At the same time FilmOn, an Aereo look-alike, is seeking a compulsory license to broadcast TV content, free market advocates in Congress and officials at the Copyright Office are trying to remove this compulsory license. A compulsory license to copyrighted content gives parties like FilmOn the use of copyrighted material at a regulated rate without the consent of the copyright holder. There may be sensible objections to repealing the TV compulsory license, but transaction costs–the ostensible inability to acquire the numerous permissions to retransmit TV content–should not be one of them.

Economists can devise situations where transaction costs are immense and compulsory licenses are needed for a well-functioning market. Today, as when the compulsory license was created, the conventional wisdom is that TV compulsory licenses are still needed to prevent market failure.

In the 1970s, cable companies were capturing broadcast channels and retransmitting it to their subscribers for free because, per the Supreme Court, cable was a passive transmitter and didn’t need copyright permission. In 1976, to correct this perceived unfairness, Congress amended the Copyright Act and said this cable retransmission did necessitate copyright authorization. To make it easier on cable systems (most of which were small, local operations), the law created a compulsory license to broadcast TV content like NBC, ABC, and CBS programming.

The compulsory license primarily does two things: it provides cable operators local TV content royalty-free and provides non-local (“distant”) content (imagine a DC cable company importing a WGN broadcast from Chicago) at regulated rates.

As the House report says:

The Committee recognizes…that it would be impractical and unduly burdensome to require every cable system to negotiate with every copyright owner whose work was retransmitted by a cable system.

The Copyright Office, early on, opposed the compulsory license and has called for the repeal of the compulsory license to broadcast TV content since 1981. As the Register of Copyrights said at a 2000 congressional hearing,

A compulsory license is not only a derogation of a copyright owner’s exclusive rights, but it also prevents the marketplace from deciding the fair value of copyrighted works through government-set price controls.

But when the issue of repeal comes up, many parties cite “significant transaction costs” as a problem with conventional, direct licensing. GAO echoed these objections in an April 2015 report,

we have previously found that obtaining the copyright holders’ permission for all this content would be challenging. Each television program may have multiple copyright holders, and rebroadcasting an entire day of content may require obtaining permission from hundreds of copyright holders. The transaction costs of doing so make this impractical for cable operators.

That sounds sensible but we have powerful contradictory evidence: for decades, hundreds of TV channels requiring the bundling of thousands of copyright licenses are distributed seamlessly and completely outside of the compulsory license regime.

So it’s a mystery to me why analysts still talk about the difficulty in acquiring copyright permission from hundreds or thousands of rights holders. TV distributors outside of the compulsory license scheme do these complex content acquisition deals routinely. Hundreds of non-broadcast channels–like ESPN, CNN, Bravo, HGTV, MTV, and Fox News–are distributed to tens of millions of households via private contractual agreements and without regulated compulsory licenses. TBS, uniquely, in the late 1990s went from a broadcast channel, subject to a compulsory license, to a cable channel distributed via direct licensing with no apparent ill effects. Analysts raising the transactions costs for keeping compulsory licenses, to my knowledge, never explain why the market failure they predict is absent for these hundreds of cable and satellite channels.

Further, while cable and satellite companies don’t need to negotiate broadcast TV copyrights because of the compulsory license, the FCC’s retransmission consent process, part of the 1992 Cable Act, requires these companies to negotiate payment to retransmit broadcast signals–signals that contain the underlying copyrighted content. This process, though bizarre and artificial, is essentially the same negotiation cable and satellite companies would need to enter into in a world without compulsory license.

Finally, online programming from distributors like Hulu, Netflix, and (potentially) Apple TV operate entirely outside of the retrans-compulsory copyright system and undermine the transaction costs objection. Netflix, for instance, doesn’t negotiate with every individual right holder like GAO and Congress imply is necessary in a non-compulsory license regime. Content aggregators and intermediaries, not regulation, streamline the rights acquisition process without the need for a compulsory license. The ostensibly burdensome transaction costs don’t stop Netflix from licensing over 10,000 titles worth around $9 billion.

Certainly, converting from compulsory licensing to direct licensing has issues. Changing legal regimes can be costly and there is a need to prevent anticompetitive withholding of content. Understandably, many cable and satellite distributors oppose repeal of compulsory licenses if the complex FCC system of retransmission consent and must carry are maintained. I tend to agree. Nevertheless, it’s time to strike the transaction cost argument from the policy discussion. The predicted market failure is overcome by market forces.

For more background on TV regulation, see Adam Thierer and Brent Skorup, Video Marketplace Regulation: A Primer on the History of Television Regulation and Current Legislative Proposals (Mercatus working paper).

So, the GAO recently released a report on the wireless industry and found that:

The biggest changes in the wireless industry since 2000 have been consolidation among wireless carriers and increased use of wireless services by consumers. Industry consolidation has made it more difficult for small and regional carriers to be competitive. Difficulties for these carriers include securing subscribers, making network investments, and offering the latest wireless phones necessary to compete in this dynamic industry. Nevertheless, consumers have also seen benefits, such as generally lower prices, which are approximately 50 percent less than 1999 prices, and better coverage.

Now, if you are a self-described “consumer advocate,” I would hope the bottom line here is pretty straightforward and refreshing: Prices fell by 50% in 10 years. That alone is an amazing success story. But that’s not the end of the story. The more important fact is that prices fell by that much while innovation in this sector was also flourishing.  Do you remember the phone you carried in your pocket — if you could fit it in your pocket at all — ten years ago?  It was a pretty rudimentary device.  It made calls and… well… it made calls.  Now, think about the mini-computer that sits in your pocket right now.  Stunning little piece of kit. It can text. It can do email. It can get Internet access. You can Twitter on it. Oh, and you can still make calls on it (but who wants to do that anymore!)

The point is, this is a great American capitalist success story that everyone — especially “consumer advocates” — should be celebrating.  So, what does Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn have to say?

“These trends do not bode well for consumers, despite any benefits of the moment,” she told Ars Technica.

Wait, what?  Apparently no good deed goes unpunished. In the eyes of Public Knowledge, 50% price drops + stunning innovation = we need more regulation!  According to Ars, Gigi called for wireless net neutrality, text messaging regulation, an end to handset exclusivity, and more reasonable early termination fees.

What Gigi appears to be hung up on is the fact that, as the GAO reports, there has been undeniable consolidation in this sector since 2000. (Of course, that scale was essential to spreading faster networks nationwide).  But in Public Knowledge’s world, big is always bad.  All that counts is how atomistic competition is.  If we don’t have lemonade stands* on every corner, then, by God, to hell with the entire system, they say.  It makes no difference to them how well consumers did under that system . That’s the key take-away here.

But how asinine is this?  Again, isn’t consumer welfare what really counts?  Do we really care if we have 4 or 40 competitors? So long as prices are generally reasonable (or in this case constantly plummeting) and innovation is occurring at a healthy clip (which is certainly is here), then who cares how many players are out there?  Who’s to say to say that “X” is exactly the right number of competitors?  Markets determine these things. Public Knowledge apparently doesn’t like the fact that X currently is 4 instead of 40, or whatever it is they think meets their Goldilocks standard.  And, so, to get things just right, they would bring in the regulatory wrecking ball and have FCC bureaucrats start re-engineering this sector according to their own preferred design.

Oh, the rank hubris of it all!

Anyway, you’ll have to excuse me now.  Once I finish up this post to on my Droid (yes, I can blog on my fricking phone!!!!  How amazing is that, Gigi !!) I then need to get back to reading through my day’s Twitter stream (also on my phone) my RSS feeds (also via my phone) and then sort through the tens of thousands of games and apps in the Android marketplace to find my kids some new things to keep them entertained on a long car drive during vacation next week, where I will be using the Droid’s navigation system to find the hotel, while also searching for restaurants to eat at, while also…

Oh, you get the point.  Some people are just never happy.

P.S. To understand why “lemonade stand economics” are never going to work out well in high fixed-cost sectors like wireless, please see my post, “Wireless Networks & Lemonade Stand Economics.”   For more facts about how vibrantly competitive and innovative this sector is, please see:

• Wireless Innovation is Alive & Well: Two New Reports Set the Record Straight
• CTIA’s Refutation of Tim Wu’s 2007 Wireless Net Neutrality Paper
• The Fiercely Competitive Mobile OS & Device Markets

by Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka

We’re hoping that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has made some sort of mistake, because it’s hard to believe its latest findings about the paperwork burden generated by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory activity. In late January, the GAO released a report on “Information Collection and Management at the Federal Communications Commission” (GAO-10-249), which examined information collection, management, and reporting practices at the FCC. The GAO noted that the FCC gathers information through 413 collection instruments, which include things like: (1) required company filings, such as the ownership of television stations; (2) applications for FCC licenses; (3) consumer complaints; (4) company financial and accounting performance; and (5) a variety of other issues, such as an annual survey of cable operators.  (Note: This does not include filings and responses done pursuant to other FCC NOIs or NPRMs.)

Regardless, the FCC told the GAO that it receives nearly 385 million responses with an estimated 57 million burden hours associated with the 413 collection instruments. A “burden hour” is defined under the Paperwork Reduction Act as “the time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, or provide information to a federal agency.” And the FCC is generating 57 million of ‘em! Even though we are frequently critical of the agency, these numbers are still hard to fathom. Perhaps the GAO has made some sort of mistake here. But here’s what really concerns us if they haven’t made a mistake.

Assuming the GAO got these numbers right, just think of the deadweight economic loss associated with all this paperwork, and think of how it will grow in months and years to come! Can you imagine how much the numbers have likely grown so far this year, with the agency generating so many new public notices, notices of inquiry, requests for information, and more?  And just think what the paperwork burden will look like once the National Broadband Plan and Net neutrality regulations kick in!  Oh my… The agency has already promised lots more notices will flow out of the National Broadband Plan to implement various portions of it.

In terms of the deadweight loss, go back to the numbers Adam cited in his essay last week asking, “Will the FCC’s Nat’l Broadband Plan Be “Full Employment for Lawyers”? As noted there, lawyers were about the only group that did fairly well thanks the FCC’s over-zealous regulatory ways in the post-Telecom Act period. Greg Sidak of Georgetown University Law School found that the number of telecom lawyers–as measured by membership in the Federal Communications Bar Association–grew by a stunning 73% in the late 1990s. That was largely driven by a 37% hike in FCC spending and a tripling of the number of pages of regulations in the FCC Record in the post-Telecom Act period. Sidak argued, “If one assumes (very conservatively) that the average income of an American telecommunications lawyer is $100,000, then the current membership of the FCBA represents an annual expenditure on legal services of at least $340 million.” And we all know that those lawyers were making a heck of lot more than just $100K (and billed even more), so Sidak’s estimates were ultra-conservative: The deadweight loss of all this legal activity was much greater.

Indeed, a very conservative estimate of hourly rates for Washington communications lawyers would be $200/hour, but even at that rate, 57 million burden hours would equate to a total cost of $11.4 billion. In fact, when major Washington law firms use “blended rates” to bill out the time of senior partners, junior associates, and paralegals working in teams on things like regulatory filings, the figure is more like $350-400 (if not more)—which would equate to a deadweight cost of $20-23 billion every year.  To put that staggering number in perspective, leaks about the National Broadband Plan indicate that the FCC might be planning on spending about that much to subsidize broadband deployment over a decade.

Or, to use another comparison, NASA’s 2010 budget is a mere $18.69 billion.  That’s in the same ballpark as what, according to the GAO’s man-hour estimates, the FCC’s reporting requirements cost U.S. industry every year.  As Wernher von Braun famously said about the Apollo program, which he led: “We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.”

So, “if we can put a man on the moon,” as they say, why can’t we do something about this paperwork burden so America’s communications, media, and high-tech providers can focus on actually providing better, faster, and cheaper service to consumers?

Libertarian folk-hero Rep. Ron Paul has apparently convinced (WSJ) House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank to implement his proposal (HR 1207) for an audit of the Federal Reserve by the end of 2010. Paul’s Bill would expand existing audits considerably because, under current law, the Government Accountability Office,

can’t review most of the Fed’s monetary policy actions or decisions, including discount window lending (direct loans to financial institutions), open-market operations and any other transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee. It also can’t look into the Fed’s transactions with foreign governments, foreign central banks and other international financing organizations… While the bill only seeks a one-time audit, [Paul] said he wants the Fed to be audited at least annually with the report — and details of its transactions — disclosed publicly.

I’d like to up the ante: Let’s make sure that any data disclosures are made in eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), as Mark Cuban and our own Jim Harper have previously suggested. Such machine-readable disclosures would be much more useful, because the data could be analyzed or “mashed-up” with other data sets to answer questions we might not even be able to formulate today.

PFF Adjunct Fellow Mike Palage, who served on the ICANN board from 2003 to 2006, filed these comments (PDF) on the NTIA’s recent Notice of Inquiry regarding ICANN’s future.  Mike’s four key points were as follows:

1. ICANN’s Periodic Review of its internal operations and supporting organizations has failed, and has become nothing more than a “perpetual motion machine of public comments and documentation producing no meaningful results.” Only a second Evolution and Reform Process can solve ICANN’s current deficiencies;
2. ICANN must hardcode into its policies and its contracts the principle that its policies cannot supersede national laws;
3. ICANN must cease any operational role in technical infrastructure as required by its bylaws and focus instead on its mission as a technical coordinator; and
4. Congress must avoid “kicking the JPA can down the road” and instead provide much-needed leadership by creating a solid foundation for ICANN 3.0 in legislation after proper consultation with the Government Accountability Office.

I’ve been working closely with PFF’s new Adjunct Fellow Michael Palage on ICANN issues.  Here is his latest note , from the PFF blog.

ICANN recently proclaimed that the “Joint Project Agreement” (one of two contractual arrangements that ICANN has with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) governing ICANN’s operations) will come to an end in September 2009. ICANN’s insistence on this point first became clear back in October 2008 at ICANN’s Washington, D.C. public forum on Improving Institutional Confidence when Peter Dengate Thrush, Chair of ICANN’s Board declared:

the Joint Project Agreement will conclude in September 2009. This is a legal fact, the date of expiry of the agreement. It’s not that anyone’s declared it or cancelled it; it was set up to expire in September 2009.

ICANN’s recently published 2008 Annual Report stuck to this theme:

“As we approach the conclusion of the Joint Project Agreement between the United States Department of Commerce and ICANN in September 2009…” – His Excellency Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Arab Republic of Egypt

“Concluding the JPA in September 2009 is the next logical step in transition of the DNS to private sector management.” – ICANN Staff

“This consultation’s aim was for the community to discuss possible changes to ICANN in the lead-up to the completion of the JPA in September 2009.” – ICANN Staff

ICANN’s effort to make the termination of the JPA seem inevitable is concerning on two fronts. First, ICANN fails to mention that the current JPA appears to be merely an extension/revision of the original 1998 Memorandum of Understand (MoU) with DoC, which was set to expire in September 2000. Thus, because the JPA does not appear to be a free-standing agreement, but merely a continuation of MOU-as Bret Fausset argues in his excellent analysis of the relationship between the MoU and the JPA (also discussed by Milton Mueller). Therefore, it would be more correct to talk about whether the “MoU/JPA”-meaning the entire agreement as modified by the most current JPA-will expire or be extended.

Although previous MoUs with the USG have been extended, ICANN seems to be playing a game of chicken with the USG-hinting that it will not extend the current MoU/JPA if ICANN believes that it has completed its mission. Since it seems possible that ICANN really might walk away from the MoU/JPA without global stakeholder consensus that it has fully completed its obligations under the MoU/JPA, it is critical that we think about the consequences of such a unilateral move by ICANN. ICANN would likely argue that the bilateral contracts it has in place with registry operators-from which ICANN has carefully removed most references to the USG in recent years-provide a sufficient legal basis for ICANN to continue its current operations without direct USG oversight.

Some stakeholders have expressed concern about the idea of ICANN not being directly held accountable to any government entity, but ICANN appears to have attempted to preemptively address this concern, when it acknowledged in its 2008 Annual report that “[t]he California attorney general is the legal overseer of California nonprofit public benefit corporations such as ICANN.”

With the future stability and security of the Internet hanging in the balance, a neutral third party ought to analyze the current existing relationship between the USG and ICANN- before ICANN decides in September 2009 whether to renew the MoU/JPA or walk away. The General Accounting Office (GAO) is the ideal candidate for such a task, given its well-established reputation for independent analysis and prior experience studying these matters-especially its detailed 2000 analysis of the early stages of DoC’s relationship with ICANN.

In conducting a new study, GAO ought to consider the following issues:

• Since the original 2000 GAO report on ICANN, ICANN’s annual budget has skyrocketed to more than $60 million. That budget is set to grow significantly once ICANN begins accepting applications for new gTLDs on a large scale: Using ICANN’s own projections of new gTLD applicants and the minimum fees that will be assessed suggests that ICANN’s budget will soon exceed $100 million. As ICANN’s budget grows, one must ask: Are these fees-paid by largely gTLD registrants, registrars, and registries-consistent with the GAO’s conclusion in its 2000 report that ICANN is limited to recovering only actual costs (because “ICANN is a project partner with the Department under the memorandum of understanding, and it is the Department’s policy to allow project partners to recover only actual project costs”)?

• If ICANN walked away from the MoU/JPA without the USG formally acknowledging that ICANN had successful fulfilled its obligations under the agreement, would ICANN be able to rely upon its existing contracts with registry operators to continue collecting fees?

• In its 2000 report, the GAO asked whether the DoC “had the authority to transfer control of the authoritative root server to ICANN.” The GAO did not definitively answer this question, but concluded that it was “uncertain whether transferring control would involve the transfer of government property to a private entity” thus giving rise to implications involving the Property Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2.), which requires statutory authority for the disposal of government property.

• GAO investigated, but did not resolve, whether or not an act of Congress would thus be required to transfer control of the root server to ICANN. But GAO did not undertake the same analysis as to whether the contractual rights associated with the top-level domains themselves constituted “government property” requiring Congressional action for any to transfer to ICANN. This may have been because U.S. courts had, at that time, held that domain names were not “property” in general, but simply a contractual right to a service provided by the registration authority. But potentially changed with the Ninth Circuit’s 2003 decision in Kremen v. Network Solutions concerning sex.com. Thus, if the GAO concludes that ICANN’s gTLD contracts with registry operators involve property rights and that statutory authority would be required for the DoC to transfer these rights to ICANN, it is difficult to see how ICANN would be able to enforce these rights if ICANN ended its relationship with the USG as a project partner by walking away from the MoU/JPA-regardless of ICANN’s success in removing references to the USG in these contracts.

These are just some of the initial questions the GAO needs to answer well before September 2009, independent of whether the USG and ICANN decide to extend the MoU/JPA. The stakes are just too high for these questions to remain unanswered.