Articles by Adam Thierer 
Senior Fellow in Technology & Innovation at the R Street Institute in Washington, DC. Formerly a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, President of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute, and a Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
Three Cheers for Sen. Norm Coleman! He recently introduced a Sense of the Senate resolution “to protect the U.S.’s historic role in overseeing the operations of the Internet from an effort to transfer control over the unprecedented communications and informational medium to the U.N.”
In his statement, Sen. Coleman argued that:
“There is no rational justification for politicizing Internet governance within a U.N. framework. Nor is there a rational basis for the anti-U.S. resentment driving the proposal. Privatization, not politicization, is the Internet governance regime that must be fostered and protected. At the World Summit next month, the Internet is likely to face a grave threat. If we fail to respond appropriately, we risk the freedom and enterprise fostered by this informational marvel, and end up sacrificing access to information, privacy, and protection of intellectual property we have all depended on. This is not a risk I am prepared to take, which is why I initiated action to respond on a Senate level to this danger.”
YOU GO NORM! I love it.
Faithful readers of this blog will know that this issue really gets me worked up. Here’s my recent Wall Street Journal editorial on the issue that I penned with my old friend Wayne Crews of CEI. And two years ago, Wayne and I also co-edited a massive collection of essays on Internet governance / jurisdication issues entitled “Who Rules the Net.” Our point in the book and that recent editorial was simple: We stand at a crucial moment in the history of the Internet and unless we stand firm in opposition to those who seek to impose an international regulatory regime on this vibrant, borderless technology of freedom, the Internet as we know it today will die.
Let’s hope that other members of Congress and the Administration will join Sen. Coleman in this important effort to protect the Internet from the global regulatory / bureaucratic nightmare that looms overhead today.
By now you’ve heard that Apple is launching a video-capable version of its wildly popular iPod. Apple is a real trailblazer, obviously, when it comes to innovative mobile media applications, but they’re not the only one.
For example, take a look at EchoStar’s incredible new application, the “Pocket DISH.” The PocketDISH allows consumers to access video, music, games and photos all on one small device. PocketDISH owners will be able to transfer programs from DISH Network receivers to the player and then enjoy their favorite programs on the go. It’ll be like having a TiVo in your pocket.
And the PlayStation Portable offers most of the same capabilities too. After enterprising hackers modified the PSP to do a heck of a lot more than just play games and watch movies, Sony decided to offer PSP owners downloadable software “patches” that expand the PSP into the ultimate all-in-one multi-media device. For example, click here if you’d like to find out how to watch TV using a PSP.
These amazing innovations once again illustrate the challenge lawmakers will face in the future regarding media regulation. Indeed, as I will argue in my next book, content controls are essentially doomed in our new world of media convergence and rapid technological innovation.
Think about it… how do you regulate devices like Apple’s video iPod, the PocketDISH, and the PlayStation Portable when consumers can use them (and modify them) to do just about anything and receive any type of media they want, wherever they want, whenever they want? Broadcast era content controls just won’t work in this environment absent extremely intrusive measures. But I’m sure that won’t stop lawmakers from trying.
This Saturday, my old friend Wayne Crews of CEI and I had an editorial in the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal dealing with the increasing calls for more “global governance” of the Internet. In our essay, “The World Wide Web (of Bureaucrats),” Wayne and I point out that we are at a critical moment in the history of the Internet, with calls for collective global governance coming from many different quarters.
A “U.N. for the Internet” model would be a disaster, we argue, since it would allow regulators from across the globe to get their paws on the Net and start imposing a variety of confusing, country-specific cultural and legal standards on this open, borderless network or networks. We conclude the essay by noting that, “if laissez-faire is not an option, the second-best solution is that the legal standards governing Web content should be those of the ‘country of origin.’ Ideally, governments should assert authority only over citizens physically within its geographic borders. This would protect sovereignty and the principle of ‘consent of the governed’ online. It would also give companies and consumers a ‘release valve’ or escape mechanism to avoid jurisdictions that stifle online commerce or expression. The Internet helps overcome artificial restrictions on trade and communications formerly imposed by oppressive or meddlesome governments. Allowing these governments to reassert control through a U.N. backdoor would be a disaster.”
On a related note, I also encourage you to read this excellent new editorial by Carl Bildt, the former prime minister of Sweden. Bildt argues that, “It would be profoundly dangerous to now set up an international mechanism, controlled by governments, to take over the running of the Internet. Not only would this play into the hands of regimes bent on limiting the freedom that the Internet can bring, it also risks stifling innovation and ultimately endangering the security of the system. Even trying to set up such a mechanism could cause conflicts leading to today’s uniform global system being Balkanized into different, more or less closed systems.”
Amen to that.
This royalty spat between the RIAA and the satellite radio industry promises to get very ugly. Anytime major copyright owners and users get in a room to argue about prices, you can be sure that sparks will fly.
I don’t pretend to have any idea what the “fair” price for music is. Honestly, I am a bit of relativist when it comes to prices. I don’t think that there is an objectively “fair” price for anything in this world
outside of the price that the contracting parties find mutually beneficial. Once two parties handshake on a deal, that’s the “fair” price in my book.
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In past years, when debating media issues and media power at various events, a lot of critics use to laugh or scoff at me whenever I suggested that new media operators like Google and Yahoo were forces to be watched since they really could start to eat into the power of traditional media companies.
Well, it’s not just me saying this anymore. Read this great column by Mark Glaser of Anneberg’s Online Journalism Review entitled “Is Yahoo Public Enemy No. 1 for Big Media?”
I TOLD YOU SO !
Believe it or not, cell phone movie makers now have their own Academy Awards, at least in Europe, that is. The BBC reports that Europe’s first film festival for mobile phone movies will open this week in Paris.
While mobile video is just starting to catch on here in the U.S., it is all the rage over in Asia and Europe since citizens have been quicker to jump on the wireless bandwagon there. As a result, cell phone “art” has been quicker to develop and is now even the subject of contests and awards.
I find this particularly interesting in light of Europe’s ongoing efforts to expand media regulation. You will recall that Patrick Ross released a short paper last week about efforts underway in the European Union to grapple with media convergence and the challenges it poses for traditional media regulation. In “Regulation Without Frontiers: Europe Shows U.S. Policymakers How Not to Embrace Convergence,” Patrick notes that European regulators are foolishly looking to impose outmoded, broadcast-era regulatory mandates of the fast-paced, borderless new world of online media.
So what do the EU regulators plan to do about all these mobile media movies and videos that are now winning awards?!? How are they going to regulate all this stuff? If, for example, someone creates an award-winning but very controversial film and makes it widely available via mobile devices, how are regulators going to bottle that up? Are they going to fine that person directly (assuming they can find them)? Or are they going to force mobile media network providers to police their networks and censor on behalf of government? Are they going to require all this stuff to be rated or filtered? Regardless of the enforcement path they choose, I just don’t see how it could work.
Of course, we can expect this same debate to come to America very soon. We’re already seeing early proposals to extend broadcast regulations to cable and satellite, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see regulators target mobile media next.
So by now all of you have heard that Google’s imperial ambitions will potentially include a telecom / broadband infrastructure component as well. At least for the luckily residents of San Francisco, CA, that is. Google announced this week that it would be entering the competition to create a wi-fi network to provide San Fran consumers with high-speed Internet connections. (Om Malik of Business 2.0 suggests that Google’s ambitions are indeed quite grand and might include a full-blown national broadband network).
Will it work? I don’t know, but any time a company with an $86 billion market cap says it’s going to throw a big wad of their cash at something, you should take it seriously. But what is Google doing playing the infrastructure provider game? Certainly this is outside their “core competency” and does not seem to fit nicely within their overall gameplan of becoming the world’s most well-diversified e-commerce giant. If you look at the world through the prism of the “layers model,” it’s easy to imagine Google as a player in every layer EXCEPT for the physical infrastructure layer. Playing ball in that layer is quite a different game than what Google has thus far developed an expertise in.
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The Wall Street Journal
reported today that, in an effort to combat rampant movie and music piracy overseas (especially in China), some media companies are radically cutting prices on their DVDs and CDs to undercut the pirates. Warner Brothers, for example, plans to drop DVD prices to roughly $2 to $4 in China and NBC Universal is apparently planning a similar response for Russia.
I find this business strategy very interesting because I think it has legitimate chance of helping to undercut a significant chunk of the piracy that the studios have to deal with in China and other foreign markets. After all, I would think that many Chinese consumers would be willing to spend a dollar or two more to get the legitimate studio version of a film since its quality is likely better and it probably contains a host of extras not available on the pirated versions. And, hopefully, at least some Chinese consumers will also realize it’s the right thing to do instead of robbing the content companies of any compensation for the wonderful products they produce.
On the other hand, I’m also wondering if this new strategy might backfire on the movie and music studios. In particular, I’m wondering (a) if this will open up global arbitrage opportunities; and (b) if this sort of price discrimination will rub a lot of other consumers back here in the States the wrong way.
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Solveig Singleton and I recently released a short analysis of the ongoing ICANN dispute over the proposed “.xxx” top-level domain (TLD). In our PFF Progress Snapshot, we point out that important issues are raised by the recent effort of the United States to intervene at the last moment and interfere with the creation of this new TLD. I encourage you to read our paper but before you do so, if you need some good background on this issue, I highly recommend that you first visit the Internet Governance Project web page and speficially look at the petition that Prof. Milton Mueller and several other ICANN experts put together on this issue.
In previous posts earlier this year, I warned that efforts by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block the proposed acquisition of video rental firm Hollywood Video by Blockbuster Inc. would likely lead to the demise of both companies in the long run. Well, excuse me while I toot my own horn for a moment, but it appears that I was likely right, and sooner than I expected.
Joe Flint and Kate Kelly report in today’s
Wall Street Journal (“New Signs of Strain for Blockbuster” p. B5) that “Blockbuster Inc. is facing new pressures as signs increase that a sharp decline in the video-rental market is putting a strain on the company’s finances.” The company’s stock prices fell by 9.7% on Friday, hitting a 52-week low of $4.60 per share. This came on news that Movie Gallery Inc., the industry’s #2 firm, was reporting that sales at many of its stores were expected to drop by 8-10% this quarter.
What’s happening is clear: technological and market evolution are finally catching up with this old business and is about to wipe it from the face of the Earth. With all the new sources of competition out there–Netflix and cheap DVDs at WalMart, online movie download services, cable and satellite movie channels plus video-on-demand, telco entry into the video business, all sorts of handheld mobile media gadgets like the PlayStation Portable, and so on–its no wonder that Blockbuster and others in this sector are struggling.
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