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As an early opponent of network neutrality regulations, it’s tempting for me to characterize as a victory today’s DC Circuit Court decision throwing out some of the FCC’s network neutrality rules, and indeed it is a victory—in part, and for now. It’s true that the court threw out the most onerous rule on anti-discrimination, while also tossing out a symbolic anti-blocking rule that market proponents understand was completely unnecessary.

But the Court agreed with the FCC on its authority to regulate broadband services, which means Verizon lost on its core assertion that the FCC had no statutory authority to regulate broadband networks. This is underscored by new FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s triumphalist reaction to the case. Everyone spins the results of important court decisions such as this, but the early social media reactions that “Verizon won and the FCC lost” were an uninformed oversimplification.

Last night, CBS’s 60 Minutes news magazine did a profile on Kim Dotcom, the infamous personality behind the now-shuttered Megaupload file sharing site.

I watched out of curiosity to see whether 60 Minutes would accurately portray Kim as the serial criminal that he is, or whether they’d allow him to get away with his “I’m just the happy elf of the Internet” persona that he tries to convey.

Within the time available, 60 Minutes actually did a pretty balanced job. Of course, the SWAT-like raid on his compound got considerable attention during the piece, and frankly even critics like me have to admit that was probably overkill—seems to me you don’t bring in an armed assault team unless you’ve been given some reason to think you’ll need it. Of course, Kim’s extensive criminal career (see below), might well have suggested to law enforcement personnel that more than a courtesy call was in order. But the details of the raid are a distraction from the facts of the case, given the rest of the details of the 60 Minutes story, and especially after considering some of the facts that 60 Minutes omitted.

On the subject of the minimum wage, people seem almost immune to objective, empirical arguments, but one has to state them anyway, if almost only for the record:

Wages are the price of labor. Higher skilled labor is worth a higher price. Lower skilled labor is worth a lower price.

When you set a legal price control on labor, which is what a minimum wage is, you make it illegal for low skill workers to sell their labor. It's as simple as that.

People generally seem to understand that prices reflect value, except when it comes to labor.

What if we made a law that said fast food hamburgers could cost no less than $20? People would be outraged, and would (correctly) argue that this made it impossible for low-income folks to afford fast food hamburgers.

Well, if you pass a law that says people who work in fast food places can make no less than $20, you make it impossible for low-skill workers to sell their labor to the fast food place. The owner of the business must respond to the price control, just like the consumer must respond to price controls.

Last Thursday (December 12) the Department of Commerce hosted an all-day discussion\public meeting on “Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy.” And thanks to the miracle of on-line streaming video, I was able to “be there” for most of it.

This event was part of a process that began with the release of a “green paper” back on July 31^st that was an attempt to survey existing copyright law in its relationship to technology changes, and see what updates might be necessary.

This is, of course, a healthy process. While we at IPI are strong proponents of intellectual property protection, no law is perfect. It’s important for defenders of IP to not simply be kneejerk defenders of the status quo, and in fact, if we are confident that we are correct in the obvious utility of IP protection, we should not be afraid of examination and even the need to update the law periodically.

One thing a lot of people seem to be missing is that this past week's new, stubborn determination on the part of elected Republicans in the House to follow their own strategy calculation and to not cave in to outside pressure groups is a direct result of the disastrous experience House Republicans had the last time they caved into pressure from these groups in the effort to shutdown the government in order to fail at defunding Obamacare.

Leadership knew there was no chance that effort would succeed. It didn't take much smarts to game that out. But a sufficient number of members were intimidated by a small number of outside groups and felt they had no choice but to go down that road and crash into that wall.

Predictably the effort failed, not for lack of principles or courage, but because of obvious political reality that anyone with any sense already knew ahead of time. Elected members got burned by caving in to unwise and flawed strategic pressure from the outside groups.

The strategic mistake here was a small number of outside groups taking a predictably flawed strategic position and then intimidating elected officials into following that flawed strategy. It was a mistake, and the repercussion is that their influence going forward is diminished.

Okay, so it looks like Mr. Wheeler is getting a good start, choosing the IP transition as a major push for his tenure at the FCC:

http://www.fcc.gov/blog/ip-transition-starting-now

He must have read my TechByte from last week, in which I said:

Wheeler should start by recognizing that it is ridiculous for our wireline communications infrastructure to still be required to maintain and operate an outdated circuit-switched network. We are well into the transition from analog to digital communications in every area except wireline, where providers are still required by the FCC to operate a network based on 50-year-old technology.

Here’s hoping the FCC gets on with the business of facilitating, rather than hindering, private sector innovation. We wish you well, Mr. Wheeler.

I have to assume it was my TechByte that did it. Most likely explanation.

Today, IPI submitted comments to the USPTO regarding the U.S. Department of Commerce Green Paper on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy.

Responding to whether and how the government can facilitate the further development of a robust online licensing system, IPI president Tom Giovanetti states in the comments:

Our conclusion is that there is nothing additional that the federal government needs to do to facilitate a robust online licensing environment other than to fully engage in its existing obligation to protect copyright and to ensure an environment where rule-of-law prevails and where rights holders can be assured of justice and enforcement of their rights. 

Specifically and most often this means 1) not allowing the proliferation of sources that offer illegal access to protected works, and 2) not succumbing to activist pressure to weaken copyright protection. 

Apparently the folks over at Engadget sponsored a conference in New York this past Sunday, and of course they did a panel on copyright policy. Of course they did.

But balance wasn’t apparently high on the agenda. In fact, hearing from people who actually create, own, and market creative goods—the main stakeholders in copyright—apparently wasn’t on the agenda at all. Here was the makeup of the panel:

On Friday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) held its 2013 Global IP Summit at its headquarters in Washington, DC. The event was very well attended, at least through its highlight, the luncheon panel on patent litigation reform.

One highlight for me came early in the program when former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez made it clear that attacks on intellectual property rights are attacks on capitalism. You might could tell that this is a pet theme of mine from this recent blog entry.

During the patent litigation reform panel, it was clear that there is some subset of Rep. Goodlatte’s proposed legislation that pretty much everyone could agree upon, though of course such a subset of solutions would not please those who are fond of very broad definitions of patent “trolls,” and who would like to see it made much more difficult to uphold a broad array of patents. As Manus Cooney put it, “to the degree to which you make patent enforcement more difficult, you make patent trolling less risky.”

Yesterday, during testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen announced that their Internet Essentials program, designed to encourage broadband adoption among low-income families, has connected more than 1 million Americans to the Internet.

That's more than 250,000 families in a span of just over two years.

"That's more than the entire population of a city like San Francisco or a state like Delaware or Montana" Cohen said.

The Internet Essentials program offers low-cost broadband at $9.95 per month to families that qualify for the National School Lunch Program (and obviously who live in Comcast's service area). They also offer a computer for under $150 and computer literacy education.

Great example of a voluntary program, using no government funding. It's also the kind of program only a company with resources the size of Comcast's could pull off. So remember that when you hear people screaming about broadband companies being too large or too dominant. Big companies can also do big, good things.

Today, a new caucus was formed on Capitol Hill in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

"Friends of the Trans Pacific Partnership" was formed by Congressmen Dave Reichert (R-WA), Ron Kind (D-WI), Charles Boustany (R-LA), and Gregory Meeks (D-NY). Here's a link to the press release from Congressman Reichert.

As the TPP (hopefully) begins to draw toward a successful completion, it's good to see support for the agreement beginning to form on Capitol Hill.

Okay, so the good guys lost this battle. On to the next one.

With “this battle,” of course, I’m referring to the government shutdown over . . . what was it over again? Defunding Obamacare? Delaying the individual mandate? It seems like it was over three or four things before it was . . . over.

Look, you don’t win every battle. This one, we lost. We tried to take a hill, and we failed. You pick yourself up, you address your wounds, you assimilate the lessons, and you move on.

Some argued that we should not have charged this hill—that we knew there was little to no chance of success, and that we should not lead our troops into a battle without at least a decent chance of winning. Others argued that the fight was a noble one, the cause a just one, and that it should be taken on regardless of the chances of success, which turned out to be a kamikaze strategy. Regardless, it was a debate over strategy and tactics, not principle. A tactic or two was tried, they failed, and now we hopefully learn from it and move on without shooting too many of our own in the process. Because they’ll be needed for the next battle.