Parsing Kang's story a little bit more since posting this, I've become even more confused. In her tweet she says she's talking about the white spaces in the incentive auction NPRM, but those couldn't possibly be used for a nationwide wireless network since they'd be low-power Part 15 type bands. Also, unlicensed in the 600 MHz guard bands are not Chairman Genachowski's design, they were allowed by Congress when they gave the FCC auction authority. So what is Kang referring to? Most likely it is the Chairman's initiative, announced at CES earlier this month, to clear 195 MHZ in the 5 GHz band to improve Wi-Fi.... Bottom line, I think Kang conflated two separate proceedings into one big non-story that made it past the Washington Post's editors all the way to the top left corner of the front page. I hope there is a correction tomorrow.

The FCC recently developed provisions for unlicensed devices to operate on TV channels that are not used at any given locations, called "white spaces." Interference is avoided by controlling access to the spectrum through a database of protected service areas. The white spaces in the TV spectrum offer an opportunity for a new generation of products such as Super Wi-Fi and wireless broadband services for communities, particularly in rural areas. In the incentive auction proceeding, the FCC proposes to make a substantial amount of additional spectrum available for unlicensed uses. First, the Commission proposes to continue allowing the operation of white space devices in the broadcast television spectrum in the newly repacked band. In addition, the FCC proposes to make the guard bands in the new band plan available for unlicensed use. Under the plan discussed above, the two proposed guard bands would be 6 MHz wide and could be larger when accounting for the addition of "remainder spectrum" resulting from the uneven division of 6 MHz wide television channels into 5 MHz blocks. Furthermore, the FCC proposes allowing unlicensed devices to operate for the first time on Channel 37 by establishing appropriate protections for existing operations in the white space database. Taken together, the FCC's proposals will enable a substantial amount of spectrum use by unlicensed devices. A significant portion of this spectrum will be available on a nationwide basis, which is important because there currently is little or no white space in the TV bands in parts of many major markets. In making these proposals, the FCC seeks to promote greater innovation in new products and services, including increased access for wireless broadband services across the country.

In short, because there's that first reverse auction in which broadcasters are supposed to be incentivized to cough up existing spectrum (again, which taxpayers gave them for free...), it's not entirely clear how much 600 MHz spectrum will be available to be auctioned off to anyone. Basically, they have these two chunks, starting at 608 MHz and counting down, and another at 698 MHz and counting down -- and the total amount available will depend on how much the broadcasters agree to cough up in the reverse auction. At the "bottom" of that range, the FCC has proposed a 6 MHz guard band for each of these chunks, and making much of that subject to the existing white space rules and hopefully allowing something useful to be done with that unlicensed spectrum, especially if it's combined with other available white space. The "guard bands" are called that, as they're supposed to "guard" between interference between licensed spectrum on either side, though there's a fair bit of debate over how much space is really needed to "guard" such interference. That argument leads to some suggesting that the FCC is offering up too much for the guard bands in an effort to get more unlicensed spectrum on the market.

The fight is over how much spectrum is used for unlicensed and how much for licensed. The telcos, like AT&T, want to limit the unlicensed spectrum, while internet companies, like Google, want as much of it as possible. Similarly, there are some in Congress who are against offering very much (if any) unlicensed spectrum, taking the really dumb short term view that any unlicensed spectrum (even if it leads to tax-creating innovations) is leaving money on the table, since telcos are expected to spend billions buying up any licensed spectrum available. Again, though, that's the same old story.

In short: there's an ongoing fight about how much spectrum in newly auctioned 600 MHz spectrum will be "unlicensed," which is important for some cool things. But, that's got little to do with a magic "free" nationwide internet service. This is important stuff, but the reporting by many folks has been abysmal.

This was, of course, absurd. First of all, the clips had been provided by the studios to be shown during the award ceremony. The Hugo Awards had explicit permission to broadcast them. But even if they hadn't, it is absolutely fair use to broadcast clips of copyrighted material during an award ceremony. Unfortunately, the digital restriction management (DRM) robots on UStream had not been programmed with these basic contours of copyright law.

And with that, the broadcast was officially cut off. Dumb robots, programmed to kill any broadcast containing copyrighted material, had destroyed the only live broadcast of the Hugo Awards. Sure, we could read what was happening on Twitter, or get the official winner announcement on the Hugo website, but that is hardly the same. We wanted to see our heroes and friends on that stage, and share the event with them. In the world of science fiction writing, the Hugo Awards are kind of like the Academy Awards. Careers are made; people get dressed up and give speeches; and celebrities rub shoulders with (admittedly geeky) paparazzi. You want to see and hear it if you can.

But UStream's incorrectly programmed copyright enforcement squad had destroyed our only accesss. It was like a Cory Doctorow story crossed with RoboCop 2, with DRM robots going crazy and shooting indiscriminately into a crowd of perfectly innocent broadcasts.

The point is, our ability to broadcast was entirely dependent on poorly-programmed bots. And once those bots had made their incorrect decision, there was absolutely nothing we could do to restart the signal, as it were. In case anyone still believes that copyright rules can't stop free speech or snuff out a community, the automated censorship of the Hugo Awards is a case in point.

On Sunday night, The Hugo Awards were streaming live on Ustream (The Hugo’s are like the Academy Awards for science fiction). Very unfortunately at 7:43 p.m. Pacific time, the channel was automatically banned in the middle of an acceptance speech by author Neil Gaiman due to “copyright infringement.” This occurred because our 3rd party automated infringement system, Vobile, detected content in the stream that it deemed to be copyrighted. Vobile is a system that rights holders upload their content for review on many video sites around the web. The video clips shown prior to Neil’s speech automatically triggered the 3rd party system at the behest of the copyright holder.

Our editorial team and content monitors almost immediately noticed a flood of livid Twitter messages about the ban and attempted to restore the broadcast. Unfortunately, we were not able to lift the ban before the broadcast ended. We had many unhappy viewers as a result, and for that I am truly sorry.