on the notion in which many believe the Internet has always worked at a “dumb pipe” system, or a network consisting of no management.  This is a [...]

It appears that average wireless service nationwide have reached new highs rising above 16% as politicians look for something to maintain state and local coffers in a down economy.  This is more than twice as high as the average rate of other consumption taxes and states like Nebraska, Washington, and New York top the list [...]