Yes, you can say that the bill violates our freedoms or rights as Americans, but the bill is not regulating the content. One could argue that noise ordinances are a violation of our first amendment using the same logic, which is absurd; if someone was screaming through a megaphone in your ear you would request that person turn it down.

To allow this problem to go unchecked could result in excessively loud commercials. Commercials could blow the speakers on all your electronics, since there is no law that says they can't broadcast as loud as they want.

I think the article above by Berin completely misrepresents the actual battle that is happening right now. The bill does not require that the volume be at a level that is not audible. Also, the user has the choice to turn up the volume. A loud show followed by commercials that I can't quite hear sounds better to me than a show I can hardly hear followed by blaring advertisements.

Advertisers who disagree with the bill have many other medium options to choose from. There is no regulation of volume on the internet; as all of us have probably experienced. There is the radio, video games, newspapers, magazines, live events, movies, yellowpages, billboards, mail, refrigerator magnets, etc.

So for those of you who immediately say any regulation is bad, read the bill, learn what it entails, the effects it will have, and ask yourself if it really is a bad thing, if it really is violating any persons rights or the constitution, and why those affected (such as advertisers) would fight so hard to keep it from passing. Then ask yourself if you are preconditioned to think all government regulation is bad.

I for one, a practitioner of free speech and a protector of the constitution, full heartedly support the bill.

Yes, you can say that the bill violates our freedoms or rights as Americans, but the bill is not regulating the content. One could argue that noise ordinances are a violation of our first amendment using the same logic, which is absurd; if someone was screaming through a megaphone in your ear you would request that person turn it down.

To allow this problem to go unchecked could result in excessively loud commercials. Commercials could blow the speakers on all your electronics, since there is no law that says they can't broadcast as loud as they want.

I think the article above by Berin completely misrepresents the actual battle that is happening right now. The bill does not require that the volume be at a level that is not audible. Also, the user has the choice to turn up the volume. A loud show followed by commercials that I can't quite hear sounds better to me than a show I can hardly hear followed by blaring advertisements.

Advertisers who disagree with the bill have many other medium options to choose from. There is no regulation of volume on the internet; as all of us have probably experienced. There is the radio, video games, newspapers, magazines, live events, movies, yellowpages, billboards, mail, refrigerator magnets, etc.

So for those of you who immediately say any regulation is bad, read the bill, learn what it entails, the effects it will have, and ask yourself if it really is a bad thing, if it really is violating any persons rights or the constitution, and why those affected (such as advertisers) would fight so hard to keep it from passing. Then ask yourself if you are preconditioned to think all government regulation is bad.

I for one, a practitioner of free speech and a protector of the constitution, full heartedly support the bill.

The LA Times has come out swinging in a devastating editorial against Rep. Anna G. Eshoo’s (D-CA) Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, passed by the House on Tuesday. As Adam Thierer and I have discussed (here, here, and here),……

Noise and/or stridency is often exactly what a viewer seeks when turning to television entertainment. Any parent could comment on this. Why should the commercials look any different than the programs themselves?

A restriction on “modulation levels” is outdated and unnecessary. Back in the day when television audio was delivered on an FM carrier, “modulation levels” were meaningful and the FCC did limit modulation levels without legislation. The purpose of this regulation was to prevent modulation wars among FM radio broadcasters who would seek to present the “loudest” signal on the FM “dial”. However, today we have digital radios and televisions; channel selection no longer involves tuners and dials. There is no “modulation level” that directly relates to the loudness of audio.

The technical control of program volume is within the capability of broadcasters today. Audio is all bits these days and modern signal processing can not only control the volume, but a whole variety of other sound characteristics. As the article points out, technology in the hands of consumers can do away with advertising altogether (not to mention the programming itself). Furthermore, many modern televisions contain a feature that limits audio volume automatically — a feature that many people never activate!

The real problem today is that “televisions” are no longer self-contained products. Often, a television is a mere display, combined with elaborate surround sound systems with front and rear speakers and dedicated bass amplification. It is this equipment that is responsible for the wide variation in sound levels contained in digital programs presented by cable, satellite, and over-the-air digital broadcasters. It is the transition between programming encoded one way (e.g., 5.1 Dolby) and commercials without such encoding, and then back again, that is so objectionable — even to the person who is trying to watch the television.

But this problem is solvable. Broadcasters here in Los Angeles are still trying to figure out how to transition smoothly from a high-definition source to a standard-definition source, and back again. They often broadcast malformed signals with wrong aspect-ratio and bad audio. But they're learning. They've only had this problem since June, thanks to a meddling Congress. The issue of uneven audio levels will be technically be resolved. The incentive to do so already exists: viewer retention is a life or death matter for these broadcasters.

Like Berin, this legislation is pointless in our household. The television mostly gathers dust. But if one were to make a real contribution to the utility of television, the last part of Eshoo's legislation should simply be turned around:

[their] average maximum loudness… shall not be substantially lower than the average maximum loudness of the commercial material that such programs accompany.

This idea would resolve a real problem for our aging population of people who have reduced hearing acuity ad who must adjust the television volume up very high in order to merely hear the programming!

But in the end, either approach is just Nanny State meddling. I hope Ms. Eshoo is doing something else in Congress to earn her wage and status. This is a waste of time.

So, yes, the answer is regulation, if by “regulation” we mean setting rules for use of the commons so that there won't be this race to the bottom of each advertiser trying to go louder than the others, each of them bearing only a fraction of the cost of increased ad-skipping or ad-deafness on the part of consumers.

The question is whether we think the FCC will really do a better job than self-regulation by industry and, if so, whether this advantage is worth the costs I outline above. I'm skeptical. Again, the television industry has a strong incentive to fix this problem on their own, so if they're finally on the verge of adopting self-regulation, why not wait and see how that develops?

As I have previously discussed, before you get to the issue of regulation there is self-responsibility. One of the the CATO Institute's summary of Libertarianism is that “Libertarianism is thus the combination of liberty (the freedom to live your life in any peaceful way you choose), responsibility (the prohibition against the use of force against others, except in defense), and tolerance (honoring and respecting the peaceful choices of others).” Companies, like the government, do not have an implicit right to intrude or act irresponsibly. So when they do (such as Comcast), instead of lamenting over proposed regulation; where are the posts calling for them to act ethically? Act responsibly and you won't get regulated.

MY government is there for me first and not corporations using my airwaves.

This is not a nanny state issue. This is a government doing what its people demand.