Federal regulators are voting on closing a loophole that allows cable TV operators to withhold sporting events and other popular programming that they own from satellite companies and other rivals.
Price cuts by the two biggest U.S. wireless providers, AT&T and Verizon, could put beleaguered
Sprint Nextel Corp., the country's No. 3 wireless carrier, in an even tighter bind as it fights to turn around its fortunes.
The Federal Communications Commission voted to close a "loophole" that allowed cable operators to withhold local sports programming from competitors.
In a 4-1 vote, the commissioners ended the "terrestrial loophole," which prevents satellite TV providers and new TV providers, such as AT&T and Verizon Communications, from offering some live sports channels in certain areas of the country.
Amazon is playing hardball with book publishers. The Seattle online bookseller says it will give authors a 70%
cut of the sale of e-books sold for its Kindle readers, essentially offering writers a way to bypass traditional book
publishers.
The Obama administration is backing $675,000 in damages a Massachusetts student must pay the Recording Industry Association of America for file sharing 30 songs.
Verizon is terminating internet service to an unknown number of repeat copyright scofflaws, a year after suggesting it was not adopting a so-called graduated-response policy.
Executives at Microsoft are fond of saying that its subscription gaming service, Xbox Live, should be thought of as a cable channel.
The company is even producing shows for users: it is in the middle of the second season of “1 vs. 100,” an interactive version of a game show that was on NBC.The content ambitions do not end there. Microsoft has held in-depth talks with the Walt Disney Company about a programming deal with ESPN, according to people close to the talks, who requested anonymity because the talks were intended to be private.
For a per-subscriber fee, ESPN could provide live streams of sporting events, similar to the ones available through ESPN 360,
Similarly, users of the Sony PlayStation can tune into BBC shows and see Weather Channel updates, as well as stream Netflix. Last week, Netflix extended its streaming service to the Nintendo Wii.
console makers have a significant head start. Nearly 60 percent of American homes now have at least one console, according to the consulting firm Deloitte, up from 44 percent three years ago.
In November, Nielsen started to track “1 vs. 100” play and ad views. The pilot program “is the tip of the iceberg,” said Gerardo Guzman, a director for Nielsen Games; eventually, he hopes to generate TV-style ratings.Mr. Kroese said Xbox advertisers were “very interested in being able to compare the media buy on Xbox to other media buys they do.”
The issue of pairing fan-created videos with recorded music is one that still awaits court ruling. Music companies are suing video sites for copyright infringement when fans upload self-created videos using songs from their copyrighted artists.
Buried in the language of the FCC's proposed rules for net neutrality is a loophole that states the the principles do not apply to copyrighted works. This clause would pressure Internet Service Providers to act as copyright police.