Clinton plans to stump for global Net freedom
The speech will come just nine days after Google's blunt declaration about Chinese censorship and illegal electronic intrusions, including allegations of theft of intellectual property. As many as 30 other companies may have been targeted, including Yahoo, Symantec, Juniper Networks, Dow Chemical, and Northrop Grumman.One question left unanswered during the briefing by Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, which took place Wednesday morning, is whether the State Department would risk offending the Chinese government by addressing last week's charges lodged by Google. "We did not get the impression that there would be any particular reference to the Google China incident," said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, one of the people briefed.But a State Department official, speaking on background, told CNET later in the day that the Google-China incident will be included in the speech.The speech comes at a precarious time in Washington-Beijing relations, which have been stressed by a dispute over carbon emissions at the Copenhagen summit and controversy over the valuation of China's currency, the yuan."If people are looking for a laying out of a 1-through-10 Internet agenda, they're going to be disappointed," said Leslie Harris, the president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, who was also briefed. "But if they're looking for the United States to put the power of its diplomacy on the line for Internet freedom, it's going to be a very important speech."Google's blunt admission that it believes the Chinese government is behind intrusions into its internal network, and perhaps theft of source code, has roiled political and technological circles since last week. It has led the State Department to indicate that it would lodge a protest in a formal letter--called a demarche--with Beijing.AudioHillary Clinton on Internet freedomInteresting excerpts from the secretary of state's speech,recorded by Larry Magid of the CNET Blog Network.PodcastYour browser does not support the audio element.Subscribe now:iTunes (audio) |RSS (audio) In the last few days, State Department officials have had multiple meetings with their Chinese counterparts and say they plan to continue the discussions.During a press briefing on Wednesday, however, Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell declined to say whether the demarche has been sent. "We take this matter very seriously and, as Secretary Clinton said last week, that the whole issue does raise serious concerns," Campbell told reporters. "Now, it is also clear that China has denied the allegations made by Google. But we also think that the Chinese are in the best position to explain this, and we are asking them for an explanation."Expect to hear about more than China, however. Sources familiar with the development of the policy said it dates back to last summer, when violent protests in Iran were all over Twitter and YouTube despite attempts by the Iranian government to censor the communications. Even some countries like South Korea, home to widespread Internet usage, have enacted laws such as requiring those uploading videos to YouTube to use their real names instead of pseudonyms.And there are dozens of countries in which citizens are just starting to access and appreciate the global Internet. Some of the governments in those countries are attempting to figure out how they will respond to these new freedoms, and could potentially be swayed one way or another by a carrot-and-stick approach from the U.S. government tied to foreign aid.Human rights groups cautioned on Wednesday that a high-profile address by an administration official may be forgotten within a year or so. They said that happened in February 2006 when then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice created the Global Internet Freedom Task Force (GIFTF), convened a few meetings, and then let the effort languish."I would hope that it's not GIFTF 2, but a decided evolution from that," said Arvind Ganesan, director of Human Rights Watch's business and human rights program. "It'll be interesting to see if they're not only supporting openness online, but supporting it to a particular end."Sharon Hom, executive director of the Human Rights in China advocacy group, also stressed a wait-and-see approach. "It's important to make a strong policy statement," Hom said. "More important is how it will become implemented."
Report- NBC wanted a cut of iPod revenue
Report: NBC wanted a cut of iPod revenue
"Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money," Zucker reportedly told The New Yorker's Ken Auletta during a benefit for former football powerhouse Syracuse University. "They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing."The content industry has long had a beef with Apple's fixed pricing structure on iTunes. They would prefer to charge more for newer hit shows and less for older programs, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been firm on the $1.99 pricing for television shows on iTunes. Now, NBC and Zucker certainly have the right to decide what they want to charge for their content. And it's very early days for online video sales, so you can see how negotiations might have broken down over the pricing.But seriously, you guys asked Apple for a cut of iPod revenue? Justifying it by claiming that they are making tons of money off your content?I'm not even sure where to begin. First off, in earlier comments reported by Variety Zucker said that NBC took in only $15 million in revenue through iTunes during the last year of its deal. I'm not exactly sure when that began or ended, but in 2006 NBC Universal did $16 billion in revenue, according to parent company General Electric's annual report. So even if you tripled the amount of money NBC was taking in from iTunes sales a year, that would have only amounted to 0.3 percent of NBC Universal's revenue for the year. By comparison, NBC Universal's theme park business did $100 million in revenue.So it's not like Apple screwed NBC out of all this revenue they would have otherwise been earning, although the network will get a chance to prove otherwise with the pending launch of its Hulu project and its own NBC Direct site. But that's not really the point.How much revenue does Sony give NBC when it sells a television? How about Panasonic? Or Sharp? The idea that NBC thought Apple would agree to give them a share of iPod revenue is either the funniest or the most horrifying thing I've ever heard come out of the mouth of an high-profile executive like Zucker.NBC may or may not need iTunes to distribute its content, and it will be interesting to see if it can build an online distribution model on its own. But does Apple really need NBC's content? I'm sure Apple would like to sell hit shows like Heroes or My Name is Earl on iTunes, but I can't imagine there's a network show good enough on television to justify Apple giving anyone a share of revenue from its crown jewel.You have to have leverage to demand revenue from a prospective partner, like Apple did with AT&T over the iPhone. And that worked: the iPhone is AT&T's top-selling model, and brought hundreds of thousands of new customers to the carrier. Is Bionic Woman really going to bring thousands of new customers to iTunes?I would have given anything to have been a fly on the wall when Zucker or one of his lieutenants made that pitch to Apple. Apple immediately retaliated after talks broke down, announcing plans to pull NBC's shows from iTunes before the contract between the two companies ended. They're still offering several shows, perhaps a signal that not all is lost, but I'll promise to watch an entire season of The Singing Bee if Zucker gets a cut of iPod revenue from Apple.By the way, if you're going to start selling your own shows online, shouldn't you try to get a cut of PC sales from Hewlett-Packard and Dell, while you're at it?CNET News.com's Greg Sandoval contributed to this report.
"Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money," Zucker reportedly told The New Yorker's Ken Auletta during a benefit for former football powerhouse Syracuse University. "They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing."The content industry has long had a beef with Apple's fixed pricing structure on iTunes. They would prefer to charge more for newer hit shows and less for older programs, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been firm on the $1.99 pricing for television shows on iTunes. Now, NBC and Zucker certainly have the right to decide what they want to charge for their content. And it's very early days for online video sales, so you can see how negotiations might have broken down over the pricing.But seriously, you guys asked Apple for a cut of iPod revenue? Justifying it by claiming that they are making tons of money off your content?I'm not even sure where to begin. First off, in earlier comments reported by Variety Zucker said that NBC took in only $15 million in revenue through iTunes during the last year of its deal. I'm not exactly sure when that began or ended, but in 2006 NBC Universal did $16 billion in revenue, according to parent company General Electric's annual report. So even if you tripled the amount of money NBC was taking in from iTunes sales a year, that would have only amounted to 0.3 percent of NBC Universal's revenue for the year. By comparison, NBC Universal's theme park business did $100 million in revenue.So it's not like Apple screwed NBC out of all this revenue they would have otherwise been earning, although the network will get a chance to prove otherwise with the pending launch of its Hulu project and its own NBC Direct site. But that's not really the point.How much revenue does Sony give NBC when it sells a television? How about Panasonic? Or Sharp? The idea that NBC thought Apple would agree to give them a share of iPod revenue is either the funniest or the most horrifying thing I've ever heard come out of the mouth of an high-profile executive like Zucker.NBC may or may not need iTunes to distribute its content, and it will be interesting to see if it can build an online distribution model on its own. But does Apple really need NBC's content? I'm sure Apple would like to sell hit shows like Heroes or My Name is Earl on iTunes, but I can't imagine there's a network show good enough on television to justify Apple giving anyone a share of revenue from its crown jewel.You have to have leverage to demand revenue from a prospective partner, like Apple did with AT&T over the iPhone. And that worked: the iPhone is AT&T's top-selling model, and brought hundreds of thousands of new customers to the carrier. Is Bionic Woman really going to bring thousands of new customers to iTunes?I would have given anything to have been a fly on the wall when Zucker or one of his lieutenants made that pitch to Apple. Apple immediately retaliated after talks broke down, announcing plans to pull NBC's shows from iTunes before the contract between the two companies ended. They're still offering several shows, perhaps a signal that not all is lost, but I'll promise to watch an entire season of The Singing Bee if Zucker gets a cut of iPod revenue from Apple.By the way, if you're going to start selling your own shows online, shouldn't you try to get a cut of PC sales from Hewlett-Packard and Dell, while you're at it?CNET News.com's Greg Sandoval contributed to this report.
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