CRTC Regulate Internet Video??? NEVER!

The Canadian government through the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) seems to think they can impose content standards on the internet in the same fashion that they do for traditonal radio and TV. I've got news for them - it ain't going to happen, and even if it does, it ain't going to work.

Imagine, you can get High Definition video from almost anywhere on the planet - the old (home) country where you came from, places where the rules are looser on content, channels that don't show up on the satellites here abouts, anything, any time - on demand or to a schedule. Imagine getting content that is in your language of choice, with or without advertising (you can pay for view or put up with ads) on subjects that fit your background and at an education level aimed at you rather than the "average" (8 year old idiot if TV is any indication).

That's what the CRTC wants to stop. They want ISPs to stop you from getting video or audio from anywhere except Canada - or at minimum to impose Canadian content rules; % of Canadian content no matter if the channel comes from Sweden or Uraquay or..., and language/advertisers consistent with Canadian values, etc.

Sheer lunacy!

OK - so the report the CRTC commissioned and recently released is not binding on them - but the bleeding hearts and others digging into the public trough (including the big-business publishers and marketers) will want it to be put in place so they can demand support. The report "TV or NOT TV: Three Screen, One Regulation?" by Eli M. Noam can be read on the CRTC site. It's mandatory reading if you value your ability to choose your content.

Just in the overview the absurdity rears its ugly head:

Content:

Try and stop its creation! You (CRTC) don't have to harmonize this - just get the hell out of the way! You can't regulate me - I'm my own boss and I'll create whatever video I want, when I want, on whatever subject I want - and I'll post it on my own server if YouTube or some other aggregator doesn't want it - just try to stop me or anyone else. I control servers in the US and I can control one anywhere on the planet - including places completely outside the control of any national government.

And if people want to view it you'll have the devil's own time trying to stop them; with encryption and deception tactics equal to the likes of the Chinese government already in place you're playing in a game that is on a field you know nothing about.

Television is hurting already due to the likes of YouTube, Wavelit and other video aggregation sites. Advertising revenue is down, viewership is down, the sparkle is turning to rust.

But the fundamental thing this report misses is that TV is just video, pure and simple, and anyone with a video camera can create it, edit it, put it to music, blue-screen, overlay, serialize, report and generally compete with the traditional studios. Who is to say what is created for TV (thereby falling under the pervue of the CRTC and other irrelevant national bodies) and what is created for the internet? Trying to say that any video on the internet is the same as TV is akin to saying that every picture taken by anyone with a camera can be regulated by government in where and how it is displayed, or every word created can be regulated by government in whether it is printed, sent by fax, written longhand or published and bound in books; it simply is absurd.

Regulate the conduits??? What is this? China???

You have to identify the conduits first - and with the exception of the really large ones you can't; they change too often and are evolving constantly. No longer are we tied to the wires - now we are in the air - and the technologies to replace the wires and even fiber-optic are already in the works - gigabits/second - first in the home, then in the neighbourhood - and all peer to peer, so there isn't an identifiable ISP to regulate.

Assure common carrier access??? - maybe this has to do with "Net neutrality" where the regulations should concern the ISP not interfering in the carrying of ANYTHING I as a customer want to see - as opposed to making their own (and of course Candian Content as mandated by the CRTC) work better or instead of what I want. That's a regulation worthy of the CRTC's arena.

Permit the conduit provider's own content provision activities??? How would they stop them - why would they want to? On the other hand, as long as the net is neutral, I can make my own decision on whether I want to view my ISP's content - if it's good enough then fine - but it is MY decision, not the CRTC's or my "conduit" provider's.

The author (Noam) has obviously not seen Michael Wesch's "An anthropological introduction to YouTube" - a video I heartily recommend to any/all who would like to understand where things have come from and where they are going regarding video in the world today. It started with "Rodney King" (video of cops beating an innocent) and has progressed to the creation of videos with an expected audience of as few as 10-100 people in the world.

At least Noam gets some things right - and gives good background into the artificial scarcity that TV regulation started out in. He also identifies the potential for aggregating "too much power into a single body" - so maybe there is hope.

On the other hand he appears to advocate "geo-blocking" - blocking certain incoming traffic based on the IP address it comes from knowing that the address is in another country - something China does.

His various models for regulation show complete disregard for the potential of the internet to "route around censorship as it does damage" and in fact shows a sell-out to the big publishers' way of distribution which is at complete odds with what is really happening.

What this all appears to me to be big business through the agency of government (in this case the CRTC) protecting its position in the money-stream by isolating us from others in the world; others who have like minds, similar tastes. Others who have transcended the physical limitations of borders and simply wish to get on with our lives. For too long have we been limited to only those cultures and people we can reach out and touch, or visit economically - today we have the ability to grow the human race toward a single, integrated yet diverse whole; no longer divided by the slicing and dicing of our cultural herritage to maximize profits by intermediaries (publishers) when we really should be dealing directly with the creators themselves - regardless of where they live.

Instead, we get the "benefit" of only what the publishers and big business (and governments) want us to have - and based on past history with TV, this is aimed at the average 8 year old idiot in most cases.

We used to only talk to those we could lean over the garden fence with - peers of physical location.

Now we can communicate with peers of mind, values, life styles, languages, ideas; regardless of where we physically are. The whole discussion of Noam's paper is about stopping this - CRAP! It should be encouraged as much as possible!

I'm sorry CRTC - lead, follow or get the hell out of the way - you sure can't regulate the creation and dissemination of millions of potential video/audio/text opinion/creative/expositive videos that find their way to some sort of mass distribution - certainly not and mandate "Canadian Content" on Canadian bits of the internet. Get real!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - the Canadian Radio Television Commission is outdated and irrelevant in today's networked world. It should be disbanded!

richard