COMMERCE DEPT.'S MEHLMAN DEFENDS GOVT. COPYRIGHT POLICIES

High-ranking Commerce Dept. official held his ground last week against Internet technology experts who challenged his defense of govt.’s intellectual property protections.

“People deserve reimbursement” for their creative work, Bruce Mehlman, Commerce Dept.’s asst. secy.-technology policy, told panel at Supernova technology conference in suburban Washington sponsored by Pulver.com. Audience member drew applause when he said file-sharing was justified on ground that it wasn’t fair to turn successful technology into “federal crime.” However, Mehlman responded that he assumed speaker wasn’t suggesting similar stance on patents: “People need to feed their families, they expect to be paid for their intellectual property.”

Another audience member said it wasn’t fair that there was effort to protect copyright holders “to perpetuity” rather than seek specific time limit. Mehlman asked whether speaker was saying that policy was “so extreme no one should honor it.” He said he didn’t think “the average 16-year-old” file sharer would think about time limits on copyrights before copying material and he doubted 16-year-old would decide to wait until he was 30 when copyright ran out. “It’s a balancing act” but “I don’t believe it is unreasonable to protect intellectual property,” Mehlman said. Real issue is whether there should be limits, he said.

Mehlman said he did agree that rather than being mandated by govt., solution should be market-based “protective technologies” such as broadcast flag, which could “give people what they want” without harming creators. “I don’t think this will be solved in Washington,” he said. Mehlman said he did think enforcement was needed, along with education. He and other members of panel urged those in technology business to become more involved in such issues. “The content community effectively is speaking with 1, 2, 3 voices [but] the technology industry never spoke with the same voice” on issues such as digital rights management, he said. Gigi Sohn, pres. of Public Knowledge, said, “The fractured-ness [of tech groups] really hurts.” She said “the technology industry has laid down and died on broadcast flag.” Technology industry was clear in its opposition to bill sponsored last session by Sen. Hollings (D-S.C.) but it hadn’t focused on broadcast flag, a “Hollings light” measure that had similar results, she said. Asked which organizations technologists should lobby, Mehlman said “go everywhere,” while Legg Mason analyst Blair Levin said state regulators had “increasingly important role” that was “underappreciated.”

Earlier, panel of FCC officials said proposal by ex-FCC Chmn. Reed Hundt to subsidize fiber to home throughout country would need congressional action. He said in recent speech that there should be direct taxpayer subsidy to wire homes for broadband connections. Such costs could be offset by phasing out universal service support for voice service and requiring broadcasters to pay for their DTV spectrum, he said. Peter Tenhula, dir. of FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force, said idea “deserves attention and debate if it ever got through Congress.” Robert Cannon of FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning said that would be good “green field idea” if starting from scratch. However, along with technical solutions, political and market solutions were needed, he said. Barbara Esbin, assoc. chief of FCC Media Bureau, pointed out that DTV program was designed so broadcasters would give back some of their spectrum for other uses. Scott Marcus, senior FCC adviser for Internet technology, said he also wasn’t sure “if the economics work” because it was “not clear that people need that amount of bandwidth yet.”

FCC panel urged technology experts in audience to interact more with policymakers. “We don’t hear a lot from folks like you,” said Rob Tanner, legal adviser in FCC Wireline Bureau. More interaction “would go a long way toward giving us a real- world understanding in an unfiltered way.” Esbin said that, for example, there had been remarkable lack of contact from ISP community on cable broadband issue. She recommended that industry arrange meetings occasionally to just “let us know what you're doing.” Tenhula said it was very useful to attend trade shows to “see what the technology looks like that we regulate.”