Politech mailing list archives
FC: TV-Internet broadcasters self-censoring because of FCC regs
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 19:30:29 -0500
[Fascinating article by my colleague Brad. I am (thank the heavens) not a telecommunications lawyer, and I invite politechnicals who are to contribute their thoughts. But it seems to me that having two communications mediums alongside one another -- when one is heavily regulated and the other is relatively unregulated -- is inherently an unstable situation. It's also, arguably, unfair. So there are two choices in this situation: Reduce regulation on traditional media, or impose it on the new media. What's going to happen here? --Declan] http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41616,00.html TV-Distributed Web to Be PG-13 by Brad King 2:00 a.m. Feb. 7, 2001 PST Television broadcasters will soon start delivering Internet entertainment at better-than-broadband speed, but the content is only going to be PG-13. Two competing companies are working with affiliate television stations to broadcast Internet data through unused bandwidth to speed up delivery, but fears of litigation are prompting them to censor the content. Wavexpress is set to demonstrate its system in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 22, and iBlast has a beta test running until the beginning of March. Both companies are establishing relationships with affiliates across the country, hoping to help solve the "last mile" problem inherent with wireless and satellite delivery systems. Television broadcasters have access to 19.4 Mbps of downstream bandwidth and are negotiating with datacasting companies like iBlast and Wavexpress to license a portion that has gone unused. The problem is that nobody is sure whether Federal Communications Commission regulations for television broadcasts apply to the data streamed using television bandwidth. That has caused network operators at iBlast and Wavexpress to avoid transmitting adult content or music with explicit lyrics in hopes of avoiding lawsuits or restrictive regulations. "In the analog world, everything is out in the clear, so there was no scrambling or encryption," said Stephen Carrol, Wavexpress vice president of broadcast distribution. "That made the FCC rules clear, because you never could tell who (such as children) would access a broadcast." [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- FC: TV-Internet broadcasters self-censoring because of FCC regs Declan McCullagh (Feb 07)