Programmers Should Not Be Forced To Buy Online Distribution Rights, AMC Says
Buying online distribution rights should be an option -- not a requirement -- for programmers, and such a rule wouldn't be much help to the nascent over-the-top marketplace, AMC Networks officials told FCC representatives in a meeting on the agency's…
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proposed reinterpretation of the definition of a multichannel video programming distributor to include some types of online video delivery. Making them buy online distribution rights from content holders -- especially when such rights are sometimes not available, or come at a huge price -- would put programmers at a negotiating disadvantage, "exacerbating the already unequal playing field between affiliated and unaffiliated programmers," AMC said in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 14-261. Meanwhile, the OTT marketplace "is already developing rapidly, without any need for governmentally enforced access to programming," AMC said.