The role of technology and policy in transforming online culture – chronicled by David Ellis
Heritage Committee
New digital divide: is there a SOPA in our Internet future?
54 days
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“The nightmarish SOPA hearings” (cont’d from previous post)
Petri’s main beef with the Smith Committee is they’re unembarrassed, even proud, of their appalling inability to grasp anything technically relevant to the task at hand:
If I had a dime for every time someone in the hearing markup used the phrase “I’m not a nerd” or “I’m no tech expert, but they tell me . . .,” I’d have a large number of dimes and still feel intensely worried about the future of the uncensored Internet. If this were surgery, the patient would have run out screaming a long time ago. But this is like a group of well-intentioned amateurs getting together to perform heart surgery on a patient incapable of moving. “We hear from the motion picture industry that heart surgery is what’s required,” they say cheerily. “We’re not going to cut the good valves, just the bad — neurons, or whatever you call those durn thingies.”
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“Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works”
A piece posted on Mother Board the next day (Dec 16, when Smith adjourned the markup) continued the attack in the same vein. Author Joshua Kopstein, who describes himself as an electronic musician and computer culture journalist, wrote a kind of open letter to Congress, putting them on notice we ain’t gonna put up with their dumb asses any more (my paraphrase: Kopstein calls them “a bunch of jack-asses”… and of course I don’t have actual representation in Congress myself).
Like Petri the Post blogger, Kopstein is really pissed about the cavalier attitude of many of the Committee members to the well-being of the Internet, given how much is at stake – as this is ”legislation that seeks to fundamentally change how the internet works.” The author points to a couple of especially troubling themes in the markup debates. One has to do with security:
“When the security issue was brought up, Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina seemed particularly comfortable about his own lack of understanding. Grinningly admitting “I’m not a nerd” before the committee, he nevertheless went on to dismiss without facts or justification the very evidence he didn’t understand and then downplay the need for a panel of experts. Rep. Maxine Waters of California followed up by saying that any discussion of security concerns is “wasting time” and that the bill should move forward without question, busted internets be damned.” (more…)
Get yer grimy paws off my Netflix: the scam, continued
249 days
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(Updated Sunday, June 19)
This post and the one prior are devoted to a critique of the CRTC’s OTT proceeding, oops, fact-finding exercise – and the role of the Online 
Broadcasting Working Group (OBWG). Of its 11 publicly announced members, I’m looking at 5 in order to illustrate just how far removed from a “factual” exercise this circus will be. They are ACTRA and SOCAN (covered last time), plus Astral, the CMPA and Peter Grant.
Exhibit F – Astral: “The objective is … that we maintain a level playing field within the system—a system that is a very positive and strong element in terms of our Canadian culture, identity and the Canadian economy.” André Bureau, Chair, Astral Media, April 14. OBWG member.
Whenever you hear a Canadian media mogul saying all he wants is a level playing field, while draping himself in the flag, run for cover. Astral owns 22 TV services, including US “wraparounds” like HBO Canada. They have lots to lose in the OTT wave. I wonder what they’ll say to the OBWG and the Commission… Competition? Bring it on!
The old guard will continue to find lawyers who will continue to argue that every “new media” innovation is just another form of broadcasting, and therefore has to be regulated – meaning they, the moguls, have to be protected from anything that might compete with them. Since our moguls couldn’t innovate their way out of a wet paper bag, they harbor much fear and loathing for innovators like Netflix, because innovators are smarter and their business models have legs – unlike, say, being a subsidized, highly protected reseller of US TV shows with no Plan B for the digital age.
Get yer grimy paws off my Netflix: Ottawa’s big OTT scam
251 days
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Canada’s (“frightened,” “alarmed”) media gatekeepers go on a rampage, led by the regulator
So… the CRTC holds sub rosa meetings in March with a roomful of interested parties about the growing “threat” of over-the-top (OTT) Web content. The same 
week, the Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage issues its report on “…The Move Towards New Viewing Platforms,” a compendium of witness statements all arguing new viewing platforms are a threat to Canadians. Shaw e.g. warns (p.5) that “by consuming valuable capacity, over-the-top providers threaten to undermine our significant network investments and impact the quality of service offered to our ISP customers. Finally, consumers will ultimately suffer, with fewer Canadian choices.”
Many of the patriots who showed up for the Standing Committee hearings then become members of the OTT Working Group, alleged to comprise some 35 “industry executives” – we don’t know for sure since their activities and membership are secret, even though they are operating with the sanction of the regulator. They subsequently change their name to the Online Broadcasting Working Group (OBWG) – and with a stroke of the pen ensure that no one will construe OTT content for anything but broadcasting (what they call begging the question, i.e. assuming what is to be proved).
On May 25, the CRTC “responds to Netflix critics” (Wire Report headline) by issuing a notice of consultation – structured not as a formal “proceeding” but a “fact-finding mission” – a nuance with important implications, especially for Ottawa’s tiny consumer advocacy community. Now that the Netflix critics have got their official “fact-finding” exercise, the OBWG does us all a favor on June 6 by revealing who the group’s members are. (more…)
The Cancon Cabal: Rescuing Consumers from the Scourge of Netflix
303 days
by David Ellis
in data caps, gatekeeping, Heritage Committee, innovation, Internet, Netflix, TV, UBB
by David Ellis + Alexandra Birukova
(Get in on the fun while cutting your reading time by 40%: check out the abridged version of this story posted at the Wire Report on April 26. Any similarity to real life entirely intentional.)
Let’s say for the sake of argument you have near-monopoly control of Internet access in millions of homes. All your retail rates are deregulated, because the regulator has identified a force that faithfully eliminates any market distortion: vigorous competition. And yet, paradoxically, you can use your market power to eliminate competitors on the application layer of your network, since the regulator isn’t sure what unjust discrimination and undue preference might look like. You can also cap customer bandwidth any old way you prefer, which not only drives out competition but adds a nice chunk of change to your bottom line from the overage charges that none of your subs could possibly understand, especially after reading the formulas some math nerd provided in your online FAQ.
Recently renovated office of CRTC Chair, with series of tubes (on left) providing connectivity to global series of tubes. Meter not shown.
