Do Broadcasters Have A Responsibility To Put Content Online?

from the no-responsibility-at-all... dept

The head of IT at the BBC says that media companies have a "responsibility" to put content online. He's basically saying that an implicit bargain was struck: broadband providers would build the high speed networks, and the broadcasters would fill them with content. While he makes some good points about how TiVo-like devices are changing the way people view content, it seems hard to figure out how the broadcasters have a "responsibility" to do anything. It may be in their best interest, but telling them it's part of some sort of bargain seems backwards. That just leads to them crying about how they need better (more expensive, but just as useless) copy protection before they'll release their content. The fact is no one is waiting around for broadcasters to put their content online. The internet is inherently an interactive, not broadcast, medium. People are already filling up that bandwidth by themselves -- and they will soon need more bandwidth. It's not because they're trying to download movies, but because content production isn't just a one way deal any more. So, while it's in the broadcasters' best interests to figure out how to play within the realm of broadband networks, not many are waiting around for them to do so.