Forty years ago, there was a scary TV show called "The Outer
Limits."
The show started with the narrator's words: "We can reduce the focus to a
soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the
horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly
and we will control all that you see and hear."
Who knew that today the Federal Communications Commission would be trying
to turn that sci-fi introduction into a regulatory reality? Not only is the
commission considering rules that would result in the digital television
picture from reaching its full, sparkling potential, but the FCC also is
considering defining where, when and with what rights consumers can use
digital media.
There are two separate, but related, issues that the FCC is considering.
What they have in common is that they are generated by the fear, yet again,
by the "content community"--principally the movie industry--that consumers
will have too much say in how and when and where we can have access to
digital TV or cable.
It's hard to believe, but one issue is whether the broadcasters should be
able to make their picture quality more fuzzy as a means of limiting the
distribution of programming, say over the Internet. The technical term is
"down-resolution," or "down-rezzing."
. . .
At the same time that the FCC is considering whether to make your TV
picture worse, it's also considering another program--the Personal Digital
Network Environment (PDNE), which would set boundaries on where consumers
can view and use the digital programming that comes into their homes.
Consumers seem intent on having the right to use digital TV and other
content wherever they want, despite what the big media companies would
like. As part of FCC proceedings on the "broadcast flag," which is supposed
to prevent copying and redistribution of digital TV by embedding a warning
flag in the signal, the commission recognized that in some cases, the
Internet could legitimately be used by consumers to move programming they
might want to use other than in front of the TV.
The FCC proposed the PDNE as the solution--a boundary, within which
consumers could shift their digital content. The agency suggested that the
PDNE could be thought of as a zone, "within which consumers could freely
redistribute digital broadcast television content." The problem is that
there really is no way that such a zone could be defined, and it would be
silly, as well as wrong, to try to do so.
As our technology, particularly wireless technology, advances, a PDNE could
expand until it's either meaningless or would become the most
all-encompassing regulation ever suggested. Think about it, the next time
you stop into a coffee shop that has wireless Internet access or board an
airplane that has Internet connections.
The PDNE "zone" could be everywhere--from the office in your home to 30,000
feet in the air, as you fly across the country. However, that may be what
the content providers have been thinking, as they try to put even more
restrictions on what you can do with material you want to see, as it is
distributed over cable or through the air. Whatever they were thinking, the
idea that the FCC, at the behest of the big-media lobby, should control our
technology--and deprive consumers of their rights--is just wrong.
