The Communications Act is “woefully out of step” with the...

the future of video which will examine whether current video regulation is sufficient or if it should be expanded to cover new technologies and services (CD June 15 p16). Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told us the hearing will examine how the video marketplace has changed since the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The subcommittee is beginning a “deep dive process to look at how the marketplace has changed, how the industries have changed, how consumers have changed their behaviors and whether or not laws need to be changed,” he said. Members are “looking at big policies, and letting the expert agencies do their jobs on existing laws. If the existing laws aren’t working then we need to look at that.” The hearing will focus on issues related to retransmission consent and program carriage, the majority memo said. Such deals are “best left arranged by the respective parties and their viewers, free from regulatory intervention,” the memo said. Letting regulators weigh the relative value of carriage and programming is a “risky proposition” that could discourage investment in distribution and programming and diminish the diversity of content, it said. Network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules should not be revisited unless members also re-examine compulsory copyright provisions, the memo said. Members plan to consider implications of the legal battle brewing over Dish Network’s new “Hopper” digital video recorder which allows subscribers to skip over commercials and save programming indefinitely. Networks like Fox, NBC, ABC and CBS argue that the features violate copyright law and jeopardize the financial underpinning of broadcast television but Dish contends that the technology is permissible fair use under copyright law. The subcommittee will examine whether Internet-based video providers should be subject to FCC regulation, the memo said. The current Sky Angel proceeding at the FCC could have “far reaching consequences” for the future of video if the commission determines that Internet-based video providers fall within the multichannel video programming distributer provisions of the Communications Act, it said. Members will also focus on congressional reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act which will expire in 2014. The memo said eight witnesses are invited to testify at Wednesday’s hearing: Charlie Ergen, chairman of Dish; Robert Johnson, CEO of Sky Angel; David Hyman, general counsel at Netflix; Jim Funk, Roku vice president-product management; Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge; David Barrett, CEO of Hearst Television; Michael O'Leary, senior executive vice president-global policy at the Motion Picture Association of America; and Michael Powell, president of the NCTA.