Freedom in the digital age
Source : Ottawa Citizen
December 18, 2006
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has thankfully decided not to regulate new media such as podcasts for Canadian content, but in a new report it threatens to do so in the future.
The CRTC's new-media review concludes that not enough people are watching Internet video and listening to podcasts to affect the existing cable and broadcast oligopolies, so they can be left alone. But if people do start watching Internet video and listening to podcasts, the commission says, it might have to regulate them. How? Luckily, the commission doesn't have to say just yet.
The commission's power to regulate broadcasting content comes from its mandate to share out scarce frequencies on the radio and television spectrums -- because those frequencies were considered public property, the commission could set conditions on the companies that use that property.
That role is becoming ever-less relevant in a world of infinite spectrum.
The CRTC is struggling to figure out how to both promote Canadian content and protect the profitability of its regulated oligopolies. These are probably mutually exclusive objectives. If people want to consume Canadian content, somebody will produce it, especially since the barriers to entry into the digital arena are so low. If nobody wants that stuff, it won't be there, and the CRTC would be wasting time and effort trying to find a way to make it. If it compounded the error by punishing only broadcasters for not using the Internet properly, that would be even worse.
The commission has acted appropriately by declining to regulate an area it cannot possibly regulate. It would be better to rule digital content off-limits for good.
© Ottawa Citizen
The CRTC's new-media review concludes that not enough people are watching Internet video and listening to podcasts to affect the existing cable and broadcast oligopolies, so they can be left alone. But if people do start watching Internet video and listening to podcasts, the commission says, it might have to regulate them. How? Luckily, the commission doesn't have to say just yet.
The commission's power to regulate broadcasting content comes from its mandate to share out scarce frequencies on the radio and television spectrums -- because those frequencies were considered public property, the commission could set conditions on the companies that use that property.
That role is becoming ever-less relevant in a world of infinite spectrum.
The CRTC is struggling to figure out how to both promote Canadian content and protect the profitability of its regulated oligopolies. These are probably mutually exclusive objectives. If people want to consume Canadian content, somebody will produce it, especially since the barriers to entry into the digital arena are so low. If nobody wants that stuff, it won't be there, and the CRTC would be wasting time and effort trying to find a way to make it. If it compounded the error by punishing only broadcasters for not using the Internet properly, that would be even worse.
The commission has acted appropriately by declining to regulate an area it cannot possibly regulate. It would be better to rule digital content off-limits for good.
© Ottawa Citizen
