The FCC Wants To Regulate Internet Video

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This post on the Federal Communications Commission's official blog outlines a plan to regulate internet video. Good? Bad? Your thoughts?

Consumers have long complained about how their cable service forces them to buy channels they never watch. The move of video onto the Internet can do something about that frustration – but first Internet video services need access to the programs. Today the FCC takes the first step to open access to cable programs as well as local television. The result should be to give consumers more alternatives from which to choose so they can buy the programs they want.
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I just read through the first few paragraphs but the way I read it is that they'd basically require any online video to be accessible by all?

Like if you go to ESPN and it has "click to watch this" and when you do it then asks you for your cable provider, and what not, they're restricting access to that programming to those who own cable (I know DirecTV is not an option here). Maybe they simply want to open it up.
 
Depends on how they approach it ... if they only insure that artificial barriers are not preventing access then that is reasonable ... but the new technologies still need to meet appropriate licensing requirements for material that requires a license
 
As soon as the true open internet hits we won't need the FCC to regulate anything on the internet. Get on that FCC!

The only thing the internet really needs is a lethal anti-virus/hacker task force. Public executions for those that write that crap.
 
Pretty disgraceful title. The FCC isnt doing anything to internet video, they are doing it to distributors like Comcast. I dont watch much network TV, but I remember the last time I tried I went to ABC and had to "sign in" to prove I was a comcast customer to watch the show. I was like "WTF?" ABC paid for and developed this show entirely by themselves, it is their show. How in the hell did they get blackmailed by Comcast so badly that they cant even distribute their own programming as they see fit, but instead must bow to the whims of Comcast to only let Comcast subscribers watch a show that ABC is putting on their own goddamn website. I actually felt bad for ABC.

I think the gov't is probably going to try and push to force companies like Comcast to offer their entire channel lineup online. I'd just assume leave Comcast alone and let the networks do what they want, less regulation not more. But I suppose they have to tackle Comcast first since they're clearly doing some seedy under the table bullshit to scare networks out of doing this.

I can understand how 10-20 years ago it would be asking a lot to force Comcast to have the infrastructure to make every channel on-demand even though they certainly had cable boxes capable of doing it. I mean if they can lock out HBO/Showtime then they can lock out the other 99 channels one at a time. Part of it was because of technical/billing complexities and part of it was just to get people to overpay for shit they dont want to watch, an all-or-none deal. But you cant make the argument anymore that it is simply too much of a burden to allow users to watch individual streams of content. Hence the FCC.
 
TLDR; they want to open it so that online providers (like a Netflix or Amazon) have the legal right to negotiate with content providers for redistribution of channels. It cites how back in the early 90's, the cable companies blocked many networks from going on satellite. They opened it up to satellite providers and prevented the block. They now want to do the same for internet.

So for example, if a company wants to resale packages of HGTV networks or Discovery networks for streaming, they can without limitation from other providers.
 
I don't want to say I told you so, but I told you so.

This is just step one. It will end with people needing a license in order to post comments on message boards.
 
With Comcast buying everything and then instating caps. How is more streaming a good thing for the consumer? Our bills will be even higher because of cap overages.
 
Never thought I'd sound like one of those types, but I'm getting fucking tired of everything being regulated. Land of the free. Smirk.
 
pbassjunk said:
Never thought I'd sound like one of those types, but I'm getting fucking tired of everything being regulated. Land of the free. Smirk.
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Slippery slope arguments are always valid when applied to the government.
 
If this is the FCC's first baby step toward Title II protections for internet traffic, it's an excellent one imo. But I'm disappointed by the thread title. If we frame internet protection as unnecessary regulation, the internet is doomed as a free two-way communications medium. I can't even manage to add an imo to that claim.

If a stand is going to be made to save the internet, we must do it here and now. In absence of utility protections, any medium including the internet will decay in strict accordance with the corporate profit motive, and the end result can only be similar to current commercial cable TV or FM radio: endless forced advertising etc. Browser caches will eventually be dispensed with, and there will be no option whatsoever to keep any internet content. Only display it. The internet has thus been successfully converted from a two-way medium into just an alternate delivery method for Comcast basic cable.

If this is what a majority of the American people wish, my rants will change nothing. But I believe it's just a matter of education on the issue, and making sure the deregulation mania that started with multinational traitors Nixon and Reagan doesn't have one final catastrophic effect on my country and the world. Government is and can be the only effective restraint on corporate profit motive, and it can be the only protector of our Constitutional rights in context of this motive: rights to free speech (hello Google?), privacy (hello NSA?) and the rest. These rights do not simply vanish the instant we go online. The root cause of this problem is our SCOTUS' current and clearly erroneous classification of internet traffic as an "information service", instead of what it actually is: an essential common carrier utility. Correction of this classification is the foundation for protection of internet traffic, Title II and otherwise.
 
The title is misleading for this post. They aren't asking to regulate internet videos. In fact, I'm not really sure what they are trying to do. I would think the content creators could just ban together and tell Comcast and the like to go take a hike and it would have the same impact.
 
I think the content holders are tired of the Comcasts getting the lion's share. Content holders can shutdown Netflix or even Amazon in a heartbeat in favor of their own distributers.
 
JeffDC said:
IGovernment is and can be the only effective restraint on corporate profit motive, and it can be the only protector of our Constitutional rights in context of this motive: rights to free speech (hello Google?), privacy (hello NSA?) and the rest.
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First off... you need to read up on crony capitalism and the effect of it on government. The NSA is not a corporation but a government agency and I'd love to hear your comments (in a PM) about how Reagan is a traitor ( I was only a child when he was president). The problem boils down to common human decency of this nation is at a all time low, while ignorance and arrogance is at an all time high. The social socity of this nation is at a point where this kind of BS is allowed to happen for a massive number of reasons.

Does not help that we have Democrats trying to convert this nation into socialism while reaping the benefits of the largest ponzi scheme ever and Republicans hold strong to their corporate lackies and money (Plenty of Democrats as well do this).

In short... Trust no one but family until our society gets their shat stright again.
 
FireBean said:
The NSA is not a corporation but a government agency and I'd love to hear your comments (in a PM) about how Reagan is a traitor ( I was only a child when he was president).
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If you're interested refer to my posting history. I've explained it more than once in other threads and won't repeat it here.
 
JeffDC said:
If this is what a majority of the American people wish, my rants will change nothing. But I believe it's just a matter of education on the issue, and making sure the deregulation mania that started with multinational traitors Nixon and Reagan doesn't have one final catastrophic effect on my country and the world.
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LOL WUT. You missed a few things (coughNAFTAcough).

JeffDC said:
Government is and can be the only effective restraint on corporate profit motive, and it can be the only protector of our Constitutional rights in context of this motive
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What?

Seriously, no. Stop that. The rights to free speech, free assembly, and all that are presumed to be natural rights - that is, you inherently possess them. The purpose of the Bill of Rights is to set limits upon which natural rights the government may legislate. You'll notice the wording:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Do you notice that it doesn't say that Congress - or the Constitution - grants the rights of freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, or petition? It states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting or abridging them, which is only possibly if you are already presumed to possess these rights. Of course that's a little more explicitly stated in amendment nine:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

This is important because while no specific mention of a right to privacy exists within the Constitution, that right is presumed to exist and be inherent to the people.

JeffDC said:
rights to free speech (hello Google?), privacy (hello NSA?) and the rest. These rights do not simply vanish the instant we go online. The root cause of this problem is our SCOTUS' current and clearly erroneous classification of internet traffic as an "information service", instead of what it actually is: an essential common carrier utility. Correction of this classification is the foundation for protection of internet traffic, Title II and otherwise.
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Again, I'll have to ask what you're talking about. Google is free to set limits and terms on speech across its privately owned networks. Do I think that's chicken BS? Of course, that's why I don't use a lot of Google services. But I'm not ignorant enough to assume that they owe me something, just because. As for the NSA - that's a function of the Executive branch of the Federal government, the very people you were just talking about protecting our rights. Seems to me they are doing a very poor job.

As for the SCOTUS comments - what? I presume you're talking about Verizon vs. FCC, which was decide by the DC Circuit Court.
 
kbrickley said:
Depends on how they approach it ... if they only insure that artificial barriers are not preventing access then that is reasonable ... but the new technologies still need to meet appropriate licensing requirements for material that requires a license
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The whole licensing system needs a revamp, it is total BS right now. Especially for things out of country the show / network originates.

They could make more money if their licensing for broadcast rights was so archaic.

The Avengers movie proved that world wide releases, not even including the U.S = more money vs releasing movies weeks, months and even years later in other regions.

The same with TV shows being 1,2 or 3 seasons behind the U.S.
 
flashoverride said:
LOL WUT. You missed a few things (coughNAFTAcough).
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Our corporations have exported our jobs since Nixon because prior to Nixon no U.S. president regardless of party would do business with Communist countries. Since 1971 we've playing checkers with a chess player, e.g. they're the only major trading partner who dictates the value of their own currency. Net result is a trillion dollar annual trade deficit which is emptying our treasury to a bunch of Communist thugs. Again refer to my posting history if it matters to you.

flashoverride said:
Again, I'll have to ask what you're talking about. Google is free to set limits and terms on speech across its privately owned networks. Do I think that's chicken BS? Of course, that's why I don't use a lot of Google services. But I'm not ignorant enough to assume that they owe me something, just because.
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By Google's own numbers they now control two-thirds of internet searches worldwide, and virtually all of the remaining one-third is simply a subset that points back to Google's two-thirds. While I agree that private companies should be able to legally operate however they wish, what is the world supposed to do without a single objective search engine for the internet? Does the company feel no obligation whatsoever to eight billion people? Just one example out of a dozen others I could name, how much effort would it take for Google to add an option to allow people to manipulate their own search results, instead of the company's legal department? When I say corporate fascism I mean it literally: there is no other reason to not implement this functionality.

Mr. Schmidt loves to claim Google is on right side of history, while his company every day practices literal corporate fascism on a scale never seen before in human history. He spouts off about how great Google is, because they refused to drop links to legally questionable files, meanwhile every day his own company summarily censor the largest single repository of knowledge ever known on our planet (usenet). Etc.

Both the RIAA and MPAA have announced their plans to begin legal actions against ISPs. It's the equivalent of suing the USPS for delivering our mail, and yet ISPs have already virtually lobotomized the internet in its entirety in preparation for the attack. E.g. try searching for videos or music and see how many useful results are returned beyond a tiny handful of whitelisted sites. Now try Bing or any other major search engine and see if results are much different. The entire rest of the world has been simply ignored.

Are these companies doing anything illegal? No, and therein lies the problem. For a company in Google's near-monopoly position (again it's far more than two-thirds) its an outrageous and treasonous violation of our First Amendment right to know what exists in the world, and on the internet. Google is being and has been sued by countries all around our planet for their manipulation of search results, but in our country this right to know referred to above awaits recognition and protection by Title II and other legal protections.
 
flashoverride said:
Meanwhile, the FEC is actually trying to regulate political speech on the internet, specifically YouTube.

http://eqs.fec.gov/eqsdocsMUR/14044363872.pdf

Yep I trust this totally not to be abused.
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Ummm, not political speech, political endorsements as in campaign efforts. Politicians have budget caps on how much they can spend on campaign advertising. It's supposed to keep the race fair between the richer and poorer candidates. What the FEC is saying is that the Internet Campaign stuff isn't counted in the moneys spent on campaigns and that it should be.
 
lcpiper said:
Ummm, not political speech, political endorsements as in campaign efforts. Politicians have budget caps on how much they can spend on campaign advertising. It's supposed to keep the race fair between the richer and poorer candidates. What the FEC is saying is that the Internet Campaign stuff isn't counted in the moneys spent on campaigns and that it should be.
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Political endorsements aren't political speech? Really?

Let me ask you a question: does the New York Times have to file a report for an in-kind contribution when it endorses a Democratic candidate for elective office? (They could in theory endorse any candidate, but you and I know damn good and well they aren't endorsing any more than a token Republican).

The answer is no. Why not? Why don't they have to report that? That's political speech, and it's splashed all over the front page of a widely consumed medium, which has a significant dollar value. Why isn't the FEC all over that?

In WA, they has an episode where one of the sponsors of an initiative up for public vote happened to be a conservative radio host, and a court ruled he was required to report any time he talked about his bill on the air as an in-kind contribution. Opponents were free to talk about his bill however much they wanted and didn't have to file a thing. The judgment was later overturned by the state Supreme Court, but of course that was after the election and the damage had already been done.

http://www.ij.org/san-juan-county-v-no-new-gas-tax

If the FEC wants to go after youtube videos - or anywhere on the internet, for that matter - well then I guess it's time to go ahead and stifle all political speech, right? In the name of consistency. Or maybe they could just keep their god damn grubby mitts off of it.
 
flashoverride said:
Political endorsements aren't political speech? Really?
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No it is not, it's bribery.

We're so used to corruption now that speech has become perverted by money. Votes should not be counted with dollars, they do it in the open and in our faces and no one protests anymore, it's disgusting.
 
Wierdo said:
No it is not, it's bribery.

We're so used to corruption now that speech has become perverted by money. Votes should not be counted with dollars, they do it in the open and in our faces and no one protests anymore, it's disgusting.
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Oops misread that, I'm talking about political "contributions" here.
 
jpm100 said:
I think the content holders are tired of the Comcasts getting the lion's share. Content holders can shutdown Netflix or even Amazon in a heartbeat in favor of their own distributers.
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While this may be true in theory, in practice, it seems unlikely. We will have to wait and see how the HBO streaming service performs before making any assumptions, but the reason why Netflix and Amazon offer the variety of content that they do is in part because it has the potential to attract a broader range of subscribers.

Content creators/rights holders will ultimately be motivated by the potential profits they can make from the sale of said content/content rights and I don't know that many of them will disregard such a potentially profitable avenue. They can attempt to charge as much as they want for the content (i.e. as much as the market will allow while maintaining their target profit goals), but by blocking access to particular avenues such as Netflix or Amazon, they will miss out on the potential revenues that can come from a deal with these streaming services. I don't know if they can generate the subscriber numbers for a bunch of individual streaming services operated by each content creator/rights holder to make up for the potential missed revenue of licensing to an established streaming service with broad appeal.
 
Wierdo said:
No it is not, it's bribery.

We're so used to corruption now that speech has become perverted by money. Votes should not be counted with dollars, they do it in the open and in our faces and no one protests anymore, it's disgusting.
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Money isn't directly speech, but money (or more specifically, resources such as money) enables speech.

Is air-time free? No. Is print free? No. Yard signs? Airfare? Fuel? Phone time? Rent for campaign offices? Campaign staff? No. Production costs for ads? No. Focus groups? Polling? No.

Nothing is free.

So when you say that money isn't speech, what are you suggesting? That politicians walk around with a soap box, literally getting on it to yell at crowded street corners? While I agree that would be awesome, it's not feasible - and it's certainly not tenable in a country the size of the US.
 
flashoverride said:
Money isn't directly speech, but money (or more specifically, resources such as money) enables speech.

Is air-time free? No. Is print free? No. Yard signs? Airfare? Fuel? Phone time? Rent for campaign offices? Campaign staff? No. Production costs for ads? No. Focus groups? Polling? No.

Nothing is free.

So when you say that money isn't speech, what are you suggesting? That politicians walk around with a soap box, literally getting on it to yell at crowded street corners? While I agree that would be awesome, it's not feasible - and it's certainly not tenable in a country the size of the US.
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The idea in question was whether or not unlimited money equated to unlimited speech. Basically, no one was saying that politicians had to literally return to grass-roots organizing in the streets, but there is a legitimate question about whether or not limits can be imposed on the amount of money that is allowed to flow into campaign coffers and/or the coffers of political advocacy groups/political action committees.

In the past there have been limits placed upon how much money any one individual person may contribute to a candidate in an election campaign. The idea behind this was that it would avoid corruption as a supporter would be unable to buy the vote of an elected official upon their election, while simultaneously ensuring that a candidate does not spend their way into winning an election with the intense support of a very limited group of people. One way this could be imagined is that by limiting the amount of money that an individual can contribute directly to a candidate's campaign, that candidate would have to gather the support of a large number of individuals (representative republic at work in a sense) in order to raise the funds necessary to run their campaign.

The aspect that changed is that by contributing to a PAC, those individual limits may no longer be applicable. Further, since the PAC has the theoretical ability to contribute as much as it wants toward a candidate's campaign, some argue that the potential for abuse is greater than it has ever been in the past. Their reasoning is that a small group of wealthy donors could contribute significantly toward a PAC, which in turn contributes significantly toward an individual candidate's campaign, and as we all know, money may not directly win an election, but it sure can help. Name recognition is key and the ability to get your name plastered everywhere, which we have already agreed costs money, can go a long way toward election day victory.

This logic leads to the conclusion that one individual (the wealthy donor) has exercised more power over the election process than another individual (the non-wealthy donor) and this is in contradiction to the one citizen/one vote ideal for a representative republic (which can be considered a form of democracy). For the people drawing these conclusions, the idea that money = speech is equivalent to saying some people have more freedom of speech than others or in the Orwellian tradition, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."
 
MrCaffeineX said:
The idea in question was whether or not unlimited money equated to unlimited speech. Basically, no one was saying that politicians had to literally return to grass-roots organizing in the streets, but there is a legitimate question about whether or not limits can be imposed on the amount of money that is allowed to flow into campaign coffers and/or the coffers of political advocacy groups/political action committees.

In the past there have been limits placed upon how much money any one individual person may contribute to a candidate in an election campaign. The idea behind this was that it would avoid corruption as a supporter would be unable to buy the vote of an elected official upon their election, while simultaneously ensuring that a candidate does not spend their way into winning an election with the intense support of a very limited group of people. One way this could be imagined is that by limiting the amount of money that an individual can contribute directly to a candidate's campaign, that candidate would have to gather the support of a large number of individuals (representative republic at work in a sense) in order to raise the funds necessary to run their campaign.

The aspect that changed is that by contributing to a PAC, those individual limits may no longer be applicable. Further, since the PAC has the theoretical ability to contribute as much as it wants toward a candidate's campaign, some argue that the potential for abuse is greater than it has ever been in the past. Their reasoning is that a small group of wealthy donors could contribute significantly toward a PAC, which in turn contributes significantly toward an individual candidate's campaign, and as we all know, money may not directly win an election, but it sure can help. Name recognition is key and the ability to get your name plastered everywhere, which we have already agreed costs money, can go a long way toward election day victory.

This logic leads to the conclusion that one individual (the wealthy donor) has exercised more power over the election process than another individual (the non-wealthy donor) and this is in contradiction to the one citizen/one vote ideal for a representative republic (which can be considered a form of democracy). For the people drawing these conclusions, the idea that money = speech is equivalent to saying some people have more freedom of speech than others or in the Orwellian tradition, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."
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Let's start off with a proposition: If I buy $400 Million worth of ads asking you to jab a knife into your eye, are you going to jab a knife into your eye?

I know it's reductio ad abdsurdam, but let's see how far we push this to start, then we can fall back to areas where they may be some common ground.
 
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