NHL Streaming Service Descends Into Blackout Hell; NHL Threatens Anyone Trying To Circumvent Blackouts

from the puck-that dept

While we have written quite a bit about major professional sports leagues marching towards expanded streaming options for viewers, and while each league is making progress in that direction, not all of the leagues are equal in how they're going about it. The NHL has been by far the least progressive in this arena, which is somewhat strange given how much more progressive it has been on other issues of modernity. On streaming, however, there seems to be some flip-flopping, with the league banning the use of services like Periscope by journalists, but then seeking to piggyback on baseball's fantastic MLB Advanced Media product to get better streaming to its viewers. The entire point of increased streaming options is to get the product out to as many people as possible, grow the fanbase, and ultimately rake in more money via increased viewership.

Which is what makes is supremely odd to see the NHL fail so hard recently with its streaming product and react to that failure by menacing anyone who might try to route around it. If you weren't already aware, a recent upgrade to the league's NHL.tv product appears to have instituted a refreshed round of blackout rules for games at the exact time when other leagues are attempting to minimize the impact of blackouts. Per Deadspin:

We’ve been getting tips all week from frustrated NHL.tv customers who installed NHL.tv’s new upgrade this week, only to see the entire service dissolve into an malfunctioning mess of blackouts. At pretty much any time when games are on, the @NHLTVSupport account’s mentions are full of hordes of complainers and angry people trying fruitlessly to be able to watch games on the platform they paid $160 for.

In addition to the surprise blackouts suddenly rearing their ugly heads, it appears that NHL.tv is having trouble working across certain devices for whatever reason. Chromebooks in particular appear to be affected, but other devices render the stream into a pixelated hell-scape. This is particularly problematic for a sport that relies so heavily on high-res viewing in order to follow the puck and the action in an arena where color differentiation is much more limited than with other sports.

But adding insult to injury is the all-caps threat clause the NHL slid into the update.

IF YOU CIRCUMVENT OR ATTEMPT TO CIRCUMVENT ANY BLACKOUT RESTRICTION OR OTHER USE RESTRICTION: YOUR SUBSCRIPTION WILL BE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE TERMINATION AND A CHARGE OF ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100.00) FOR EARLY TERMINATION WILL BE APPLIED TO YOUR CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD; YOU MAY BE SUBJECT TO LEGAL ACTION; AND THE NHL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REPORT SUCH MISCONDUCT TO APPROPRIATE LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.

Lovely. So a product that doesn't appear to work as advertised, served up to a customer base that appears to have been ill-informed about the blackout rules subsequently put in place for the product, is now on notice that doing anything to address this beyond waiting for the NHL to get their shit together will lose their subscription, be charged a fine, and be reported to the authorities for legal action.

Not exactly the best way to win over existing and new customers, NHL, particularly given that you're the league that can least afford to lose any fans.

Filed Under: blackouts, hockey, streaming, video
Companies: nhl

Here Comes The Waterfall: 15 MLB Teams To Lift Streaming Blackout For Fox Broadcasts

from the half-way dept

And away we go. Techdirt (myself specifically) has been talking for some time about the impending expansion of major sports streaming options as the cord-cutting trend has continued. It only makes sense: leagues and marketers will go where the audience is. The most recent trend started slowly with the FCC voting to end its blackout rule. That decision was important for streaming, because one of the dumbest ideas that migrated over from broadcast and cable television was the idea that local blackouts of broadcasts and streams were in any way a good idea. Even as the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB all have incrementally increased streaming options, those efforts have continued to be hampered by local blackout restrictions.

Well, Major League Baseball just took a giant step over the blackout line and is now effectively straddling it, announcing that local streaming will be available in fifteen markets in the 2016 season.

There is no specific timetable for a potential announcement of a deal between FOX and MLB. The two sides hope to complete the agreement around the end of this season, which would give the league and RSNs a full offseason to market the availability of the new local streams before Opening Day 2016. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, working with the league's president of business and media, Bob Bowman, has made in-market baseball streaming a key league priority, including personally participating in several negotiating sessions.

Per the above, this specific deal is going to be done with MLB teams that have broadcasting deals with Fox. But don't think for a single moment that that's where it ends. Even if MLB can't get similar deals in place for the other half of teams in the league, which would fully free up the fantastic MLB.TV product for local streaming, any modicum of success that Fox has with this program will be immediately adopted by the other broadcasters. They really don't have a choice. Cord-cutting isn't going away and it's been professional and college sports that have long kept subscribers tethered. The trickle of streaming options in sports has been turning into more of a deluge, and the cable industry should be expecting some tough times ahead in the next, oh, say three to five years. Because if Manfred has this on his priority list for MLB, please believe that the commissioners in the other leagues have it on theirs as well.

And when sports streaming really gets going, it's the end of cable as we currently know it.

Filed Under: baseball, blackouts, local, mlb, online, sports, streaming

FCC May Finally Act To Ease The Pain Of Stupid Cable TV Content Negotiation Blackouts

from the dig-your-own-grave dept

If you still watch traditional TV chances are you've increasingly been accosted with blacked out content and annoying ticker warnings as cable operators and broadcasters bicker over programming contracts. Whether it's Fox News's ugly fight with Dish, DirecTV's feud with The Weather Channel, or the Cablevision - News Corporation fight that blacked out the World Series a few years back, these obnoxious disputes have only gotten uglier over the last few years as programming costs have soared and the cable and broadcast industry works tirelessly to ensure its looming irrelevance.

For the consumer, these fights usually go something like this: you're bombarded with on-screen tickers and ads from both your cable operator and the broadcaster telling you the other guy is being a greedy villain during a contract standoff. After the programming contract expires, content you're paying for gets blacked out (which you're of course never given a refund for) by one side or the other in the hopes of pushing negotiations along. After a month or two the two sides then ultimately strike a confidential new programming deal. A few weeks later your cable bill sees a price hike -- potentially your second of the year.

It's kind of a lose-lose scenario for consumers, who get used as public relations pinatas (call your cable operator to complain!), lose access to content they're paying for, and then get accosted with an endless series of rate hikes. For the last few years, the FCC has generally had a hands off approach to these disputes (boys will be boys, and all that), but as they've gotten uglier and consumers have increasingly been railroaded, pressure has mounted for the regulator to at least do something. According to a new blog post by FCC boss Tom Wheeler, the FCC head says he's looking at a number of ideas that could help ease the pain of these idiotic standoffs. Maybe.

One, the FCC is considering lifting rules that prohibit cable companies from simply piping in another region's local broadcast affiliate, allowing them to at least provide customers with some version of ABC, NBC, Fox or CBS while negotiations continue. The agency also suggests it's going to look more closely at the very definition of "good faith negotiations," since these blackouts make it clear there's not much of that actually going on:

"The NPRM currently before the Commission undertakes a robust examination of practices used by parties in retransmission consent negotiations, as required by Congress. The goal of the proposed rulemaking is to ensure that these negotiations are conducted fairly and in a way that protects consumers."

Since these are private business contracts, the FCC injecting itself into these negotiations is going to piss off free marketeers and the cable and broadcast industry to no end, but the industry brought it upon itself by behaving like absolute jackasses for the last few years. Not only have they consistently held traditional TV customers hostage, some broadcasters have even blocked access to online content in petulant responses to contract feuds.

In its fight with Cablevision in 2010, News Corporation went so far as to get Hulu to block Cablevision broadband customers from accessing all Fox content. Viacom did something similar in 2014 when it blocked all CableONE broadband customers from accessing Viacom content online, even if those broadband users were paying for TV from another provider. Let that sink in a little bit: you pay for Viacom content through, say, DirecTV, but you can't access that content through your broadband provider because the cable arm of your ISP is engaged in a TV content contract dispute.

And while broadcasters do deserve the lion's share of the blame for soaring programming rates, the cable providers aren't faultless since they're quick to impose rate hikes of their own (modem fees, broadcast TV fees, set top rental charges, charges to pay over the phone) as often as possible. Layer this lost content and annoyance on to existing high prices and the industry's absolutely legendary reputation for atrocious customer service, and you've uncovered the industry's ingenious plan to more efficiently dig its own grave on the eve of the cord cutting revolution.

Filed Under: blackouts, cable tv, fcc, fights, networks, retransmission, satellite tv, transmission, tv, tv content

70% Of Fans Still Can't Watch LA Dodgers Games On TV Thanks To Time Warner Cable

from the good-job,-team dept

Last year Time Warner Cable and the Los Angeles Dodgers struck a twenty-five year, $8.35 billion deal giving Time Warner Cable the exclusive broadcast rights to all Dodgers games in Los Angeles via its creatively-named regional sports network, Time Warner Cable SportsNet LA. Time Warner Cable then immediately turned around and demanded massive price hikes (rumored to be around $5 per subscriber) for any other pay TV provider that wanted to offer the channel. All of the regional cable operators (including AT&T, Cox, Dish and DirecTV) balked at the hike, resulting about 70% of fans in Dodgers territory being unable to watch the final six games of last season.

All sides had ample opportunity during the offseason to negotiate a fair price, but by all accounts Time Warner Cable simply refused to move on the price tag (though the fact it's in a holding pattern over a Comcast acquisition also likely played a role). As such, the new baseball season kicked off this week and Dodgers fans remain unable to watch their favorite team's games. Making matters worse, Time Warner Cable has refused to seriously answer questions about the logjam, offering some variation of the same statement over and over again:

"We want all Dodger fans to have access to SportsNet LA. Despite our repeated attempts, other providers are unwilling to engage in any discussions. If Dodger fans want to enjoy SportsNet LA this season, we encourage them to switch to a provider that carries the network."

The problem with that logic? Time Warner Cable is the only cable operator offering access to its own sports network, and 70% of Los Angeles lives in an area where they can't get Time Warner Cable. As such, Time Warner Cable's recommendation is not only useless, it's insulting. When that's pointed out, the company just refuses to comment. When asked why it refuses to compromise on the price, the company provides similarly epic non answers:

"SportsNet LA is available on fair terms consistent with its value. We know that the rates for the network owned by this iconic franchise are in line with what other RSN’s around the country charge, including DirecTV’s own regional sports networks."

While it's understandable that Time Warner Cable wants to recoup its investment, the total inflexibility here is pretty well in character for a company that actually has worse customer satisfaction ratings than even the much-hated Comcast. The growing cost of sports programming and the steady increase in annoying retransmission fee dispute blackouts usually help drive cord cutting, but in this case there's absolutely nowhere else to go to watch the content in question. Even over the air broadcasts aren't an option thanks to the nature of the Time Warner Cable, Dodgers arrangement.

So far, regulators have chosen to treat these kinds of programming rate standoffs as just "boys being boys," but it's unclear how much longer they're going to be willing to stand on the sidelines given how much politicians love to earn cheap, sports-related political brownie points. Last year FCC boss Tom Wheeler sent a letter to Time Warner Cable claiming that "inaction is no longer acceptable" and the FCC was "monitor(ing) this situation closely in order to determine whether intervention is appropriate and necessary." But the FCC has said little since. Given that three of the companies involved in the standoff (AT&T, DirecTV and Time Warner Cable) are awaiting merger approval, conditions might be used to force the issue over the next few weeks.

Filed Under: blackouts, deals, dodgers, sports, tv
Companies: comcast, los angeles dodgers, sportsnet la, time warner cable

Both The NFL And MLB Look To Expand Streaming Offerings By Ending Local Blackouts

from the bye-bye-cable dept

Bear witness to the genesis of a new era, fellow sports fans. I've begged and pleaded in the past for the major professional sports leagues to take the harness off of the ability to stream games. Even as the trend of cord-cutting has progressed along nicely, I have always argued that the only dam keeping a flood of cord-cutters at bay has been professional sports broadcast deals. Those deals have almost universally been saddled with local blackout restrictions, making streaming games all but useless for the majority of fans. The past few years, however, have seen inched progress towards wider availabitily for streamed offerings. The NBA's most recent contract went out of its way to make sure streaming is expanded, for instance, not to mention the deal Dish and ESPN made to make the cable channel's broadcasts more accessible for streaming. But those were baby steps, too often leashed by a cable subscription requirement.

But, now, the NFL is finally dipping its toe in the streaming waters. Please understand that, even if this is just another inch gained for streaming, this is a huge deal.

On Monday, the NFL announced the Oct. 25 regular season game between Jacksonville and Buffalo will be put up for bid on national digital platforms. The game is being played in London, meaning the broadcast will begin at 9:30 a.m. ET and 6:30 PT. That's not exactly prime time for U.S. fans, or broadcast television, but it is 'prime time' in China, where the NFL is struggling to gain a toehold.

"It's a one game test. We will evaluate fan feedback," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said via an email exchange. "It's too early to tell about the future [of streaming games]. Will test this season with the one game and evaluate after."

Separately, the NFL said it's going to drop its so-called blackout rule, which prevents local broadcasts of games if they're not sold out 72 hours before kickoff. NFL media executive Brian Rolapp said the league is "testing alternative ways to distribute games," The NYT reports, and acknowledged the obvious: "The world is changing very quickly."

If this seems like a small step, you don't know how savvy the folks in the NFL's media department are. They absolutely know where the trends have us all heading regarding media consumption and I can promise you they are keenly aware of how many people are currently watching streaming NFL games on illegitimate sites. The most consumed sport in the United States doesn't turn on a dime, but the league also doesn't put up this kind of test balloon without having a fairly certain idea of how it's going to play with its customers. Assuming the quality, cost (free?), and accessibility of this test game is anything remotely comparable to, say, baseball's MLB.TV offering, expect this to end up as an insanely successful test-run. I'd actually say that this test game feels more like the NFL looking for an excuse to jump fully into a streaming offering than some kind of fact-finding mission. After all, you only drop the blackout rule in conjunction with expanding streaming if you expect the locals to run with the offering full-force. And they will, I assure you.

The NFL's DirectTV and network deals mean streaming won't explode immediately, but everyone can see what the NFL is doing to position itself for the future.

Given its agreement with DirecTV and television networks -- the NFL signed $27 billion worth of contracts in 2011 -- the league will be restricted on what it can offer online, at least in the near term. But the NFL is "a master of dicing and splicing content in order to extract the greatest value," [media analyst Walt] Piecyk says. "It's not like they're committing to put a bunch of games [online] but I think they want to get more comfortable so if Google or Apple or Amazon comes down the pike and says 'we want to buy a larger chunk of games' they can get comfortable on tech front."

And speaking of MLB.TV, reports are that professional baseball is due to get its own expanded streaming offering. The MLB.TV service has long been the standard in sports streaming, with no other league offering really even coming close. The problem, however, was that local games were blacked out, so the service was only useful for out-of-town fans or die-hard baseball fans that will watch any MLB game any time it's available (me, for example). If recent reports are to be believed, however, MLB is looking to take a small step to changing the blackout rules for streaming.

Major League Baseball is expected to announce in the next few days a deal with a national distributor, like a wireless provider, to stream local games of every MLB team, a source close to the situation said Thursday.

To stream games of the New York teams, fans would have to be a customer of the distributor and pay for the YES Network or SNY, the regional sports networks (RSNs) that carry Yank and Met games, respectively. The price to stream has not yet been set.

This is an imperfect first step, of course, particularly as it carries with it the anchor of either a cable subscription, a specific wireless device provider, or both, but it's an important step in the right direction. It's something akin, actually, to the DirectTV deal the NFL has, except that it's more mobile and more widely available on a variety of devices. You should also expect any deal MLB signs for this streaming to be less locked in than the NFL/DirectTV deal, because, again, everyone knows where this is all heading. And, if the reports are true, even the television broadcasters are resigning themselves to reality.

Talks between MLB and Fox Sports, which owns 15 RSNs, including YES; Comcast, which owns six, including a minority stake in SNY; and DirecTV, which owns four, have been on-again, off-again for more than a year. The talks have accelerated in the last two weeks, and both sides are optimistic a deal will be reached before Opening Day, April 6. Under that agreement, fans would deal directly with their pay-TV provider.

Is it as perfect a solution as simply working out deals to unleash the local broadcasts on the MLB.TV stream that customers have been watching all the non-local teams on? No, absolutely not, but this first iteration's imperfection will only catalyze MLB to go the correct route in the future. Because the trends are clear: streaming is up and cable subscriptions are down. Even if the NFL and MLB don't get this right the first time, they will absolutely be forced to get it right in the near future.

Either way, one eventual reality is coming ever-closer to fruition: cable television, and perhaps television as a whole, may soon be over.

Filed Under: blackouts, sports, streaming
Companies: mlb, nfl

Negotiating Away Innovation: Dish Agrees To Kill Autohop To End TV Blackouts

from the shameful dept

The various TV networks have been suing Dish for the past couple of years because of its "autohop" feature, which automatically records prime time shows, and then lets subscribers watch them (starting the very next day) with commercials automatically skipped. So far, Dish has won basically every ruling in the case, showing that such technology is perfectly legal.

But now it's probably dead.

As we predicted would happen back in March, CBS has used its fight over retransmission to get Dish to agree to basically kill off autohopper, delaying it for 7 days after the show initially airs. In exchange, CBS will drop its lawsuit over autohopper, but also agree to allow Dish to offer its programming online ("over the top" as they say). This is basically the same deal Dish struck with ABC/Disney back in March as well, meaning that it's the same thing that every network will eventually agree to as well.

The retransmission fight was always lurking in the background of the autohopper lawsuit. The networks claimed that since Dish had existing negotiated deals for retransmitting network shows, the autohopper stuff was a contract violation (in addition to a copyright violation). So, basically, the legal fights lasted until the retrans negotiations had to come up again. Getting agreements for internet streaming is certainly nice, but to have it come at the expense of a nice bit of innovation like autohop is ridiculous. Perhaps it opens the door for third parties to make such technologies themselves, but these days standalone DVR products are pretty much a relic of history.

Of course, how long will it be until someone sets up a commercial system for acting as a DVR for internet streams, complete with commercial skipping features? It's doable today, but you can bet that even though it's just like a regular DVR/VCR, the legacy TV guys will flip out and call in the next coming of Aereo.

Filed Under: autohop, autohopper, blackouts, contracts, copyright, retransmission, tv
Companies: cbs, dish, disney

Baseball Is Back! Too Bad I Still Can't Watch My Local Team On My MLB.TV Subscription...

from the root,-root-root-for-someone-out-of-market dept

Can you smell it yet? The freshly cut grass, the muffled sound of thousands of fans, the wonderous gasps of young people? Baseball is back. I'm generally an avid fan of professional sports and, as I've written about before, a strong promoter of the idea that the pro sports leagues I love so much could benefit greatly from a wider, more open embrace for streaming their games online. Particularly for leagues on the lower end of the popularity and revenue spectrums, I would think that building a wider audience through internet streaming would be a boon to otherwise mediocre broadcasting partnerships. The NHL in particular is known to have absolutely brutal broadcast contracts that aren't supporting teams as well as they could if the league were to attempt to multiply their viewership through streaming.

But with Major League Baseball, it's a whole different animal. Teams in Major League Baseball are insanely profitable, in largest part because of the broadcasting revenue. With that in mind, it might seem silly to suggest that MLB should be looking at ways to free up their streaming product. But that's wrong and here's why.

First, let's start with a little background and some compliments. Nobody in pro sports leagues does streaming as well as MLB in terms of quality and quantity. For $130/year, you get almost all the games for the entire season in full HD, with options for the radio or television broadcasts offered by either of the teams playing. The stream is reliable and of good quality, with a pop-out media player that's simple. For the games they stream, it works beautifully.

You've probably already guessed the problem, haven't you? It's region locked, with the arbitrary borders of a team's fan-base blacked out from their team's streams, both for home games and away games. The idea, of course, is that MLB doesn't want to offend their local broadcast partners by offering their broadcast over streaming as a charged service. Their thought is essentially that the broadcast is TV's product and local advertising is what pays the television stations, who in turn pay MLB for the rights to the games. Let's turn this on its head, though, and see the insane kind of money MLB could make if they stopped seeing themselves as only being in the baseball business and also offered up their established streaming infrastructure to their broadcasting partners.

MLB, today, could go to TV stations, cable or otherwise, and offer up their robust streaming platform. MLB would make its money charging more for broadcast rights under that kind of agreement. TV stations in turn could claim a higher viewership than they have today through TV only, allowing them to generate increased revenue in advertising sales and rates. Keep in mind that MLB.TV is using those station broadcasts anyway (for instance, the MLB.TV Chicago Cubs stream is just the WGN/CSN broadcast streamed over MLB.COM). Between internet streaming and mobile devices, viewership numbers would skyrocket. I say this because of how often we're told about the horrific danger of all the sports streaming sites already out there offering the exact thing MLB.TV could be getting paid for. In other words, anyone with an internet connection can already do all this, while MLB.TV could offer the same thing as part of their package with infrastructure they already have in place.

In summary, baseball could today, without having to invest in any infrastructure, work with broadcast partners to free up streaming to local fans who can already get those streams through illegitimate services. It would benefit the league, the broadcast partners, the advertisers, and the fans. There is literally no loser in this equation. All it would take is some forward-thinking folks in the league and TV to get over their protectionist traditions and make it happen.

In the meantime, my MLB.TV subscription means I can't watch my team play for no logical reason.

Filed Under: baseball, blackouts, local fans, sports, streaming, streaming media
Companies: mlb, mlb advanced media

FCC Finally Starts Process To Dump NFL Blackouts

from the about-time dept

Forty years ago, there was a theory going around that if a professional sports team didn't sell enough tickets to their games, it would be a good idea to punish the viewers of their television product, also known as their other revenue stream, in some kind of ham-fisted attempt to get them to purchase tickets instead. While this was stupid even then, this was back when ticket sales and in-stadium sales represented a massive percentage of an athletic team's revenue. It was also back when the style of the television broadcast meant that poor attendance was hugely reflected on the home screen, which could have a negative impact on the perception of the team, the entertainment product, and the sport in general. Still, anyone with even an iota of thought that any of this was a good idea only had to look at the Chicago Blackhawks' popularity (or lack of it) during their blackout period to know how misguided this all was.

Yet this practice has gone on in the NFL for the past four decades. And, while league officials love to point out how few blackouts have occurred since implementing the policy, they're conveniently forgetting to tell you about how teams are gaming the system by buying up remaining tickets or altering their stadiums to avoid the blackouts. Less known is that the FCC has been a partner in these NFL blackouts for all these many years, but now that looks to be changing. They recently voted to lift the blackout restrictions entirely, recognizing that they were at best a strategy for a different time.

"The sports blackout rules were originally adopted nearly 40 years ago when game ticket sales were the main source of revenue for sports leagues...," the FCC said. "Changes in the sports industry in the last four decades have called into question whether the sports blackout rules remain necessary to ensure the overall availability of sports programming to the general public."

So, what are these changes that the FCC is recognizing? Well, for starters, ticket sales and stadium sales aren't the mass revenue generator they once were. They're still important, of course, just not as important as the insane television and advertising deals now in place.

The networks pay a combined total of about $3 billion a year to broadcast NFL games based on a nine-year deal signed in 2011 worth almost $28 billion. Neither Fox Sports nor CBS Sports, the main carriers of the NFL, had any comment on the FCC's proposal.

No, I suspect the networks were too busy keeping their heads from nodding in vigorous fashion at the FCC ruling to comment on much of anything at the moment. Because, while there have indeed been few blackouts, even the threat of a blackout is a stick in the eye of the advertising cow that is the NFL. More stability in the availability of the product is of course a great thing for them, particularly given that NFL teams tend to be in larger markets and local blackouts effect massive amounts of people. So we're all happy happy here, yes?

No, of course not, because the NFL appears to be run by people who have spent too much time hitting one another with their heads.

The NFL said in a statement that it will "strongly oppose any change in the rule. We are on pace for a historic low number of blackouts since the policy was implemented 40 years ago. While affecting very few games the past decade, the blackout rule is very important in supporting NFL stadiums and the ability of NFL clubs to sell tickets and keeping our games attractive as television programming with large crowds."

Nothing the FCC votes on prevents the league and/or teams from implementing their own blackout rules, so the NFL is free to continue down that path out of a fear of the television product showing less people at the stadiums. But that, dear friends, is stupid. It's stupid for several reasons. First, wider television audiences build up the fanbase and bring in greater crowds to the stadium. That was the lesson the Blackhawks should have taught everyone. Second, the NFL has never been more popular than it is today. Given that, if there are less people at the stadium, guess where they're watching? Yup, on their televisions, which we already know are now the major cash cow of the teams and the league. So you're going to cut that highly-paid nose off just to spite your stadium face?

Still, more television access, more streaming, and less restrictions are a trend that cannot be fought. It may take a change in leadership, but eventually the NFL blackout rules will go the way of the no-forward-pass rules, and they'll be all the better for it.

Filed Under: blackouts, fcc
Companies: nfl

OK, So SOPA And PIPA Are Both On Hold: Where Do We Go From Here?

from the just-the-beginning dept

There is a rather odd atmosphere within the parts of the online community that fought so hard against SOPA this week – relief that all that work seems to have had an effect, mixed with a certain disbelief that for once the outside world sat up and took notice of the tech world's concerns. Amidst all the justified back-patting, there is a temptation to celebrate the fact that both SOPA and PIPA are "delayed", and to move on.

As Lauren Weinstein points out in an excellent, monitory blog post entitled "Battling Internet Censorship: The Long War", that would be a big mistake:

you might be tempted to assume that the battle is over, the war is won, and that -- as Maxwell Smart used to say -- "Once again the forces of niceness and goodness have triumphed over the forces of evil and rottenness."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the forces arrayed in favor of Internet censorship are not only powerful and well funded, but are in this game for the very long haul indeed. A day of demonstrations to them, as annoying as they may be to these censorship proponents in the very short run, are in the final analysis more like a single human lifetime compared against the centuries.

So the question then becomes, how can a fast-moving industry that is easily distracted by cool hardware and pictures of cats hope to match the lumbering but unswerving attack of the copyright dinosaurs?

One of the key problems is that few within the Internet world know much about how "DC" – the inner circle of US policy-making – really works. One person who does is Christine Paluch, as she explains in this post seconding Weinstein's warning about "The Long War":

Here in DC the long war is not some analogy, it is a way of life. This is a town of strategists and researchers who often lay intellectual groundwork for legislation that gets put into place long after they have moved on to another issue. I should know this, I was one of the researchers, and I worked on a few major issues involving regulatory policy, specifically labor and employment, environmental issues, consumer product safety, and healthcare. It is not very often that somebody sees their work used in laying the groundwork for historic legislation, but the work of me and my fellow researchers was used in a few pieces of historic legislation. It was a part of the long game, one that took over 5 years to completely play out, and I was only there for part of it. I was already left the campaign by the time the legislation went through congress.

She also has some very useful advice for the geek world she now calls her own ("Somehow I was roped in by technologists and they have assimilated me into their development processes"):

in my honest opinion it needs to go beyond a simple censorship campaign, and have a much broader focus. What [Weinstein] is citing is a defensive campaign, but from my own experiences, the best campaigns are not just defensive, but also strategic and proactive. I also think it needs to focus on broader goals for science and technology as well, as I think the SOPA and PIPA campaign are part of a larger pattern that needs to be addressed.

In other words, the tech world really needs to think big on this. The rest of the post is well-worth reading for its information about some of the details of DC policy making; but the central message is very simple:

SOPA and PIPA should not be the end, but rather the beginning. This is the best advice to making technology a larger and permanent force in DC as somebody who at one point was part of this system.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: blackouts, copyright, pipa, proactive, protect ip, protests, reform, sopa

The Internet Wins: PIPA & SOPA Delayed

from the there-we-go dept

The writing has been on the wall for a long, long time, but now it's finally official. Harry Reid has announced that he will not move forward with PIPA and Lamar Smith has announced the same thing about SOPA. Both are listed as "delayed" and there's always a chance that they will come back in some form (potentially even nastier), but hopefully those on Capitol Hill have learned a big lesson about trying to mess with the internet... and what happens when you cut backroom deals to help one industry at the expense of the public.

Filed Under: blackouts, internet, lamar smith, patrick leahy, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa