Aussie Government: No License Needed For Streamers 40
David Waters writes: "The Australian Government has quickly decided on the future of digital streaming coming into Australia. Streamers will escape licencing laws."
Here is the story, from Australian IT, which mentions in passing a fairly bald truth: "Had the Government decided to limit audio and video streaming,
the development of Australia's high-speed
internet industry [...] would have been severely
curtailed." Errr ... yes. Yes, it would.
Conflicts of interest in UK broadcasting (Score:3)
In the first place, the good ol' BBC wants to have its cake and eat it too: it strives for editorial independence (allegedly), but it also continues to work through the old boys' network to achieve its goals, especially a continuation of the TV license fee. Well, the demon of payback time always arrives eventually, and so the Beeb finds itself doing what the old boys want, not surprisingly. After decades (generations?) of this, the establishment has acquired an insatiable taste for control of broadcasting. On its own that wouldn't matter too much, but unfortunately there are two other demons lurking in the background.
The second demon takes the form of some extremely powerful global media organizations that operate strongly in the UK, also through the old boys' network but with the extra power of massive financial leverage. Here we're talking about people that make even heads of state shudder, and possibly roll. Well, think about it, if free Internet streaming is perceived as possibly undermining an existing multi-billion dollar media empire founded on controlled broadcasting, are politicians going to legislate freely for the benefit of the people at large? Politicians are not entirely puppets, but once in government they're certainly not free to do the right thing.
And the final demon is the non-independence of Church and State in the UK. As a result, the value judgements of the state religion are never far from the legislators' minds, and censorship is part of the main business for government rather than just a way of appeasing external pressure groups. Well, licensing is the primary means of controlling broadcasters, so the likelihood of Internet broadcasting being given a free pass here seems remote. Fortunately, at the moment streaming broadcasts don't appear to have reached their collective consciousness yet, or maybe they're still frozen in shock like a deer in the headlights, wondering what to do about this horrible flood of freedom.
Be that as it may, the situation is complicated here. One thing that would probably help us in the UK would be for other modern countries to follow the lead of Australia, since politicians don't like to advocate policies that are clearly out of step with the rest of the world. We can but hope.
Re:I Can't Tell You Why (Score:1)
so I can stream in class
Re:I know it's coming, but: (Score:2)
This whole reminds of my stupid danish goverment that wanted to collect license/tax from every PC's just because you could install a TV-card - no matter if one was installed or not. At least they gave up on that one :-)
Anyway I don't think it's clever to keep adding bandwidth to the backbone networks just to enable people to watch the news on the tube. Don't be too lazy to turn on the telly. MP3's are the limit.
Still -- and for the next years -- not *that* many people is having this kind of access to Internet. Admitably: we are going there -- but not for the years to come -- so in the mean time don't waste time/money/bandwidth on something that has yet to be developed so much for the gain of such a limited number of people.
Don't get me wrong: you can't stream/download all the movies etc, you want to, but this is still such at poor technology that we shouldn't just be throwing bandwidth after it to make it work. (That reminds me of this big company I know that is too lazy too optimze it's programs due to the fact that hardware becomes faster.)
Re:Just a matter of time (Score:2)
I've actually done calibration work for a major cable company for their test equipment. One of the pieces I had to do were these "sniffers" that all the field techs kept in their truck. They used these little buggers to check for RF leaks in the system. Thing is, way back when cable broadcasted on essentially the same frequencies as regular television. Not really that big a deal if a little RF leaked out in comparison to the kind of wattage that the broadcasters were pumping.
This all changed as the cable companies expanded their channel offerings, and begain using their own set of frequencies. With that in place they were putting RF out across the spectrum up to about 1GHz. Most of the older sites only really go up to about 500MHz, but that's still enough to trample on RF signals far more sensitive than neighboring TV stations.
Point is, I actually agree that the cable industry should have certain aspects of their infrastructure under the eye of the FCC. I wouldn't want some ambulance or police car's radio or digital transmissions interrupted by a rerun of "Who's The Boss".
I think the momentum is there to the point where it cannot be stopped even by the FCC
Not even in my wildest conspiracy fantasies would I think that either the FCC or the government would want to "stop" either the Internet, or broadband digital media. What I very well could imagine is a scenario that gets built up to allow some department into the regulating game. In this case, the FCC would be the most likely candidate to pass this on to. Keep in mind, we're not talking about destroying, we're talking about controlling.
In addition, I don't think we'll ever see congress actually do anything to regulate or slow down the Internet in any way. At least not directly. When you consider how the public just hates those evil folks at the IRS without consideration for who writes their rules you get a picture of what I'm talking about here. Be it the FCC, FTC, or some other entity, one of them is going to be put out there as the bad guy.
Re:tough to control anyways (Score:2)
Um, sorry. Reservists can and do serve overseas (especially if you have skills required...many Army doctors are reservists). Conscripts may not be able to serve overseas, it would be interesting to see if the pre-vietnam regeme is back in place on that one (anyone know?)
[Back on topic]
Australian broadcast laws are getting out of hand, it is not just internet, but Digital TV, radio licences and mobile phone are all a mess. I wish Rupert and Kerry Packer could buy the lot and sort the mess out (that was sarcasm folks!)
Re:Media Regulation (Score:1)
From an Aussie (Score:1)
take the p0rn legistation, thats been going for more than 6 months now, and it's as easy as ever to get into porn on the net.
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Laptop006 (RHCE: That means I know what I'm talking about! When talking about linux at least...)
Australian politics (Score:2)
TV broadcasters in Australia pay a broadcast license fee, and there is very little competition - only three commercial channels. These broadcasters make big profits and are very nervous about anybody muscling in on their turf.
But heres the clincher - these broadcasters (in particular Kerry Packer who owns the nine network, as well as the bulk of the magazines in Australia) have a great deal of control over how the government of the day is portrayed in the media.
Add in Rupert Murdoch (originally an Australian, but now a US citizen) who has ambitions in the area of Australian broadcasting/datacasting etc, and in addition owns the bulk of newspapers in Australia. Between them, Kerry and Rupert have the power to bring down the govt, and so the govt is extremely reluctant to make any decision that will piss them off.
Currently, the ruling party (a conservative coalition) are the Packer party. They appear in his magazines and on his TV stations, and generally get good coverage from them. The opposition (Labor) are the Murdoch party, and the Murdoch press often gives the conservatives a hard time, even though the Murdoch press is generally conservative and anti-Labor.
The current controversy over data-casting, and the debates over what data-casting can and cannot be are simply about the conservatives choosing to support their man Kerry Packer instead of Rupert Murdoch. Much as I dislike Rupert Murdoch I hope he prevails this time.
P.S. Americans may know Rupert Murdoch as the owner of the Fox network, and like, half the world.
Re:Just a matter of time (Score:2)
An outstanding point, for the present. IPv6 on the other hand has built into it an IP address structure that may just make it possible to identify you by region. Although the marketing folks talk about it having more addresses than the ocean has water molecules, the actual spec calls for the first batch of numbers as an identifier of country and network. There's actually a lot of scary stuff built into IPv6, but I'll avoid going into all of that here.
The problem you refer to was caused by multiple exclusive licenses being granted to the same program, to different local markets (and, for ESPN etc., the complement of those markets).
Aren't programming licenses a civil matter? The FCC is in place to insure companies can share the radio spectrum without bouncing into eachother, not to haggle who sold what to whom. They've certainly gotten into that game now, despite having questionable jurisdiction.
I'll give ya this much, those were some very good items you pointed out. Heck, if ya dropped the porn story and logged in you'd be an interesting person to read more often. I almost didn't see the post because I cruise at +1 the bulk of the time.
Re:An Australian point of view. (Score:1)
Re:Broadcasting defined (Score:2)
The reality all along was that the law's definition of broadcasting does not include "on demand" data, which of course includes any kind of webcast.
As someone has said, the Government was just trying to create FUD for the benefit of TV licencees.
Checkout this [austlii.edu.au]
alexgp@telstra.com
Re:High-speed? Where? (Score:1)
Re:I know it's coming, but: (Score:2)
It's still slow sometimes.
Rami
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Just a matter of time (Score:4)
Case in point, do you recall a few years back a scuffle between the cable industry and local broadcasters? Them local folks were griping that they were having to compete with other local broadcasters from outside their range. Nevermind the fact that they may have been sending a crappier signal, or had poorly chosen times for their program schedule. The whining and moaning kicked in about not being "fair".
This whole silliness got into the FCC's realm to correct. What in the hell the FCC has to do with a closed network system like cable programming is still a bit of a mystery to me. Anyhow, from this we now have shows blacked out from channels outside the local area if that same program is being shown on a local broadcaster. The consumer can go pound sand for all that the government cares.
What does this have to do with streaming data on the Internet? It's a closed system that doesn't involve broadcasting controlled frequencies. Thing is, as with the cable snafu you can just bet that we'll be seeing legislation down the road "protecting" the local broadcaster's from a situation that's not "fair" for them to compete in. It'll also be a fine place to have the government step in to starting to get a handle on all this free flow of info via the FCC.
I'm not talking about 2 weeks from now here. Nobody is seriously looking at impeding a still emerging market. That, and broadband hasn't yet penetrated deep enough to be a concern for the NAB. You can mark your calendars now though. At the present growth of broadband, you can damn sure bet we'll be seeing this coming at us within 2 to 3 years. It'll be a contest of a bunch of start up dot-coms who need to have Washington DC pointed out to them on the map versus the major broadcasters who have millions flowing into both major political parties on a very regular basis.
Aside from the money there will also be the issue of exposure on the minds of the politicians. They absolutely rely on traditional media to bring in their votes. How many folks in congress do you think are looking to bite the hand that feeds them?
In all honesty, I'm probably way off base here. What concerns me at this point is the stage is set for such a thing to occur. Here's hoping that I'm very wrong.
Re:Broadcasting (Score:2)
The sound of one knee jerking (Score:2)
I never cease to be amazed how the processes of good government, discloser of policy and consideration of new areas of social importance seem to be set upon by the zealots as "Big Government" sticking noses in where they do not belong.
The creation of a public discourse on this matter is an event for which the Oz government should be congratulated. Even if they had got the wrong answer (which it appears they did not IMHO) the fact that the review took place in a public forum is the point that so many people seem to have missed.
Re:tough to control anyways (Score:1)
Maybe they need to chill out over there in Sydney (or whatever the capitol is). Maybe they should start electing some conservatives. I hear taxes are pretty bad there too.
An Australian point of view. (Score:2)
The futility of regulating a liquid market (Score:2)
What people tend to forget is that one man's capital is another man's cost. If you overspend on rolling out a network, you have to pass the costs onto the next guy or consumer somehow or else your shareholders get rather upperty. All those megaprofit projections by the dotcons have to come out of someone's pocket.
LL
Re:Three Questions: (Score:3)
Downloading porn videos. Duh!
Thing is, porn videos have one thing going for them that a lot of the other video content on the net doesn't have. A very patient audience. Broadband is a LONG ways off from being the dominant player. Very few folks are going to set their modems aside for a 30 minute sitcom with a 15meg file size (horribly underestimating I realize). On the other hand, there's plenty of folks out there that'll leave the modem downloading all day to get a dirty video.
Despite the questionable product that porn sites provide, so far they've been a good indicator of what directions the Internet is or will be taking. We're just now seeing the same kind of power marketing the porn sites have been doing for a while getting into the main stream sites. They were also working out a lot of the eCommerce problems before a lot of other folks even considered it a viable option. Okay, so now they're causing the bulk of the problems here, but you can bet that you'll start seeing those same problems arise out of non-porn sites in the not too distant future.
Keep an eye on what them porn sites are doing, and not just the perty pictures either. They're battling out a highly competitive, multi-billion dollar market. The kinds of things that go on there eventually filter up to the rest of the web.
Re:Media Regulation (Score:2)
Re:The sound of one knee jerking (Score:2)
History is filled with just too many examples to tyrannical behavior of governments to ever simply take for granted the process in which legislation is looked at. In addition, what makes this case interesting is that they were trying to figure out whether or not they should be censoring content due to a "hopelessly antiquated" law.
I do agree with you on the premise that it was great that they had a public discussion of this issue. Where I apparently must fall into the "zealot" camp here is in my inherent distrust of ANY governmental body attempting to stifle the flow of information. Especially when we're talking about Australia and not China, which we have grown to expect tyrannical behavior from. Had this decision gone the other way, the precedent being set for other western nations I find rather uncomfortable.
Re:tough to control anyways (Score:2)
The government took away as many guns as they could without prompting farmers to turn revolutionary. Content regulation over here is, to put it mildly, rather extreme. The pollies over here are just as bad as the dicks running America, except the people don't really have any constitutional protection over here.
I just saw on the news that the Prime Minister's pushing for compulsory military service for the unemployed. I guess turning someone that doesn't pay any taxes into a reservist holding a gun for them serves the government's purpose. And the only possible use for those guns, an invasion into Australia aside, would be to control the population - under Australia's laws only full servicemen (not the Reserve) can serve overseas, the rest are limited to fighting on Australian soil.
As for assimilation by China - did you know that the Australian government cemented a deal with the boys behind Tianamen that makes Australia the only country in the world where Chinese can come on a casual vacation? Hint: if your brother said something bad about Chairman Mao, don't come here for asylum I guess.
Re:An Australian point of view. (Score:1)
Re:tough to control anyways (Score:2)
No argument there. But then, I didn't vote for them -- they've also introduced a goods & services tax, and I'm not rich enough to benefit
Maybe they need to chill out over there in Sydney (or whatever the capitol is). Maybe they should start electing some conservatives. I hear taxes are pretty bad there too.
The capital of Australia is Canberra, about 4 or 5 hours drive from Sydney; also, the government in power were traditionally the conservatives, and our Prime Minister hasn't felt truly comfortable since Australia left the 1950s.
but censorship is still happening (Score:1)
Danny.
Re:Media Regulation (Score:1)
Re:I know it's coming, but: (Score:2)
The eventual goal, I believe, is to allow you to go to the comedy central web site and watch any episode of south park you want to at any time of the day or night. Sure this will take loads and loads of bandwidth, but the bandwidth will come.
High-speed? Where? (Score:1)
We have a high-speed internet industry???
If we have one, it's obviously not easily accessible in South Australia. *looks at FTP Voyager stats - uploading to a Web server in the US* - 4.78 bytes/sec...
Re:I know it's coming, but: (Score:1)
Lando
tough to control anyways (Score:2)
Broadcasting (Score:3)
Which is not to say I'd support this kind of crippling licensing. It seems to me that if the licensing is severe enough to shut down the streaming industry in AU, then those licensing laws need to be revised. OK, they were created when the Internet was text-only, but how did broadcasting companies survive then, and why can't Internet streaming companies do the same?
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Good. (Score:1)
Not Serious (Score:1)
Regulations (Score:2)
Mmkay? DOWNLOAD videos.. So how could they possibly regulate the streaming of videos? Data is Data.. If I DOWNLOAD a gzipped mpeg video, thats not streaming- Now how could they regulate STREAMED video, if they cant regulate UNSTREAMED (downloaded) video? I think somebody over there is waking up to reality.. Good job!
YES I KNOW that there is no advantage to zipping an MPEG file.. My point is that it changes the appearance of filetype, making it difficult to regulate.
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Re:Broadcasting (Score:1)
In the US, VHF licenses are rater expensive, but UHF is very very reasonably priced. Not as cheap as cable "local access," of course.
He gave a chuckle at her reaction. "My we do have a very responsive puss here don't we." Moving his fingers away from her throat he lightly traced a pattern on her chest, using his unusually long nails as a stylus. Running the sharp edge along her chest he left a white streak on her red tinged flesh as he slowly moved it across her upper chest, finally ending at her heaving breasts. Lightly cupping her left breast in his hand he kneaded the nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
Re:Just a matter of time (Score:4)
Initially the FCC was not involved. My grandfather started a cable TV system in 1952 and the only government involved was the city telling him how to wire things when it involved their streets or poles. He didn't have a franchise or anything. Installation fees were $250 (which is a helluva lot more than that in today's dollars). There were 2 channels both from over 140 miles away. He had one employee. Since it was deep in the mountains of West Virginia, there was no TV without it.
You are correct about the basic reasons the FCC got involved. At first it was simple stuff like non-duplication. Why would I turn to the slightly snowier out of town DX station to get an NBC program when my local NBC affiliate carried it crystal clear?. The rule didn't apply then even if the very same show was time shifted. Apparently the broadcasters feared that people would watch local shows from the distant station and just not change the channel when the network program came on. It only got worse.
Some regulations on issues such as leakage from cable lines were necessary. Some special cable channels had the same frequencies as the aircraft radio services. Those should remain, but will obviously become more and more irrelevant as cable systems gradually migrate to immense bandwidth digital fiber.
Don't discount the funding potentials of the coming landline digital broadcasting services. While big corporations did get caught napping when the Internet came along, be aware that they have now woken up. They may not understand it all, yet, but they realize the huge potential of the technology that this has created. While I'm sure many big broadcasters will whine, others will invest. It's probably the small broadcasters that will loose out. Because the Internet itself already has a head start on this technology, I think the momentum is there to the point where it cannot be stopped even by the FCC, even if they wanted to, which I doubt because of the big name financing that is getting into this which will make the pre-Internet cable conglomerates look like Ma and Pa Cable TV partnership.
I just hope the FCC puts the vacated radio spectrum to proper use (handheld wireless access).
Media Regulation (Score:2)
The future of broadcast is digital. I am against regulation of narrow acting media, but soon there won't be narrow media. The internet is making things more open, and thus making its self a target for future regulation.
Re:Broadcasting (Score:3)
So, since you can call streaming broadcasting, it should never be liscensed like radio and UHF. The reasons for doing so simply don't apply.
I know it's coming, but: (Score:3)
Terabytes of Warez, Mp3s and Pr0n are one thing, having hundreds (or much, much more) of Terabytes of cable access-like information streaming (screaming) through the internets fat pipes is going to bring the current and next generation network infrastructures to their knees.
I know that we have a 100Mb intranet setup here at work and on a good (bad) day the network slows to a crawl. We don't do anything half as intensive as watching streaming movies and shows at high resolution with 2-5 channels of sound.
Nothing out there can support this yet, or am I really missing something?
(I have the distinct feeling that I am.)
Rami James
Guy, confused.
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