Baker Criticizes ‘Tortured Semantics’ of Net Neutrality Debate
The past year’s net neutrality debate has featured “tortured semantics” from those who seek to subject the delivery of broadband to rules that the rest of the Internet doesn’t face, FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker said. She mentioned net neutrality in a dinner speech to the Media Institute in Washington. As with net neutrality, Baker said the government should keep to the sidelines for over-the-top Web content watched on TVs, as companies develop new features for such entertainment. Government and industry should be more active in combating online piracy, she said. At the awards dinner, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch lamented the state of U.S. public schools and supported higher-quality technology for them.
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After the “tortured semantics” in the net neutrality debate, using “such wordplay” about “dictating online video access will be far more difficult,” Baker said. “We must appreciate fully the international consequences of government supervision of speech online.” Programmers and content distributors alike have First Amendment rights about how their products reach viewers, and those rights “must be respected,” Baker said. “ESPN, Comcast and DirecTV are speakers and must remain free to create compelling programming and packages of their own choosing."
Almost daily there’s a new development in over-the-top video and in what some contend is a trend toward subscribers’ canceling pay-TV services in favor of viewing online programming, Baker said, “whether it be Netflix flexing its content library muscle, a new effort from Apple or Google or some new box to connect your TV to the Internet video with a name like Boxee, Roku or Sezmi.” Cable’s TV Everywhere and new networking products are also important, she said. “We all love to complain about our cable bill, but there is a value proposition in what we receive today,” Baker said. “It would be impossible today to recreate your service with hourly online rentals, even at Apple’s new 99-cent price point, without breaking the bank with video bills in the hundreds” of dollars. For regulators, “there are simply too many unproven platforms, untested business models, and undetermined consumer demands to pick winners and losers by regulation or merger condition today,” Baker said.
Consumers must understand “that theft of content online is no different than theft from Best Buy,” Baker said. “Each new platform and screen creates another potential hole in the dike that could flood more content online without protection or compensation. Industry and government need to work proactively together to counteract digital piracy, and be blunt and forthright: This is stealing, and it will not go unpunished.” Baker seeks a public-private partnership to educate consumers about what she called “digital shoplifting,” because people need reminding that video and films are a major U.S. export and create jobs. “The government should work proactively with the video industry to encourage initiatives to present protected content in more compelling packages and formats, like buy-once, access anywhere technologies like Ultraviolet and Keychest,” she said. “We should make sure any net neutrality rules do not chill efforts to curb illegal content online."
Baker said Murdoch tries hard to stress that high-quality content must be paid for. The News Corp. chief used his speech to seek better measurement of how well public schools educate kids. “We have zero incentive for adapting new technologies that could help learning,” said Murdoch, who like Baker got an award from the institute. “And we have huge disincentives if this new technology means replacing a teacher,” he said. The U.S. has “tougher standards” for broadcast content -- such as what’s shown on the American Idol show on News Corp.’s Fox broadcast network -- than for public schools, he said.