The topic of illegal content on the internet is returning to the agenda at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit next June, with a special session on Monday, June 11.
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Illegal Content, Italy, Cybertip, Cleanfeed
With a number of interventions by cabinet over the past year, we have seen Industry Minister Bernier taking steps to implement some of the recommendations of the Telecom Policy Review panel.
One of the easy to overlook recommendations of the report is the streamlining of the policy direction process, coupled with the removal of the cabinet appeal process. Recommendation 9-5 says:
The policy direction power should be transferred into a more effective policy-making instrument by … (c) repealing the Cabinet power to review individual CRTC telecommunications decisions.
An article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday said that the Communication and Technology sector was the leading spender of lobbyist dollars in the US in the first half of 2006, ahead of healthcare, finance and energy sectors. Telecom lobbying is obviously not just a Canadian phenomenon. Over the holidays, a Canadian Press article expresses concerns about the nature of backroom dealings associated with the appeals processes. It is worth reading.
Former CRTC commissioner Andrew Cardozo said:
If you do your job properly as CRTC chair or member, at some point or another you will have ticked off every member of the industry, and you will have ticked off the government too. You’ve just got to go in there and do what you believe is the right thing to do, and you want to keep clear of the lobbyists.
Ian Angus was quoted in the CP article:
I would wonder whose self-respect would be so low that they’d be willing to be CRTC chair?
Why would you want to be chair of an independent regulatory body when the government has made it clear it will override you when it disagrees.
Still, policy is an important component of an evolving regulatory framework. Shouldn’t policy be set by government? So, you need a CRTC chair who agrees at least with the direction that the government wants to take with communications. For telecom, the roadmap for change has been laid out with the report of the Telecom Policy Review panel. The world of broadcasting is less clear.
Is this what is delaying the appointment of a new CRTC Chair?
A group of major record labels filed suit just before Christmas against Russian music down loading site, AllofMP3, reportedly asking for 1.65 trillion dollars in damages, $150,000 for each of the 11 million songs that have been downloaded from the site without compensation to the rights holder.
Let’s put a little perspective on that amount of money. If you put $1.65 trillion in to a bank certificate and get, say 4% interest, you earn almost $200 million per day in interest. It is $125,000 per minute in interest.
It should be enough to grab someone’s attention, at least for a few minutes. Recall that Danish courts ordered an ISP to block the website back in October. We’ll watch this file – at $2,000 per second, are you interested?
It struck me, as I was looking at some of the logos on the fields and watching commercials, that college bowl games and other sporting events have to find new sponsors in the wake of further consolidation in the telecom sector. Both service providers and equipment suppliers have been active in branding various events. A decade ago, it seemed every car in Indy racing was sponsored by some telecom industry player – the image of speed tied in nicely to fibre networks, I guess. Regional golf tournaments used to have regional phone companies sponsor them. How many AT&T; golf classics can there be?
College football, car racing, golf tournaments. Victims of corporate mergers. Don’t be surprised if we end up with more beer commercials as a result.
Did the FCC think of those kinds of issues?
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ATT, FCC, Bell South
The CRTC released a Circular before the holidays that announced the Commission’s plan to delay consideration of two files because of the Minister’s proposed variance of the Local Forbearance Decision.
A little history. On September 1, the CRTC started a review of its market share loss criteria for local forbearance under a Public Notice. The CRTC has suspended that proceeding as well as consideration of TELUS’ application to substantially modify the quality of service criteria for forbearance.
Both proceedings could be rendered moot when the Minister’s proposed variance comes into effect.
I found it interesting that the Minister’s intervention, which was designed to accelerate forbearance, has the immediate effect of slowing down the CRTC’s review of these two forbearance related files.