On Thursday, April 30th Entertainment Consumers Association president Hal Halpin will speak at the Triangle Game Conference in Raleigh, NC.

Hal's presentation is billed as a conversation with Russ Pitts of The Escapist. The format sounds similar to Hal's well-received appearance with Spike TV's Geoff Keighley at PAX 08. The conference listing indictates that Hal will discuss:

The future of games as a media and a business, the role of the Electronic Consumers Association and the many key issues facing consumers today, including DRM, Net Neutrality, the economy and the ESRB.

FULL DISCLOSURE DEPT: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics.

Consumers won a big victory this week as Time Warner Cable backed down on a plan that would have placed a cap on bandwidth usage for broadband customers, while at the same time charging users a wildly inflated price per gigabyte.

When Time Warner announced recently that it would expand its broadband caps into New York and North Carolina, Ars Technica reports that the plan immediately ran afoul of Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The two lawmakers helped torpedo Time Warner's scheme.

The Entertainment Consumers Association, which also lobbied vigorously against the Time-Warner plan, was delighted with the cable provider's decision to back down. ECA VP and General Counsel Jennifer Mercurio commented on the outcome:

We're pleased that Time Warner has come to their senses on this issue... Having worked against caps and tiered pricing for over a year, and being the leading consumer rights organization to aggressively defend the American public on this issue, we're glad to see our efforts pay off even as we continue to work with Senator Schumer, Congressman Massa, and others to stop this type of consumer price gauging moving forward.

When Mercurio mentions price gouging, she's not kidding. Price comparison done by Nate Anderson of Ars Technica show how blatantly Time Warner planned to rip off its customers:

As TWC expands its test markets for the data caps, it offers plans with 5GB of monthly data transfer for $30. Plans with 40GB of data go for $55... That base rate works out to a truly jaw-dropping $6 per GB per month, and it's so far out of line with competitors' plans as to shock even the most cynical heart.

Take AT&T's DSL, for comparison... AT&T DSL comes out to 9¢ per GB. Verizon's fiber-optic FiOS system... this comes out to $.11 per GB. Upgrading to the much faster 50Mbps service for $144.95 a month still means that the charge per GB is only 36¢.

The situation is similar at other cable operators. Comcast offers Internet service starting at $42.95 per month and has a 250GB cap in place; this works out to 17¢ per GB.

FULL DISCLOSURE DEPT: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics.

An interesting legislative turnabout is underway in North Carolina.

A state senator who twice in the past introduced bills designed to restrict the sales of mature-themed games to minors has now proposed that the state offer financial incentives to game developers.

Yesterday, Sen. Julia Boseman (D) introduced S525, a new bill that would permit game developers to take advantage of a tax credit of up to 15% for qualifying expenses.

While the measure does not restrict M-rated games as did an earlier proposal in Oklahoma, it does preclude material which qualifies as "obscene" under North Carolina law:

Limitation. – No credit is allowed under this section for qualifying expenses with respect to digital interactive media that contain material that is obscene, as defined in G.S. 14-190.1.

In past sessions, Sen. Boseman introduced bills designed to restrict sales of mature games to minors in 2005 and 2007. Both measures failed to pass.

North Carolina's News-14 reports that state legislators are considering a proposal to levy sales tax on digital purchases, including video games, music, movies and software.

Such a measure could bring as much as $12 million annually to state coffers. Like many other recession-plagued states, North Carolina is facing a large budget deficit.

Rep. Paul Luebke (D, left) told News-14 that taxing digital goods makes sense:

We used to think of everything in terms of being tangible. Nobody thought of how you could possibly download anything.

So if you buy a book in a bookstore, you're going to have to pay sales tax on it. If you're downloading a book from a book seller, you should have to pay sales tax on that as well.

As GamePolitics reported last month, New York is considering a similar measure.