Treating Online Services Like TV: Regulatory Overkill?
A storm of protest greeted a European Commission (EC) move to regulate online audiovisual (AV) services. The plan would apply the 1989 TV without Frontiers (TVWF) directive to Internet TV programming and “non-linear"(on- demand) services. But in comments submitted in advance of a major AV conference to occur later this month, telcos, ISPs and media groups panned the idea, saying it’s overkill and would hamper efforts to boost Europe’s economy.
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According to the EC, most experts favor a comprehensive new regulatory scheme for all e-delivery of AV content based on a 2-tier approach that would: (1) Set basic protections for minors and human dignity and similar principles for on- and offline AV services. (2) Subject scheduled programming to lighter, modernized rules derived from the TVWF. Not surprisingly, many industry groups disagreed.
There’s no need to extend the TVWF Directive to the online sector, Yahoo Europe said. TVWF and the e-commerce directive already cover AV and information society services, and seem to work well, Yahoo said. The EC wrongly assumes the best way to promote European broadcasting and content is to regulate all content providers under the same outdated rules, and that Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) is just like broadcast TV except it’s online, Yahoo said.
In infancy, IPTV may resemble traditional broadcasting when TV shows are rebroadcast online, Yahoo said. But in 10-15 years, IPTV will be a “world of on- demand, streamed, live, prerecorded and citizen-created services mixed into a melange of interactive information, education and entertainment” that consumers control, Yahoo said. The EC proposal “would appear to offer an inappropriate template for future regulation,” Yahoo said.
European Competitive Telecom Assn. (ECTA) members have “grave concern” that the EC proposal will mean widespread regulation of Internet sites, they said. Online services providers and Internet intermediaries already come under the e-commerce directive and don’t need another parallel layer of regulation, ECTA said. The impact of applying TVWF to Internet intermediaries isn’t clear, but ECTA companies fear it could interfere with e- commerce directive provisions on intermediary liability for Internet content, the group said.
Any application of broadcast rules to online services could impede development of new technologies and new markets for widespread distribution of AV content, said the European Telecom Network Operators’ Assn. To spur European cultural diversity and disseminate European AV works, the EC should develop markets, said the group, which represents incumbents.
Under TVWF, “broadcasting is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the European Union,” the German Assn. of Information Technology, Telecom & New Media (BITKOM) said. The EC shouldn’t extend that “narrow regime” indiscriminately to new -- and often fragile -- emerging services. But if a 2-tiered approach is taken, it should discern not between linear and on-demand services, but individual services’ degree of user choice and control, BITKOM said.
Regulating online AV content will add to publishers’ existing burden, said the European Newspaper Publishers’ Assn. (ENPA). An electronic news communication service’s main function isn’t to provide TV programming, and ENPA members fear if they use video-on-demand AV content on their websites they might fall under a revamped TVWF.
The principles of freedom of expression and freedom of trade dictate against any inclusion of newspaper or magazine online services or radio in TVWF, said the Federation of the Finnish Media Industry. New e- communications products and services must be allowed to develop freely, without rigid regulation, it said. If TVWF extends to AV services, it should exclude banner ads, which are “of trivial significance” to the overall context of an electronic communication, the group said.
Free Communication vs. National Sensibilities
Consumer voices rarely are heard in debates on AV content regulation, said Oftwatch, which represents adult services consumers in the U.K. New technologies created a conflict between free communication and “the national margin,” as Oftwatch called rules aimed at maintaining respect for nations’ cultural differences. The national margin is best suited to resolving cultural issues arising when “public ‘push’ services distribute a wide variety of differing content and contexts to a variable audience,” said Oftwatch. Where individual adults seek certain content -- linear or not -- in the privacy of their own homes, the “national margin of appreciation should give way to a personal margin of appreciation,” Oftwatch said.
Regulators are in denial over the clash pitting free communication against national margins, said Oftwatch. IPTV will turn broadcasting and broadcast regulations on their heads, but regulators don’t seem to have noticed, according to the group: “The regulatory Titanic is steaming directly towards the IPTV iceberg whilst those in charge are happily rearranging the deckchairs in their national margins.”
All proposals to change TVWF including new ad rules for on-demand programming -- are up for debate Sept. 20-22 in Liverpool, U.K., at the EC’s AV conference, “Between Culture and Commerce."