A Massive Cable Industry Disinformation Effort Just Crushed The FCC's Plan For Cable Box Competition
from the thanks-for-'helping' dept
Back in February the FCC proposed a new plan to bring competition to the cable box. Under the plan, cable providers would need to provide their programming to third party hardware vendors without the need for a CableCARD. The goal? Bring some competition to bear on a stagnant, captive market, resulting in cheaper, more open, and higher quality cable boxes. But because the plan would demolish $21 billion in rental fees while eroding sector control, the cable industry launched one of the most unprecedented lobbying and disinformation efforts I've ever seen in 16 years of covering the sector.Politicians loyal to the cable industry wrote letters lambasting the FCC for "jeopardizing the incredible evolution of video distribution services," falsely comparing the idea to Popcorn Time. A flood of editorials magically began appearing in newspapers country wide claiming the FCC's plan would boost piracy, hurt consumer privacy, and even "steal the future." The cable sector even trotted out Jesse Jackson, who claimed in a horribly misleading op-ed that increased cable box competition was akin to the "snarling dogs, water hoses and church bombings" of America's racist history. Seriously.
Of course given our news outlets don't think it's particularly important to highlight financial conflicts of interest, most of these editorials were presented as purely objective insight into the FCC's proposal. Even the US Copyright Office joined the festivities, falsely claiming the FCC's plan would "interfere with copyright owners' rights to license their works as provided by copyright law" despite IP experts stating it would do nothing of the sort.
And this cavalcade of lobbying, disinformation, and hand-wringing worked absolute wonders.
Apparently informed by all the wrong people, FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn began waffling after voting yes on the original proposal. That forced FCC boss Tom Wheeler to scrap his original plan, releasing a revamped, weaker app-based alternative proposal based largely on the cable industry's recommendations. Despite this new plan effectively being their idea, cable companies like Comcast still complained, falsely claiming the FCC's plan would "stop the apps revolution dead in its tracks by imposing an overly complicated government licensing regime and heavy-handed regulation in a fast-moving technological space."
Yes, because when I think about "fast moving" innovation, the dusty old cable box with its circa-1998 GUI is usually the first thing to come to mind.
As a result of this collective feigned hysteria, when the FCC's latest plan for cable box competition went up for a vote yesterday morning, the agency found it no longer had the votes to move forward. Wheeler and Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel issued a joint statement that goes out of its way to avoid noting that Wheeler lost his fellow commissioners' support:
"We have made tremendous progress—and we share the goal of creating a more innovative and inexpensive market for these consumer devices," Chairman Tom Wheeler and fellow Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel said today in a joint statement. "We are still working to resolve the remaining technical and legal issues and we are committed to unlocking the set-top box for consumers across this country."By "technical and legal issues" the FCC means it no longer had the votes to move forward after Commissioners buckled under the pressure of a tidal wave of bullshit. And while the FCC says the plan will "remain under consideration," it's entirely possible that the entire effort just died a quiet death in committee. That's not the end of the world given the cable industry (and the cable box) will likely implode on its own in the face of streaming competitors, and it might make more sense for the FCC to use its regulatory calories on things like broadband competition and usage caps anyway.
That said, the cable industry's ability to manipulate the public, press, and regulators in this fashion isn't our nation's finest hour. And while it's possible the FCC could revisit the vote, the end product may be so watered down as to be useless for consumers. Believing they've done yeoman's work in defending the cable industry's walled garden empires, some politicians took to applauding Rosenworcel's expected decision to "stand up for content creators" in voting down the FCC plan:
I had a productive conversation with @JRosenworcel yesterday & trust that she is standing up for content creators in #SetTopBox proposal.
— Rep. Tony Cárdenas (@RepCardenas) September 29, 2016
"The FCC made the right decision this morning to delay its vote on the set-top box item. It is now critical that the Commission heed the bipartisan calls of dozens of Members of Congress and respected third parties and release its new proposal and associated rules to allow the public to provide comment...Based on the limited information available from the Chairman’s Fact Sheet and op-ed, a broad range of content creators, civil rights organizations, labor unions, and others have concluded that the Chairman’s new approach does not solve the copyright, privacy, innovation and other significant concerns that were implicated in his discredited original proposal – and suffers from the same legal infirmities."Right, but again, that's bullshit. Most of the opponents listed by Comcast were paid by the cable, broadcast and entertainment industries in one form or another to falsely malign the plan. The plan doesn't hurt copyright, it doesn't hurt privacy, and it certainly doesn't harm racial diversity. What it would harm is the cable and entertainment industry's monopoly over cable hardware, and the $21 billion in captive revenues it enjoys annually. It would also most certainly harm the walled garden that consistently protects the cable sector from pesky things like consumer choice.
While Wheeler today proclaimed that the delayed vote was "simply a matter of running out of time," it was notably more than that. It was another disgusting example of how the US Copyright Office frequently fights against the best interest of the public, regulators aren't getting sound advice, media outlets are thrilled to regurgitate pay-to-play industry garbage as objective insight, and Congress remains happy and willing to prioritize campaign contributions over consumer welfare. Wonderful job, everybody. Kudos all around.
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Filed Under: competition, copyright, copyright office, disinformation, fcc, set top boxes, tom wheeler
Reader Comments
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Rewording an old Adage..
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A service that was more user friendly, easy to use, looked better, offered a better and more diverse selection and overall just completely better than traditional cableboxes in every single respect.
The cable industry could only HOPE to be like Popcorn Time. The fact that they're arguing against it shows how completely and utterly out of touch with reality they are.
Of course companies with large pockets should release a cablebox alternative regardless of this decision since it would be anticompetitive to block it. Let's get the VCR decision 2.0.
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Fuck 'em. They won't be missed.
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Re:
That's it, we're going off-grid!
Yeah, right.
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RE: Popcorn Time...
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You realize that recorded entertainment and news is available in ways other than a cable subscription, yes?
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Take a hard look
The government is no longer of the people and for the people.... they are however keen on the buy the people part.... Legislators are willing to sell out to whoever has the cash....
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Re: Take a hard look
The problem is that there are still people that get their information from these 'news' sources and they don't see the other side of the debate at all. So when they read only one side of the issue often that side will twist things and misrepresent the issue. It's also important that we do more to get to those people.
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Cowards....
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Re: Re: Take a hard look
Have you found a cure for stupid? I am still looking for it.
Those people are misinformed because they want to be. There is a quote in the Bible where God said
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge,"
It has been my personal discovery that people just fucking do not care as long as they "believe" they are getting something out of it. Notice I said believe.
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Re: Cowards....
Maybe I get to create my first meme today! hahahaah!
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in charge e of a corporation
wealthy
a politician
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Re: correction
Blackbeard style, pirate ships on the open seas attacking other ships to steal physical objects.
Media recording style, creating "bootleg" copies of physical media to sell. - really should be only referred to as bootlegging, not pirating.
Copying or downloading data does nothing to the original data, and does not deprive the owner of the original data of any sales or revenue.
The people that copy or download typically purchase more content than those who don't copy or download - as they use that method to "sample" the product to see if it is worth paying for.
There are no missing sales, no products missing from warehouses or stores, nothing which could be related to the terms of pirating or boot-legging.
In fact, the only "pirates" in the media content industries are the MPAA/RIAA members themselves that steal the revenue from the content creators.
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It doesn't matter anymore
All of these will be available over the internet before the end of the year.
Comcast, Cox, etc. better get their act together or they will be left behind overnight.
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Alternate paths for the FCC / FTC to attack Big Data / Cable / Media
Mandate single price nationwide for the same content.
Disallow different "packages" for different regions to get around the single price mandate.
Modify internet subscriptions from "up to XX B/s" to "minimum XX B/s", single flat rate per tier, nationwide.
Disallow Big Media zero rating when Big Media owns or contracts with Big Data transport.
When Big Media and Big Data cry to their pet congress critters, convert all Big Media / Big Data infrastructure to common carrier, and start charging them rent to use the infrastructure, while opening the infrastucture up to any company that cares to offer the services over the shared infrastructure, with the rental fees used to expand and enhance the infrastructure.
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Re: It doesn't matter anymore
They have got their act together, its called data caps. All those shiny new services will have problems if nobody can watch them because of the cost of bits.
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Nothing to get excited about -- It doesn't matter
The cable companies don't realize that they can only hurt themselves with this.
Dinosaurs drowning in the tarpit. Trying to remove competing tarpits that might be more temporarily comfortable.
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All this means
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Jesse Jackson
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Re: Nothing to get excited about -- It doesn't matter
I completely agree. Box rentals and other fees comprised about 40% of my cable bill when I finally cut the cord and went with Sling+Roku. In addition, none of the DVRs they gave me would ever last more than a year. I'd turn it in, they'd give me another refurbed 10 year old piece of crap then have the gall to charge me $10/month rental on it. I finally snapped when they said that any TV hooked up to their service was going to need a rented box of some sort.
This FCC proposal was a gift to the industry that would have slowed the hemorrhaging of customers. Unfortunately, the cable industry's strategy toward cord cutters is to let them go, and saddle the remaining customers with ever increasing rates, fees and rentals.
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http://www.expertlaw.com/library/misc/cable_descrambler.html
I'm sure there would be models with what channels are descrambled? Otherwise the link I posted would come into play. Also, you'd be required to still have a subscription with the company. The reduction in costs would be competition between 3rd party boxes and the cable company.
So, no there wouldn't be this pay per channel and unlocked set top boxes any more then there currently are.
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Iddiots
This whole issue is really about third parties attempting to use the government to force their way into a market and steal from the companies that have invested billions into developing that market. This is an example of pure crony capitalism.
And what is most insane is that there is no reason for the govenment to be involved at all. Cable is an optional luxury. Even if the cable companies were price gouging...so what. No one needs cable. If you don't want it or if it is too expensive - then don't have it. We do not have a right cable TV.
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Re: Iddiots
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If you'd like more proof, the financial crisis of 2008 should also suffice.
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Re: Take a hard look
The point of this article is that a new regulation which would> have helped people has not been enacted, due to the pressure of those special interests.
The special interests were fighting against the new regulation, because it would have damaged their monopoly control.
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Re: Re: Iddiots
As to the "no one needs cable" argument - you're right, they don't. That's why so many people are cutting the cord, and why it would be in the cable industry's best interest to support things which might help keep them from doing that or draw them back - things such as the improved features and/or reduced prices which might come from the increased competition which this proposal would enable.
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