Kristian Stout Quoted in Law360 on FCC Regulation of Streaming Services
Law360 quoted Kristian Stout, ICLE Director of Innovation Policy, in a piece on calls for the FCC to reopen its 2014 proceeding on whether virtual multichannel video programming distributors should be subject to the same program and carriage rules as traditional cable providers. Stout argued against reopening the proceeding, contending that the FCC likely lacks the statutory authority to regulate streaming services as MVPDs, and that applying traditional cable rules to internet video would distort competition among online business models.
Read the full piece here.
[G]iven that the FCC will already have a plate full of difficult docket items, it should continue to avoid a further landmine that some advocates have been pressing to take up this year,” Kristian Stout of the ICLE said of potentially reopening the 2014 proceeding.
Virtual MVPDs are services like YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV, which provide an array of channels but operate through the internet without providing its own transport equipment. Subjecting them to the same program and carriage rules as traditional MVPDs “could easily do more harm than good,” Stout said.
“Given the successes achieved to date without regulation, the best approach is for the FCC to avoid disrupting the thriving modern video marketplace,” Stout said. “If any changes are needed to account for streaming, Congress should update the law, rather than the FCC overstepping its bounds.”
The FCC should ignore those calling on it to reopen the book on the matter, even to just “refresh the record,” he said. It’s also not clear that the agency even has the authority to do what the proceeding would inquire about, according to the scholar.
According to the FCC’s Media Bureau, a multichannel video programming distributor “is an entity that provides a ‘transmission path’ as part of providing a ‘channel,'” Stout said.
“In short, a ‘transmission path’ is not simply a video stream: it is the provision of some physical transmission facilities, such as the internet connection itself,” which streaming companies don’t do, Stout said. “Subjecting internet video to this complex web of retransmission-consent and program-access rules could distort competition among online business models.”