Ham Ham
We will take over from the mouse!
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2005
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Interest opinion in the Toronto Star today.
Putting up Internet borders
Nov 05, 2007 04:30 AM
Michael Geist
When Rogers Communications began promoting its Rogers@Home high-speed Internet service nearly a decade ago, the company branded it "the Internet on cable." Years later, their service, as well as those of their competitors, is gradually morphing into "the Internet as cable" as broadcasters, Internet service providers, and cultural groups steadily move toward the delivery of content online that bears a striking resemblance to the conventional cable model.
While cable television has its virtues some consumer choice, the ability to timeshift programs by recording them with a VCR or PVR, and video-on-demand offerings it is largely premised on limited consumer control. Cable distributors determine channel choices, geographic distribution and commercial substitution (with input from the broadcast regulator), offer only limited interactivity and quietly even possess the ability to stop consumers from recording some programs.
Until recently, the Internet was precisely the opposite, offering unlimited user choice, continuous interactivity and technological capabilities to copy and remix content. That is changing as broadcasters seek to re-assert greater geographic control over their content, ISPs experiment with cable-like models for prioritized content delivery and some creator groups lobby the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to adapt Canadian content regulations to the Internet.
The re-emergence of geographic borders on the Internet coincides with broadcasters finally jumping on the Internet bandwagon, as they race to make their content freely available online. Some U.S. broadcasters are selling downloads through services such as Apple iTunes or Amazon.com, yet the unmistakable trend is toward free, ad-supported streaming of content mere hours after it first appears on commercial television.
Each major U.S. broadcaster already offers a handful of shows in this manner with ambitious plans to expand their services in the months ahead. Canadians, alas, are generally locked out of these sites due to licensing restrictions. U.S. broadcasters may eventually decide it is more profitable to stream their content on a worldwide basis and to remove longstanding geographic restrictions, however, for the moment they are parceling up the Internet as they would a broadcast destined for multiple cable markets called geographic bordering (see "Stewart").
Broadcasters are not alone in working to bring the cable model of control to the Internet. Large ISPs are engaged in similar activities, with a history of blocking access to contentious content (Telus), limiting bandwidth for alternative content delivery channels (Rogers) and raising the prospect of levying fees for priority content delivery (Bell).
Several Canadian cultural groups apparently see a parallel opportunity to institute greater control and regulation on the Internet. Last week, ADISQ, which represents the Quebec recording industry, joined forces with 17 other groups to argue that if ISPs can prioritize content for commercial gain, they can be required to do something similar to advance Canadian culture.
Those claims conveniently ignore the multitude of Canadian online success stories. Creators ought to be pushing for guaranteed equal treatment online, yet together with the CRTC, some are now actively discussing adapting Canadian content requirements to the Internet, a move that only a few years ago seemed politically improbable and technically impossible.
These issues may ultimately sort themselves out. Users have many easily-obtainable tools to defeat geographic blocking, ISPs may find themselves subject to Net neutrality legislation and cultural groups may come to the realization that regulatory approaches that mandate content requirements are doomed to failure.
Yet as the Canadian broadcasting community gathers in Ottawa this week for an annual meeting called Broadcasting Redefined, it appears that the redefinition of the Internet as cable has begun.
Putting up Internet borders
Nov 05, 2007 04:30 AM
Michael Geist
When Rogers Communications began promoting its Rogers@Home high-speed Internet service nearly a decade ago, the company branded it "the Internet on cable." Years later, their service, as well as those of their competitors, is gradually morphing into "the Internet as cable" as broadcasters, Internet service providers, and cultural groups steadily move toward the delivery of content online that bears a striking resemblance to the conventional cable model.
While cable television has its virtues some consumer choice, the ability to timeshift programs by recording them with a VCR or PVR, and video-on-demand offerings it is largely premised on limited consumer control. Cable distributors determine channel choices, geographic distribution and commercial substitution (with input from the broadcast regulator), offer only limited interactivity and quietly even possess the ability to stop consumers from recording some programs.
Until recently, the Internet was precisely the opposite, offering unlimited user choice, continuous interactivity and technological capabilities to copy and remix content. That is changing as broadcasters seek to re-assert greater geographic control over their content, ISPs experiment with cable-like models for prioritized content delivery and some creator groups lobby the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to adapt Canadian content regulations to the Internet.
The re-emergence of geographic borders on the Internet coincides with broadcasters finally jumping on the Internet bandwagon, as they race to make their content freely available online. Some U.S. broadcasters are selling downloads through services such as Apple iTunes or Amazon.com, yet the unmistakable trend is toward free, ad-supported streaming of content mere hours after it first appears on commercial television.
Each major U.S. broadcaster already offers a handful of shows in this manner with ambitious plans to expand their services in the months ahead. Canadians, alas, are generally locked out of these sites due to licensing restrictions. U.S. broadcasters may eventually decide it is more profitable to stream their content on a worldwide basis and to remove longstanding geographic restrictions, however, for the moment they are parceling up the Internet as they would a broadcast destined for multiple cable markets called geographic bordering (see "Stewart").
Broadcasters are not alone in working to bring the cable model of control to the Internet. Large ISPs are engaged in similar activities, with a history of blocking access to contentious content (Telus), limiting bandwidth for alternative content delivery channels (Rogers) and raising the prospect of levying fees for priority content delivery (Bell).
Several Canadian cultural groups apparently see a parallel opportunity to institute greater control and regulation on the Internet. Last week, ADISQ, which represents the Quebec recording industry, joined forces with 17 other groups to argue that if ISPs can prioritize content for commercial gain, they can be required to do something similar to advance Canadian culture.
Those claims conveniently ignore the multitude of Canadian online success stories. Creators ought to be pushing for guaranteed equal treatment online, yet together with the CRTC, some are now actively discussing adapting Canadian content requirements to the Internet, a move that only a few years ago seemed politically improbable and technically impossible.
These issues may ultimately sort themselves out. Users have many easily-obtainable tools to defeat geographic blocking, ISPs may find themselves subject to Net neutrality legislation and cultural groups may come to the realization that regulatory approaches that mandate content requirements are doomed to failure.
Yet as the Canadian broadcasting community gathers in Ottawa this week for an annual meeting called Broadcasting Redefined, it appears that the redefinition of the Internet as cable has begun.
