ISP and internet groups allied before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday in amicus briefs in support of Cox's appeal of a U.S. District Court's upholding a jury's $1 billion verdict that it's liable for subscriber copyright infringement (see 2101130025). NTCA, CTIA and USTelecom said (in Pacer, docket 21-1168) the 4th Circuit should clarify when, if ever, an ISP has specific knowledge that its services are being used for infringing purposes and thus must cut off access. They said for an ISP to be liable for contributory copyright infringement, it must know that it can do something about it, but transmission ISPs aren't able to do anything but cut off service on the assumption future infringements might happen. Because of the verdict against Cox, "transmission ISPs may have no choice but to terminate consumers’ internet access on a massive scale," they said. The Internet Commerce Coalition warned of "crippling damages." It's "Draconian" to require ISPs, on the basis of vicarious and contributory copyright liability, to terminate service to users accused of piracy, the Internet Association said. It said the lower court wrongly says Cox benefits from infringements by its subscribers since those are a minority of subs. IA said terminating access isn't reasonable "because it is a grossly disproportionate response to accusations of illegal downloading." The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology, American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries, Association of Research Libraries and Public Knowledge said affirming the lower court "would have dangerous consequences" because terminating an account "potentially cuts off every household member," and lack of broadband competition may mean no other way to connect. They said the "staggering and poorly justified" $1 billion statutory damages award against Cox "thwarts basic principles of due process and the public interest." IP law professors said there's no proof the infringing activity is a draw for subs, thus no proof Cox received direct financial benefit from piracy.

Hughes and SES/O3b petitioned for FCC changes to April's SpaceX license modification (see 2104260044). The FCC should have imposed conditions to stop SpaceX from evading equivalent power flux density (EPFD) limits through multiple ITU filings, Hughes told the International Bureau Thursday in a petition for reconsideration. It said the commission should require any favorable or "qualified favorable" finding SpaceX gets from the ITU should say the effect of multiple ITU filings for the SpaceX constellation was considered when verifying EPFD compliance. SES/O3b urged the application to be treated as part of the non-geostationary orbit satellite processing round that closed in May 2020, or "at least adopt more even-handed and comprehensive conditions to protect O3b’s U.S. operations from disruption," such as requiring SpaceX accept any additional interference from the license mod with O3b's network. It said the FCC should require SpaceX to include in biannual reports the total of satellites in orbit and the agency should reconsider the threshold of three satellite disposal failures in a year as enough to trigger consideration of more license conditions. SpaceX didn't comment Friday. Viasat seeks a stay (see 2105240005).

AT&T's spinoff of WarnerMedia and combining it with Discovery (see 2105160003) isn't likely to go through FCC review, we've learned, even though some interest groups critical of media consolidation hope the agency will get involved. FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told reporters no application is pending. In some past mega-deals of this sort, the regulator also didn't get very involved. The agency didn't comment now.

Federal regulators are likely looking closely at possible antitrust action against Amazon, but the company's $8.45 billion buy of MGM announced Wednesday isn't expected to face federal or state antitrust challenges, experts told us. Lawmakers we interviewed questioned the potential monopoly power of Amazon while wanting the deal scrutinized.

Being vertically integrated with content helped AT&T's domestic connectivity business, but it became apparent its HBO Max platform needed to be global in scale to compete and wouldn't fit with the U.S. focus, hence the spinoff and Discovery deal (see 2105160003), CEO John Stankey said Monday during a JP Morgan conference. He said AT&T's smaller dividend after the DirecTV and WarnerMedia spinoffs will mean more capital the company can invest into wireless and fiber deployment for connectivity.

Though cable operators are shedding landline voice subscribers, experts said they don't see disconnecting that offering in the foreseeable future since it drives some revenue and reduces churn. The landline subs losses aren't a cable-only issue, said industry consultant Steve Effros. "Everybody is losing landline customers." Comcast and Charter are gaining sizable wireless subscriber bases, he said.

AT&T's simultaneous spinoff of WarnerMedia and joining it with Discovery is expected by some to skate through regulatory OK. AT&T said the deal announced Monday will result in a huge increase in customers it serves by fiber and its 5G C-band network.

Satellite regulatory experts said SpaceX's license modification approved last month (see 2104270027) could point to how the FCC is thinking about collision risk in its orbital debris proceeding. An official said it’s not clear when acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel might act on that docket, or if she will wait until there’s a full roster of commissioners. The official said the rules update item doesn’t seem very controversial since SpaceX and Kuiper, which would be the biggest mega constellations, haven’t lodged big objections.

The regulatory patchwork of federal agencies covering emerging space operators got a mixed report card during an FCBA panel discussion Wednesday. Many applauded recent changes while saying the slow pace of licensing approvals is a challenge, and innovations often don't fit into the regulatory status quo. “It's not exactly enabling companies to move fast,” said Spire regulatory lawyer Michelle McClure.

The FCC 2022 quadrennial review could be a way to try to tackle broadcast diversity and localism items, and auction 109 could help stem the trend of radio stations closing during the pandemic, Commissioner Geoffrey Starks told the Media Institute Tuesday (prepared remarks here). He said his chief policy focuses include broadband access and media diversity. He said lack of an affordable broadband connection is a sizable problem for communities of color. Starks said FCC data shows declines in numbers of radio stations due to the pandemic, but "perhaps the tide will turn" with the agency's July 27 auction of radio construction permits. He said as the nation heads to a post-pandemic time, the radio industry's business fortunes should rebound somewhat. He called the Supreme Court's Prometheus decision (see 2104010067) a win for agency deference, even though it found the challenged ownership rules weren't necessary, giving the FCC space to revisit its rules in the QE with diversity "front and center as consideration." He said media consolidation might be considered a less significant problem due to growing internet and streaming competition to broadcast TV, but broadcast TV's importance during the pandemic reinforces the inherent value of having multiple voices in a public arena. Post-Prometheus, "we should have all ideas on the table," he said, adding he was pleased with Commissioner Brendan Carr's call to reinstate the broadcast incubator program. Starks said the FCC looking into reinstatement of collection of minority employment data from broadcasters (see 2103260038) "is long overdue." He said not having that equal employment opportunity data hampered the agency from fulfilling its statutory duty to monitor broadcast employer practices and ensuring broadcasters provide opportunity.