[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."
[...]
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Received on Feb 08 2001
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