• "Diversity Debate Shapes Media Ownership Rules," Congressional Quarterly Weekly, January 27, 2007
  "We are living in a golden age of media, with more choices than ever," said Adam Thierer, senior fellow with the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a free-market-oriented think tank. "If there is a demand, the free market will meet it, and it is meeting it."
• "D.C. Internet Policy Groups Unveil 2007 Agendas," Washington Internet Daily, January 23, 2007
  "PFF will push for 'more focus on antitrust enforcement instead of preemptive regulations' from agencies regarding communications and net neutrality. The Universal Service Fund and spectrum allocation should have a 'more market- oriented approach,' the group said. It said competition in broadband markets and operators' desire to 'maximize network use' will 'ensure consumers' needs will be met.'
  "DRM is here to stay, and is no more imperfect than locks on doors; both are the 'front line' in keeping out thieves, PFF said. Congress shouldn't interfere in copy- protection schemes because 'competition and consumer demand will shape what form any restrictions take,' the group said. The scope of fair use is likely to shrink as 'technology reduces transaction costs' and makes negotiating with copyright owners more practicable. 'Modest' patent reform, such as improving incentives to innovate, and better tools for patent examiners to reduce 'patent conflicts' are all that Congress needs to do on patents, PFF said.
• "Progress And Freedom Foundation Outlines Agenda," Tech Daily, January 19, 2007
  "A market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution released its technology agenda for the 110th Congress on Friday.
  "Technology is bringing unprecedented benefits for consumers, but vigorous competition is the engine or key to those benefits,' Progress and Freedom Foundation President Daniel Caprio said. ‘Government should avoid regulatory interventions unless there is a market failure.'"
  "While PFF supports the concept of innovation, Caprio said it is always best to let the marketplace decide the winners and losers. He would not like to see Congress block proposed marketplace changes that broadband providers want to make by creating speed lanes on the Internet."
• "Rep. Boucher To Resurrect Bill On Digital Copyrights," Tech Daily, January 19, 2007
  "Patrick Ross, a senior fellow for the Progress and Freedom Foundation, is not optimistic that the bill would be 'any more market-friendly' than previous versions. He called the legislation 'hazardous to competition.'
  "Boucher is ‘inclined to use the power of the federal government to mandate terms he would like to see in the digital content industry instead of letting consumers demand through the market what they would like to see,’ Ross said."
• "Industry Notes," Washington Internet Daily, January 11, 2007
  "'Linden Labs didn't pioneer the [open-source development] concept in Second Life as claimed,' [Progress and Freedom Foundation’s] Solveig Singleton told us. 'Vivendi's Blizzard came first by opening "a very small part" of the code in its popular World of Warcraft online game, and adopting popular features created by outside developers in future releases,' she said. But for both, 'it is a far cry from opening all the code,' which would require that 'economics change substantially' in Second Life. The Second Life project more closely resembles a "Web 2.0 business model" -- getting users to create content 'which the proprietors then monetize,' Jim DeLong, PFF Study for the Center of Intellectual Property dir., told us."
• "Martin: CableCARD Waivers Will Be Hard to Get; Cable Caps Important," Communications Daily, January 11, 2007
  "'The set-top box integration ban is outdated,' said analysts with think-tanks prone to favoring less media oversight. The ban ‘is a relic of a “managed competition” regulatory mindset,’ Progress & Freedom Foundation's Tom Lenard wrote: ‘The integration requirement will divert
  resources from the rollout of advanced broadband, video and voice services.'"
• "New Cable Channels; Games Steadily Migrating off Free TV Stations," The Columbus Dispatch, January 7, 2007
  "'We forget that, just 25 years ago, most of us had only three or four channels,' said Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a policy center in Washington." "'People began to think that watching sports on TV was a God-given right, an inalienable right to see any game whenever they wanted,' Thierer said."
• "Net Neutrality Advocates Hail AT&T's Concessions; To Get Approval for BellSouth Company Agrees to Provisions it had Fought," The San Francisco Chronicle, January 7, 2007
  "[T]o get [their merger with BellSouth] past a partisan deadlock among the four voting members of the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T had to compromise."
  "On Dec. 29, it agreed for roughly two years to abide by much the same 'network neutrality' rules that it had spent 2006 strenuously opposing in Congress."
  "The AT&T agreement 'was a shakedown, no question,' said Patrick Ross with the Progress & Freedom Foundation in Washington, a conservative think tank. 'These conditions had nothing to do with the merger between these companies'"
  "Google Riches, Stanford Brains, Lawyers Fight to Widen Fair Use," Consumer Electronics Daily, January 02, 2007
  ''[James] DeLong sees commercial interest and hypocrisy in Google's financing the Project, [the Progress & Freedom Foundation senior fellow] said. 'Google's business model is essentially dependent on lots of content and not paying for it,' he told us: 'So Google's increasingly at odds with content providers who are trying to protect this content and market it directly.' The company sees 'a commonality of interest' with [Stanford Professor Lawrence] -- 'a very important figure in academia, a rock star -- who tries to turn the legitimate doctrine of fair use into a "lever" to undo legitimate copyright protections,' DeLong said. He disputed what he calls Google's position 'that its interests and the public's are automatically the same.'''

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