Ben Golant, a Federal Communications Commission lawyer in the Media Bureau, left the agency last week to join the U.S. Copyright Office as a staff attorney in the general counsel's office. He started his new position Monday.
Golant, who spent 11 years at the FCC, was a legal adviser to Republican commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth in 2001. He worked on numerous cable-related issues as a staff member in the Media Bureau's policy and rules division.
In 2000, he worked on the order in which the agency concluded that cable operators were not required by law to carry TV stations' analog and digital signals during the transition to digital-only broadcasting or their multiple digital-TV services following completion of the transition.
In 2004, Golant drafted the FCC report to Congress on cable-operator sale of programming a la carte. The report concluded that consumers would end up paying more under a la carte to continue viewing their favorite channels.
