MARCH 29, 2005

SECTION: Vol.6, No.60

LENGTH: 1007 words

HEADLINE: Utah ISP Chief Will Challenge Hatch for Senate in 2006

BODY:

The pres. of Utah's oldest ISP will challenge Sen. Hatch (R-Utah) in 2006,
focusing on his differences with Hatch over technology policy plus
state-specific issues. Pete Ashdown, who founded Xmission Internet in 1993,
avoided politics until recently. He plans to file his candidacy, which is "kind
of embryonic at this stage," by mid-April.

"Hatch has taken an adversarial stance on the Internet" for 6 years, Ashdown
told us. He wrote Hatch several times to complain, but concluded he was
irredeemable, "I essentially told him I'd do anything in my power to make sure
he wasn't elected," Ashdown said: "Nobody here [in Utah] is really expressing an
interest in challenging Hatch at this stage. So I decided why not?... I believe
I can do a good job." Ashdown said bloggers and open-source advocates have
offered encouraging words in private; he's waiting for them to go public. His
personal website at www.pashdown.org has some policy statements.

Hatch is one of the most powerful and vocal proponents of harsh penalties for
piracy, both for individual infringers and P2P companies like Grokster. A
member of the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force (HTTF), Hatch drew boos
from fair use advocates for backing the 108th Congress's failed Induce Act,
which would have held technology companies liable for creating devices used
largely for piracy. The senator caused a rumpus during a 2003 copyright abuse
hearing when he said the recording industry should be permitted to remotely
destroy music pirates' computers, saying the move "may be the only way you can
teach someone about copyright." He advocated sending 2 warnings to computer
users about illegal downloads before damaging or destroying the machines.
Senate colleagues, including ranking committee Democrat Sen. Leahy (Vt.), agreed
the piracy problem is grave but called Hatch's scheme overkill. Hatch himself
is a songwriter who has earned thousands of dollars in royalties. This year, he
co-sponsored the Family Entertainment & Copyright Act (S-167), which would fight
movie piracy by criminalizing use of camcorders in theaters for the purpose of
stealing films. The bill passed the Senate in Feb.; the House version awaits
action. Hatch got a 100% rating from the Information Technology Industry Assn.
for pro-technology votes in the 108th Congress.

"[The Induce Act] didn't really define what peer-to- peer technology is," and
"e-mail, instant messaging could have been at risk," Ashdown said. He thinks
"there should be civil recourse for people who think those [P2P] companies are
somehow damaging their copyright," but if those companies' business models are
deemed illegal, "open source software will fill the gaps," meaning file-sharing
applications for noncommercial site operators, Ashdown said. He's a fan of
file-sharing technology BitTorrent: "It's overly broad to say that we need to
get rid of BitTorrent completely because it's used for illegal purposes at
times." The MPAA and RIAA have said they don't want BT made illegal, although
they have shut down several P2P sites sharing copyrighted content through BT.

Having dropped his Senate Judiciary chairmanship, Hatch now heads the
intellectual property subcommittee, which staffers say is preparing for a big
year (WID March 21 p1). The new panel has jurisdiction over IP laws and
oversight on patent, copyright, trademark and international IP policies. In a
statement earlier this month, Hatch said he first would tackle comprehensive
patent reform and address increasing the quality of patent reviews, considering
new post-grant opposition procedures and shoring up long-term Patent & Trademark
Office resources. Partly due to Hatch, "most of the 20th century creative
works are not going to fall out of copyright" for more than a decade, which
"stifles creativity," Ashdown said.

Utah's recent passage of legislation requiring ISPs to offer filtering
software to customers for free could catapult Ashdown into the national
spotlight. "We've done that for years anyway," Ashdown said. He opposed the
bill because "the market has already provided the solution for protecting
children on the Internet," and Utah's Attorney Gen. can't do better, he added.
Some filtering proponents hope to expand mandatory filtering at the federal
level, "but I have my doubts about how far outside Utah that will go," Ashdown
said.

On smaller ISPs like Xmission having access to bigger providers' facilities,
Ashdown prefers negotiation to regulation: "Qwest has been very good at sharing
lines with us." Failing that, he said: "I realize that cable companies built
those cable systems with their own resources, but I think on a consumer level it
would be more beneficial" to allow small ISPs access for a fair price. The
governor's sister, Sue Ashdown, ran the now- defunct American Internet Service
Providers' Assn. She staunchly opposed the Tauzin-Dingell bill, which sought to
revise the Telecom Act to let Baby Bells offer broadband access over their
existing long distance lines without requiring them to open local lines to
outside competition.

The govt. has "gone too far down the path of privacy violations," Ashdown
said. He has given out customer information only in response to court orders,
and favors "anything that would protect an individual's privacy over that of a
corporation," referring to security breaches at data-brokerage firms like
ChoicePoint. "The government needs to be transparent but citizenship does
not," he said.

Considering that "my business is built on open source," Ashdown strongly
backs expanding open source usage by business and govt. If elected, he said, he
would bring "more support for that base into Utah," helping open-source
providers like Utah-based Novell. Xmission periodically sponsors Linux
"installfests" for Utah users and enterprises. Ashdown said govts. around the
world save money by moving to open source: "It doesn't appear the U.S. is moving
forward on that at all." -- Greg Piper, Andrew Noyes

APRIL 25, 2005 UPDATE