The 463: Inside Tech

Regulate YouTube to Save the Australian Idol

Follow along please....

A prominent Australian recognizes that "consumers are demanding more extensive online, video-based entertainment" and that "we are the 'what, when and how we want it' generation."

He then says that require circa-1960s rules that require that 55 per cent of all programs broadcast on free-to-air TV between 6pm and midnight to be Australian are outdated.

The punch-line has to be that he views the TV content content rules as so archaic in a networked world that they should be struck down?

Wrong.

Instead, he is calling for these types of "Made in Australia" rules to be extended to the Internet.

Oh, and I suppose it is relevant that the man making this pronouncement is the head of the Australian public television network -- ABC-TV.

Seems that Kim Dalton believes:

"It is likely that existing regulatory arrangements to deliver local drama, documentaries, comedy, children's, news, current affairs and other programming may have diminishing effects on the market as the existing business models of broadcasters are challenged and the content offered becomes, increasingly, foreign.

"It is time to reassess and reshape the Australian content policy framework.

"By making new connections between the previously distinct fields of communications, media and cultural policy, the Government can address the issue ofensuring Australian content ismade available in the digital environment."

What happened to consumers getting what they want, when they want?

After all, Australian TV viewers consistently watch Desperate Housewives, Lost, CSI and Law & Order more than most any homegrown products. And, the most popular locally produced shows are generally bastardizations of American or European created shows like Australian Idol, the Australian Big Brother and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Nothing wrong with that. But, pretending that you are going to save Australian culture by getting government involved to force people to watch your network's programming on all mediums is a bit, uh, problematic.

Fortunately, the reaction in Australia was not positive.

Today, The Australian ran reactions. Here is one...

John Lindsay, the carrier relations manager for Internode -- one of the country's largest internet service providers -- said the call was hypocritical.

"This used to be the same Australian media industry that refused to make Australian TV available online," Mr Lindsay said. "You can't regulate it. It connects everyone to everyone. Are they really going to stop people watching YouTube and CNN?"

He said attempts to try to restrain or direct people's use of the internet would be met with fierce resistance by consumers.

Orgies and Apple Pie

A couple days old, but I thought this legal tactic (as written about in the New York Times) was clever and a sign of the times...

Judges and jurors who must decide whether sexually explicit material is obscene are asked to use a local yardstick: does the material violate community standards?

That is often a tricky question because there is no simple, concrete way to gauge a community’s tastes and values.

The Internet may be changing that. In a novel approach, the defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade jurors that their neighbors have broader interests than they might have thought....

...“We tried to come up with comparison search terms that would embody typical American values,” Mr. Walters said. “What is more American than apple pie?” But according to the search service, he said, “people are at least as interested in group sex and orgies as they are in apple pie.”

Americans for Internet Regulation

We give lots of other countries gruff for taking steps to regulate the Internet like old-school media. And, we often heckle US politicians for taking the slightest steps down a slippery slope of toward Internet content regulation.

Our snarky (and substantive) comments stand. Sadly, though, politicians tend to care more about rafts of voters than part-time bloggers.

And, according to a poll that came out over the weekend, good ole' Americans (at least 1500 of them) think by a decent margin that the Internet should be regulated like other media.

Specifically, Rasmussen Reports asked, "Should the Federal Communications Commission regulate the internet like it does radio and television?"

And, the results were:

49% Yes
35% No
16% Not sure

Rasmussen qualified that... "women... feel much more strongly about federal regulation of the Internet, with 55% in favor, 25% opposed and 20% undecided. Men reject federal regulation by a small margin – 46% to 42% -- with 12% unsure."

Unfortunately, these results weren't too dissimilar than the results of of a 463/Zogby question that we asked last Fall We found that:

- More than half of Americans believe that Internet content such as video should be controlled in some way by the government. Twenty-nine percent said it should be regulated just like television content while 24% said government should institute an online rating system similar to the one used by the movie industry. In contrast, only 36% said the blocking of Internet video would be unconstitutional.

- Only 33% of 18 to 24 year-olds supported government stepping in on content, while 72% of those over 70 years of age support government regulation and ratings.

(photo by photogail)

If You Can't Beat 'em; Regulate 'em

The Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents the country’s largest retail chains, wants to legislate onerous rules against online retailers and limit what could be sold online all in the name of stemming theft.

It could be taken as a badge of honor that Internet commerce is so growns up now that the big bricks and mortar retail players are taking extraordinary measures to try to beat back their online rivals. But, sadly, such badges won't do much for consumers and small businesses that will be negatively impacted by the big, old-school guys.

In a Politico article about the retailers actions, NetChoice executive director Steve DelBianco calls a spade a spade:

“This is not about consumer protection; it’s about competition. Retailers want to prevent competition from online sellers of new and used goods.”

TechDirt's Mike Masnick chimes in...

The really sneaky part of this push to get Congress involved is that the reasoning isn't even accurate. I'm sure there may be some groups of shoplifters out there who have been going around stealing goods out of stores and reselling them on eBay, but the details suggest it's barely a blip on the radar. A study by the National Retail Federation (who also represents large retailers) found that most store theft comes from employees or vendors. Only 1/3 comes from shoplifting. Stores themselves are partly to blame, as they've cut back on prosecuting shoplifters. And, most importantly, retail theft appears to be dropping rather consistently over the past few years.

So, basically, retailers get to push for the idea that they need to ban online auctions from selling certain products -- when it turns out what they really want is to get rid of the competition. There's no real evidence of an epidemic of thefts due to online auctions, and even if there were, the problem should be dealt with via the retailers' own loss management efforts.

This is yet another example why Internet companies need to be vigilant and proactive against their more policy-experienced offline competitors (another is the Internet tax issue). In this case, reactively fighting on the terms of a false shoplifting debate set by the retailers starts the conversation from a defensive stance. Rather, this is about choice, competition and small business growth and, fortunately, organizations like NetChoice are now not allowing their rivals to have easy PR lay-ups. Hopefully, policymakers will see through the retailers' effort for what they really are, too.

(Photo by Daniel Light)

U2, I Mean, YouTube Now Faces Political Speech Regulation in Brazil

....and so does any other Internet publisher big or small that publishes political content.

According to a blog round-up on the excellent Global Voices, the top election law body in Brazil has created a legal environment where:

Broadcasting of any political propaganda on the Internet, radio or television - including, among others, community radio stations and television channels operating in UHF, VHF and by subscription - and, besides, rallies or public meetings are prohibited, from 48 hours before through 24 hours after the election.

This means that a blogger might need to black out a post advocating a candidate two days prior to election day. It means that questions over whether YouTube, for example, would be responsible to pull all Brazilian election content would be raised.

And, speaking of YouTube, just to get a sense of the Internet reading level that the Brazilian ministers were operating under, the Global Voices post translates the words of a Brazilian judge writing about the opinion:

As I heard the arguments being presented, I was increasingly surprised in face of the ministers' lack of knowledge to understand what the Internet is. It seemed - and this impression was very strong - that they did not know what they were talking about. To get an idea, Youtube was turned into U2.

Ultimately, this lack of understanding led to a confused opinion:

In the end, the decision was a clear sample that they did not know what they were deciding right then. It was decided that to the extent that problems arise, they would be dealt with, case by case. This is great for lawyers and too bad for voters, who are left with a Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads without knowing what they can and can not do.

I've said it before: The Internet has created the greatest generational divide since Rock 'n' Roll. This borderless divide has also proven that cultures of all stripes have the ability to enact profoundly counterproductive (and technically impossible) rules that increase the chasm between both sides.

Disability Access Legislation: The End of Free IM?

My post below on the impact of Chairman Markey's draft Internet disability access legislation quickly struck a cord with a few readers. They agree on the video part that I focused on, but are focusing their worries on possible near-term impact on instant messaging. The essence of their collective perspectives is that the potential mandates placed on IM could have the ironic impact of hindering an extremely popular tool of the disabled community.

A few of their points:

--The legislation would require the FCC to regulate IM and make it interoperate across all services and platforms, including old-school telephones on old-school networks.

--The bill creates massive annual reporting obligations on IM providers and forces them to contribute to the FCC's Telecommunications Relay Fund.

--It would force IM applications to transmit real-time text. This means that my IM contacts will see me write a word one letter at a time and then watch as I delete, re-enter a word, change my thought and then ultimately quit trying to come up with a pithy thought. Does the FCC really need to mandate this window into my soul?

Disability Access Legislation: Hear No Internet Regulation; See No Internet Regulation?

Captions for 30 Rock to the right of the video above.

I wrote back in September of 2006...

...the movement toward (Internet video) regulation doesn't have to come in big shifts like those proposed overseas. We just mentioned closed captioning regulations for TV shows. Well, closed captioning regulations for Internet video are being fought for already. Advocates want the Telecom Act of 1996 to open up the rules to online video. If this is done, what next?

Well, any minute now, Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, will introduce legislation that will give the FCC enforcement rules on mandating disability access for Internet delivered video. The draft legislation is here (PDF).

The Boston Globe top-lines the bill like this:

....(it) would require major producers of Internet videos to add captions as well as "video description" soundtracks that describe the on-screen action for blind people.

The measure would also force changes in the design of television and telephone equipment to make the devices more accessible to the disabled. The goal, Markey said, is "to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind as technology changes."

The bill would require TV networks to provide captioning and video description tracks when they stream their shows over the Internet.

Markey is seen as a true friend to the Internet on Capitol Hill, but he also has a deep attachment to disability access technologies. He introduced and championed the legislation that led to closed captioning on televisions in 1990.

Still, friendships aside, some are troubled by the bill and don't think it will stand legal tests. Kevin Goldman at the CommLaw blog says:

While an admirable attempt, the legislation has, in our mind, many flaws. The first is the obvious constitutional question. While broadcaster have traditionally been subject to some regulation due to the “scarcity” and “pervasiveness” of the medium, the Internet has been classified by the United States Supreme Court as the perhaps the freest medium of expression in existence – deserving of even more First Amendment protection than even newspapers. It is hard to conceive of a regulation that mandates speech in this way surviving constitutional scrutiny. Another problem raised by several parties is technical in nature. Again, unlike, broadcast television, there is no single technology by which Internet video is delivered. If a broadcaster finds it is even possible to automatically convert captions from a television program to the Internet stream (not always a guaranteed proposition because many programs are condensed on the Internet, with commercials removed), viewers use different programming formats to receive the stream. Captions prepared for delivery via Internet Explorer may not be readable in Linux. Work to solve this problem and create a single format for captioning is ongoing but still some time away. Finally, there is the further concern that captions would be unreadable on smaller computer screens, let alone iPods, iPhones or other mobile phones to which the law would apply.

On the constitutionality question, I've repeatedly gotten the same response by legal minds when I do my Chicken Little dance on Internet video regulation. I may just be a caveman PR guy, but I also can see the evolution of laws as society and technology does the same. Just yesterday, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer said that *all* media content would be delivered over IP networks in a decade. If that is going to work, I would presume that this dynamic will require pretty significant pervasiveness.

And, as I wrote back in that 2006 post....

....at what point of penetration do you need to get to be broadcast TV-esque? Way back in 2003, more than 60 percent of U.S. households had computers and the more recent OECD report said that the US has 49 million broadband subscribers. Oh, and what about those little computers that people carry in the pockets? That is, phones and soon-to-be a bevy of different mobile devices that merge video capabilities and old-school voice calling? There are 180 million wireless subscribers in our country of 300 million. All we're saying is that those are a lot of video platforms that are a lot easier to access than paid-for cable on a 40-inch screen that's attached to a cable box.

To the original "what's next" question: If the FCC has regulatory authority to impose disability access rules on "broadcast-like" Internet video*, than why not be able to impose advertising rules for videos targeted towards children? How about next-generation v-chips? Or, if the Fairness Doctrine sees the light of day again, would it be extended to the Internet?

If precedent is created on any of the above, how far could Internet video regulation go?

All said, there is a very good chance that, at least for now, the Markey bill is one big kick in the industry's ass to get in gear and create disability access solutions that pre-empt legislation. Indeed, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL created the Internet Captioning Forum to "overcome the technical and production challenges of providing captions on large video aggregation Web sites."

Indeed the Web captioning site, Captions.org noted recent progress online earlier this week...

More major network channels are setting up video players on their sites..and the good news is, the players show captions! More and more captioned programming is now available through Fox.com (read the review at Disabled in the Digital Age) and others. Plus there is a new online tv broadcaster, Hulu.com, that makes some captioned programming available....

...This is a good start. Part of me wonders if the networks are rushing to provide at least some captioned programming in hopes of avoiding government requirements to provide captions on the internet? After all, because the law that requires captions on television does not apply to the internet, there is now pushing to get a new, updated law that will apply to the internet.

Putting on my Chicken Little suit again, I would respectfully suggest that my friends at businesses heavily invested in online video not merely view their disability access "self-regulatory" efforts as a hedge against bills like Markey's but also see it as a way to maintain that important firewall between them and the FCC vacuum.

Markey has been proven to call industry's bluff before.

*The draft legislation defines the term ‘video programming’ as meaning programming provided by, or generally considered comparable to programming provided by, a television broadcast station, even if such programming is distributed over the Internet or by some other means.’’

Newt's Valley Guy

David Kralick works for Newt Gingrich in Silicon Valley and attracts strange artificial lighting wherever he goes. (photo by Chistina Koci Hernandez for The Washington Post)

The Post has a piece today about Newt Gingrich's emissary to Silicon Valley. It's written by a Bay Area native with an engaging, evocative style and doesn't spare many clichés about life and work between San Jose and South of Market. (Neither apparently does the Post's photo editors. See above).

The lede:

Here, he's from another planet. Here in Silicon Valley, David Kralik is, let's face it, some strange import. That's why he's attracting such buzz one recent afternoon inside Buck's, the legendary eatery, while lunching on a pulled-pork sandwich.

Jamis MacNiven, Buck's owner, plops himself down and blurts out: "So you're the guy that works for Newt the Snoot!"

Yep, that's Kralik. A lifelong Republican in the land of liberal Democrats. Who relocated from uptight, Brooks Brothers Washington. And works for Newt Gingrich.

Bucks really needs to be taken out of the Let's Go Silicon Valley Guide for Media. And, OMG a Republican in Silicon Valley! Get me my binoculars, ma!

But, there are good amounts of interesting anecdotes in the piece -- especially centered around how to apply tech to solve big government problems....

...Says Peter Leyden, the former editor of Wired magazine who heads the New Politics Institute, a think tank focusing on technology's impact on Washington: "There's an emerging sense that both worlds need each other. Think of it this way: The scale of the problems that the world faces -- globalization, global warming, global terrorism -- can't be solved without these two hubs cooperating with each other."
ad_icon

Kralik knows all of this full well. On a recent six-hour flight from Washington to the Valley, he drafted a three-column chart. "The world that works." "The world that fails." "Making government from a world that fails to a world that works."

Kralik puts the U.S. Census Bureau in the world-that-fails column. After spending more than $150 million on handheld computers to count everyone in the country, the Census Bureau announced a few weeks ago that it will scrap that program and hire 600,000 temporary workers and go back to the same way that it's counted people since 1790: with paper and pen.

"You've got to be kidding me, right?" says an incredulous Kralik. "Why can't we get together the brightest minds at Google, at Apple, at whatever companies here in the Valley, and figure out a more high-tech way of counting our citizens?"