John Oliver: Stop Calling It Net Neutrality; It's 'Preventing Cable Company F**kery'

from the a-bit-more-on-target dept

In last night's John Oliver show (technically "Last Week Tonight"), his "top story" was all about net neutrality. This is both surprising (because the issue has received little mainstream attention) and awesome, because it needs much more mainstream attention. Not surprisingly, it's both insightful and hilariously funny. He mocks how the FCC has made the issue sound incredibly boring. He mocks telco industry lawyers claiming it's "not about fast lanes and slow lanes" but "fast lanes and hyperspeed lines." Oliver summarized that quote simply as "bullshit." He shows this graphic of Netflix's speed on Comcast before and after it agreed to pay up, and directly compares it to a mafia shakedown. He highlights how the broadband companies (though he unfortunately lumps telco companies in as "cable companies") have basically bought off Washington DC, amusingly comparing an FCC run by a former lobbyist regulating the cable industry to an Australian couple hiring a dingo to babysit.

And, finally, he has an amusing call to action for "internet commenters" who he suggests have been training their whole lives for this moment, when the FCC has asked people for comments on its proposal. It's just too bad he pointed them directly at the confusing FCC.gov site, rather than the EFF's much better interface at DearFCC.org.

Either way, it's great to see Oliver take on this issue in an amusing way -- and hopefully it will spur more people to speak up on the issue.

Filed Under: broadband, cable companies, fast lanes, john oliver, lobbying, net neutrality, open internet, politics
Companies: at&t, comcast, time warner cable, verizon

If Your Cable Company Were Honest, This Is What Its Commercial Would Look Like

from the well-done dept

You may have already seen this, as it seems to be getting passed around everywhere this morning, but for those of you with actual important stuff to do all day, you may have missed this amusing mock cable company commercial from what Extremely Decent Films has dubbed "The First Honest Cable Company." It is marginally NSFW depending on your work environment and their likelihood of being offended by a the occasional swear word or vague reference to a sexual act. Just a snippet of the transcript in case you can't watch the video right now:

You'll have the option of choosing from several of our completely unwarranted ripoffs, including internet speeds almost 200 times slower than Korea... at twice the price. TV packages with over 500 channels, 90% of which you can't view and we guarantee a plethora of hidden fees. Then our barely trained technicians will come to install your service somewhere between the hours 8am and 10 pm, knock once while you're in the shower, and promptly leave.... Why you ask? We're part of what is called an "oligopoly." It's like a monopoly... only legal!

Good stuff.

Filed Under: cable companies, oligopoly, truth in advertising

Cable Lobbyist Says Net Neutrality Violates The First Amendment

from the how? dept

Before we get into the details here, I should state, as a reminder, that I'm not in favor of passing laws mandating net neutrality, as I believe that there is a very strong potential for negative unintended consequences. Yet, I do think that the principle of network neutrality is important, and that it would be a serious mistake for ISPs to look to erode it. Basically, the issue is a lot more nuanced than it is often made out to be. But one thing that is quite clear is that some of the claims on all sides of the debate have gone to ridiculous levels. You may recall, for example, the flat out lie by lobbyist Mike McCurry, saying that Google paid nothing for bandwidth and its push for net neutrality was to keep getting bandwidth for free. That's a complete lie.

And now, a whole bunch of you have sent in the story about how a top cable industry lobbyist, Kyle McSlarrow, of the NCTA, is claiming that any net neutrality mandate would violate ISP's First Amendment rights. What he doesn't explain is how. And that's because he can't. He stacks a few different concepts on top of one another to argue that net neutrality could prevent cable companies from "delivering their traditional multichannel video programming services or new services that are separate and distinct from their Internet access service." Except, there's nothing in the suggested FCC mandates that would do that. And even if it did, it's still difficult to see how it would be a First Amendment violation.

There are tons of very good reasons why we might want to avoid mandating net neutrality through law. But arguing that it will be a First Amendment violation isn't one of them... and it makes me wonder why lobbyists fighting against the regulations keep bringing up such bad arguments.

Filed Under: cable companies, first amendment, net neutrality
Companies: ncta

Cable Industry Joins MPAA In Asking FCC To Allow Them To Stop Your DVR From Recording Movies

from the without-any-reason dept

Ars Technica has allowed the cable industry lobbyists' top lawyer to explain why the cable industry supports breaking your DVR in a misguided effort to add more windows to movie releases. Not surprisingly, he simply repeats the MPAA's flat out lies and misrepresentations on this particular issue. For example, he claims that the movie studios need this or they won't get content out to the industry early enough. But that's wrong. There is nothing stopping the movie studios from releasing content whenever they would like. In fact, we've already seen that some of the major studios are releasing movies in exactly this manner (prior to DVD release), despite claiming that it's impossible to do so without enabling this form of DRM.

If the movie industry wants to add a new window where they release movies for pay-per-view offerings before they come out on DVD, there is nothing stopping them from doing so today. Nothing.

The claim that this is about preventing "piracy" is flat out bogus. Even the movie studios themselves claim that nearly every movie is already "pirated" by the time the movies hit the theaters. And these pay-per-view offerings (they like to call them video on demand, but it's really pay per view) are for a window later than the theater release. So the movies will already be available via unauthorized channels. That won't change at all.

So, what are we left with? The two main arguments simply don't make sense at all. There's nothing stopping the studios from adding this window now. And enabling selectable output control (SOC) to stop your DVR from recording these movies won't do a damn thing to reduce unauthorized file sharing of the same content. The only thing it will serve to do is make legitimate customers pissed off, because they'll be confused and annoyed when the DVR they purchased to record what comes out of their TV sets refuses to record this movie that they legally are accessing, but want to time shift (which, again, is perfectly legal).

Contrary to the MPAA and the NCTA's bogus claims, this has nothing to do with enabling some "awesome" new service. This has everything to do with trying to lock down your TV and DVR in an age when consumers are finally getting back some control. What's amusing, of course, is that this comes just as the TV industry is finally realizing that letting consumers do what they wanted with DVRs didn't harm the TV industry, but helped it. One of these days, maybe the MPAA and the NCTA will come to that realization as well. In the meantime, though, they want to get a foot in the door to let them stop your DVR from working as advertised, in the misguided belief that they need to push back on what legitimate consumers want to do with the content they watch.

Filed Under: cable companies, drm, hollywood, selectable output control, soc, tv
Companies: mpaa, ncta

Cable Lobbyists Side With MPAA On Getting Permission To Break Your TV

from the not-really-a-surprise dept

As Hollywood keeps asking for permission from the FCC to break your TV with Selectable Output Control, it's picked up an unsurprising ally. Cable companies. NCTA, the lobbying group that represents the cable industry has come out in favor of the request, claiming that it will let them offer movies earlier. This is a myth that they want regulators to believe. The MPAA and cable companies could offer up movies whenever they want. They just don't want people to record them, because they want to introduce yet another annoying window. So, they declare that they need to break your TV and DVR from recording. Hopefully, the FCC knows better than to break TVs and piss off so many people just because Hollywood is upset some people will want to record movies.

Filed Under: cable companies, drm, dvr, mpaa, selectable output control, soc
Companies: mpaa, ncta

Kentucky Cable Companies Point Out That Connected Nation Isn't All That

from the well,-look-at-that dept

It's seemed like a foregone conclusion that the US gov't was going to hand over lots and lots of cash to Connected Nation -- a group favored by the telcos -- to handle all of the "broadband mapping" needed for a better national broadband plan. There have been plenty of concerns about Connected Nation's close relationship with the telcos, as well as its proposal which wouldn't give a very fair or accurate picture of actual broadband offerings around the US. But a funny thing just happened. Connected Nation is really based on Connect Kentucky, where this experiment was first run, and the cable companies there have suddenly stood up to oppose Connect Kentucky, questioning its ability to accurately map broadband in the state. Looks like maybe the telcos should have cut the cablecos in on the deal before backing Connected Nation.

Filed Under: boondoggle, broadband, broadband policy, cable companies, kentucky
Companies: connect kentucky, connected nation

Comcast And Time Warner Team Up To Control What TV You Watch Online

from the consumers-anyone? dept

There's certainly been plenty of talk lately about how efforts like Hulu to move television shows online could undermine the television industry as people start to realize that they don't need to pay gobs of money to a monopoly cable provider (other than maybe for broadband). The TV content folks believe this is a problem as well, because the cable companies currently pay them corporate-sized gobs of money for the rights to offer their channels to end customers. This leads to regular fights between cable companies and content providers -- but neither really want to see that old system go away. The cable companies want end users to keep paying monopoly-inflated gobs of money, and the content creators want that hefty check from the cable companies.

So, it was no surprise back in February to hear of plans to make agreements between cable companies and content providers that would limit what kind of video you could watch online, requiring you to be a cable company subscriber and "authenticating" what you could watch. Thus, it should be no surprise that Comcast and Time Warner are now announcing exactly that.

This should raise all sorts of antitrust concerns. First, you've got industry execs working together to limit consumer choice, and these industry execs already have quasi-monopolies in certain regions. And they're doing this to keep prices high against competition from the internet. Doesn't that seem like a problem?

The real issue, of course, is that the equation is (as it so often is with such companies) backwards. Rather than embracing what the internet allows these companies to do, they're trying to remove that ability, and make it act like good old television, with those good old revenue streams -- and, amusingly, claim it's "the future of television." Not even close. It's television's past, with an attempt to move it to the internet without any real advantages. As Om Malik points out in the link above: "The deal makes it painfully obvious that everything cable companies do... is done to save their video franchises." It's not about looking forward. It's about preserving the past.

Filed Under: cable companies, online video
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Will Content Company Greed Destroy The Pay TV Business?

from the it's-getting-there... dept

While we've noted that the various studios, such as NBC Universal have, in the past, laughed off the idea that people would ever cancel their cable TV service in favor of just getting their content online, they're clearly waking up to the problem. That's why they freaked out about services like Boxee, despite the fact that Boxee is just a TV-optimized browser for legal content. Still, Saul Hansell, over at the NY Times, gets to the heart of the matter, by noting that the content providers have kept jacking up their prices to cable providers, and those costs keep getting passed on to users. Right now, it hasn't been a clear problem, as subscribers have increased, but the costs keep getting higher, and it's eventually going to drive customers to seek alternatives. We've seen this in the past, of course: Hollywood execs try to squeeze more and more out of people now with no thought for how that will impact revenue in the future. That's not a very good way to run a business, and the TV content providers are going to start discovering that sooner rather than later, if they don't start paying attention.

Filed Under: cable companies, content, internet, tv

Are Cable Companies Looking To 'Emulate' Web Video Sites, Or Destroy Them?

from the face-value? dept

A piece in BusinessWeek says that cable TV companies are "pushing to become more Web-like" by expanding their online video offerings and making their core TV product work more like the web than the traditional channel-delineated system. On the face of it, this is a good thing, since we've long argued that the TV channel is an outdated concept, and should be seen as being like a web bookmark more than anything. But the article largely glosses over one key point in the cable companies' push to grow their online video efforts: they want exclusivity. So instead of throwing things open and using an ad-supported model, like Hulu, they want to take TV shows and video content, and lock it up inside a walled garden for paying customers. That's not "web-like", it's exactly the same as their current business model. Of course, even if these plans don't work out, they've got another way to try and profit from online video: by introducing capped broadband plans that will charge customers based on how much traffic they use. Time Warner's CEO is quoted in BW as saying "we really need to look at what consumers want." It's hard to imagine they want capped broadband, and they want video locked up behind paywalls. The popularity of the likes of YouTube and Hulu indicate they want something very different from what the cable operators have in mind.

Filed Under: cable companies, exclusivity, web video
Companies: comcast, cox, time warner cable

What If Newspapers Follow The ESPN 360 Model?

from the there-would-need-to-be-enough-value dept

Mark Cuban, picking up on the rumors last week that the cable companies are negotiating with content providers to offer their channels over the internet, has a suggestion for newspapers: do the same deal. Specifically, he's suggesting that newspapers get broadband providers to pay them to provide access to their content to subscribers. The idea is that in a sort of Coasian bargain, it allows the newspapers to get more money (from just a few companies, rather than from tons of advertisers and subscribers) and it allows the ISPs to differentiate. In reality, this is just the controversial ESPN 360 model all over again. ISPs pay a content provider, and only subscribers to that content provider get access to that content. The content provider gets easy cash, and the ISP gets differentiation. It basically just hides the paywall. Rather than individuals paying for the content directly, they pay for it indirectly via their broadband connection.

What could go wrong?

Well, plenty, actually. First of all, that content really does need to be differentiated. That might sorta (but not totally) work with ESPN, but it's not going to work with most newspapers -- where the competition is pretty strong. The ISPs won't be willing to pay very much because the "value" in differentiating isn't very high. The fact that ESPN is getting away with this isn't so much a statement on how good a business model this is, as it is an indication of just how lousy many other sports content sites remain. That, however, represents a nice opportunity for other sports sites to step up and provide better content.

But, more importantly, cutting off open access to news in this manner creates the same exact problems that paywalls created. It cuts off the ability to interact with the news: to share it and spread it to others. You can still comment on it... somewhat, but the inability to have everyone you interact with see the same content is a greatly limiting factor in discussing a particular story. It actively decreases the value of the news, which is the last thing news organizations should be doing these days. It shrinks their one real asset: their community. The problem is that Cuban (and many others) still seem to be thinking about the issue from the perspective of a broadcast media company, pushing a message out to people, rather than a communications media company. When you realize that news operations need to be communications companies, the idea of making content harder to access seems more and more ridiculous.

Either way, we may soon get an example of how poorly this works in practice. Many are suggesting that Cablevision's decision to charge for access to Newsday is really a way to test this in action. The company can give Cablevision internet service customers Newsday for free as an extra incentive. But, once again, that assumes people think that's actually an incentive.

Filed Under: business models, cable companies, newspapers, paywalls