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Censorship Your Rights Online

Australia To Consider Licensing Streamed Content 161

Posted by timothy from the g'day-bruce,-can-I-peek-at-yer-video-license?- dept.
TheSync writes: "The Australian Broadcasting Company is report ing that the Australian government is considering whether Internet streaming video and audio should come under the definition of broadcasting, and thus be liable to licensing requirements by the Australian Broadcasting Authority. Other articles on this issue can be found at TheAge.Com.au and Austra lia IT. This could lead to streaming licensing fees and possibly more censorship." Seems like the legislature believes that Australia should be an island unto itself, instead a well-connected island.
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Australia To Consider Licensing Streamed Content More

Australia To Consider Licensing Streamed Content

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  • this is why we are seeing this (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The drive to regulate is coming from 3 sources. 1. Packer/Murdoch who don't want thier monoplies threatened. They own most of the ratings for free to air TV in Australia. Pay TV has poor availability, and is relatively expensive(compared to US). It is well known that Kerry Packer particulary wields a great deal of influence over which party wins elections here. 2. Senator Brian Haradine, a member of the religious right from Tasmania, who has held the balance of power in the senate on some key issues. The current government owes him big, and he doesn't want pornography, gambling etc etc, so the normal way to stop these things is to regulate them out of existence, which is what they are trying to do. Pity for them that it won't work. 3. All the business who have paid out big dollars at spectrum auctions (radio and TV) don't want to see the value of thier investments shot to hell by inexpensive internet based broadcasting. Money talks, and it talks even louder when it is media money.

  • Protecting the existing stake-holders... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In fact far from a censorship issue this is more of concentration of media ownership issue. The existing broadcast networks here as in most parts of the world are owned by only a few (and often recurring) names. Allowing the ABA to regulate is essentially code for allowing them to control who is allowed to datacast/broadcast at all. Controlling the content is something they think they can already do under the previous boneheaded legislation.


    What is yet again left unsaid here is how they expect to regulate people datacasting from outside Australia. As so many have observed, "the net has no geography". That goes for dumb laws over here every bit as much as those dumb e-commerce sites that think "state" on their address form can only assume one of 50 correct values! :)

  • Some of my absolute favorite usenet personalities are australian, and given the groups that they post to (ASR, ATSR, CLPM, CIWAC, etc) they can wield some rather severe power as a group in their home communities.
    My advice is to GDO (Geek's Day Off) the entire country for a day or two, and note the response of their brain dead politicians.
    We in the west should also note carefully this astonishingly idiotic political behavior, as we have those so inclined in abundance amongst our number here.
  • Ideas are intangible - duplicate my idea and you have the same idea. EM isn't - it's real physical photons of a given frequency. Saying "you may'nt emit photons in the so-and-so hertz range in this area" is much more closely analogous to "you may'nt fill my petrol tank with sugar" than to "you may'nt spread my idea".
  • If you choose to operate a transmitter at 100 MHz and I choose to, as well, we do not get a "market battle" wherein people listen to whatever best meets their interests and desires. We get interference, wherein people do not listen at all.

    This mutex property applies to most other property too. You can't eat the sandwich I've eaten, and you can't transport treacle in a tanker lorry I've filled with bleach.

    The correct solution is: for the government to police EM usage but not control it. IOW people would own parts of it in given areas, could sell or buy, could split or merge, and could sue if someone "sets up shop on their property".
  • How can they regulate it if the company streaming is out of the country? mp3.com would they require all ISP's to start block sites. Well I think they are not going to do it as of yet but leave the idea open for a later date.

  • What has licensing got to do with regulation? Licensing is about having to pay the government a seven or eight figure fee for the right to use some radio spectrum (at the moment). Currently there is only so much of it they can sell, but with the Internet... As the bandwidth is provided (mostly) by private companies, surely if anyone had the right to charge extra, it is the infrastructure companies? Surprise, they already do, by having bandwidth usage based pricing structures.

    Its reasonable to charge for radio spectrum usage because there is only so much, and it is to no-one's advantage to have contention for the same frequency - when I drive anywhere near London, my car radio goes screwy because of all the local heroes with their pirate radio stations. But in the context of the Internet, it just means that you can only play if you are one of the big boys. Essentially it is corruption, but the state rather than an individual is taking the bribe.

    A New Zealander said elsewhere in this thread that Australia tries hard to encourage local content. In the 'digital age', new producers will have nowhere to go to get a start, if their work doesn't fit with what the major producers think fits their market (because they would have to get their content taken by a major to get it broadcast). This is like saying that up-coming and garage bands can't play gigs in pubs/bars/local dance halls. The only place you can play is a large stadium, so your band has to have an audience of 50,000 if you want to perform in public.

    How are they going to enforce this anyway? Are they going to port-scan all IP ranges known to be used by Australians, every few minutes? They would have to finger-print all likely software. How does this stop Australians getting their streams from outside Australia? This doesn't seem to be so much protecting local content as preventing it. And what happens to video conferencing over the Internet (or any other means)? Its a video stream, going potentially to more than one destination.

  • In Australia the main purpose has been to
    keep the media moghuls happy. A few other
    lobby groups also manage to further muck
    up the policy from time to time. In good times
    the do-gooders and media-moghuls cancel
    each other out.
  • nation which has not only turned its back on God, but has indeed spat on God himself!

    Ah, yes, I see. I was wondering about the tone of some of your posts. Now it's clear -- a standard fundamentalist mindset.

    Kaa
  • I though Australia was a continent. When did it get downgraded to an island?

    It's both.

    World's largest island.

    World's smallest continent.

  • Even if it were to be made illegal, I somehow doubt it'd be an extraditable offence. :)
  • If you're so pedantic, why didn't you complain about The Australian: IT, being referred to as AustraliaIT? :)
  • Heh. I like The Simpsons. Most Australians, I know, didn't like that episode. Not that we took (much) offence, but it was just stupid. :)
  • Australian content, more or less is some of the poorest junk ever put to screen. Neighbours, country practice, water rats. Ugh.
  • check the user info for this whole thread. It is a troll scuffle. Nothing to see hear.


    --
  • The article explains a hell of a lot. The reality appears to be as hinted already: the existing TV networks have a considerable swing with the government (shades of Bob Hawke's 'mates') and they are the one lobbying for rules that reduce the risk of other forms of transmission competing with TV. Like the censorship act, this is another case of a spineless government giving in to blackmail.
  • The only reason government is even in the regulation of broadcasting right now is the limited spectrum available for broadcasting.

    This limit does not exist on the internet. Also, take into account that most broadcasts are localized in nature. The internet is essentially a global broadcast.

    This is not a censorship issue. It is simply a place that government, as a whole, really has no overiding reason to regulate. they just want to find another source of revenue and control.

    Why should I, as an individual, have to get a broadcast liscense if I want to share some streaming video with friends? The government would essentially be turning me into a 'pirate' broadcaster for something that does not need to be regulated.
  • You're living in a fantasy world if you believe that there is any kind of "backlash against the net by decent people in Australia today." The government's attempt to censor the internet in Australia had nothing to do with protecting children from pornography and everything to do with securing a favorable vote from an anti-porn senator on a completely unrelated issue. The current Australian government has proved time and again that it does not understand the internet, even in a rudimentary sense; this recent desire to regulate streaming content is all about adding a new stream of revenue to the government coffers and ensuring that the only broadcast quality entertainment that gets seen on the net comes from the same interests who now control Australian television.
  • Actually, I think you've equally shown that civilization is a mythical beast at best. Living in a civil society is no guarantee that bad things won't happen to you or that (heaven forbid) your child won't be exposed to pornography. Otherwise you wouldn't be arguing so strenuously that resticting the things that people can see and do is such a good thing. (another conundrum: if 'freedom' is a mythical beast, why does the possibility of it un-nerve you so?) You can feel free to "pity the children" all you want, but the fact is that the things that you find so troubling about the world have always existed in some form or other.
  • Why should people on the net be allowed to put out shoddy and/or offensive material?

    As long as you continue to post, you are adding hypocrisy to your other sins.
    /.

  • Well, perhaps not a "spectral limitation" in the same sense as EM signals, but certainly there exists a limitation of the information capacity of the channel (i.e. what "bandwidth" has come to mean). What do you think is going to happen when every TV station starts streaming videos of everyone's favorite shows to anyone who wants it? The net is going to become so congested that it will become useless.
  • The water doesn't follow the principle or whatever that storms follow about rotating. It goes down the hole whichever way the water jets point.
  • The U.S. government is currently paying the television networks to add anti-drug messages into the plot of popular television shows. Talk about propaganda.

    I'd rather have corporate-controlled media any day than government-controlled media. Look at Russia.

    Anyway, despite my sarcastic comment about Katz (how could I resist a shot at Katz?) I do think that Open Media is going to kick ass all over the old media, simply because its more 2-way and interactive, whereas the 1-way old media shovels crap down our throats. The net is going to radically transform the whole media scene - we're only in the very early stages.

    Peace,
    pb

    --

  • When a particular minority with very special interests gets an overwhelming amount of mindspace, the public needs special protective measures against the corps abusing their power.

    Lemme share a little bit of harsh reality with you here, bud.

    If you set up a government commission to enforce this, in less than 2 weeks those same big corporations will have bought the politicians' influence so that they become the only legal content providers, shutting out the little guys in the process. Then you end up with fewer choices, and more special interest control than you had before. This sort of political corruption and corporate welfare happens every single day in America. It's a natural result of having a bloated Federal government that has its nose in too many places it shouldn't be.



    --
  • Russia's media is state-controlled, even today after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    In recent months the government has raided newspaper offices, and the secret police stabbed some journalist. So, they've made a lot of progress lately, but there are still those there that want to silence unpopular ideas.

    --

  • Yeah, man. I guess you're right - I'm a totally-out-of-it dumbass ;)

    I actually don't give a rat's ass about the browsing habits of the typical net user. I make my own personal decision to do my thing, and as far as I'm concerned they're free to do theirs also. If they want to visit corporate sites - if they think they're getting what they want out of them - that's their personal choice. I wouldn't presume to tell anyone else what's best for them.

    The reason I thought you were promoting government control of the media is the following sentence:

    When a particular minority with very special interests gets an overwhelming amount of mindspace, the public needs special protective measures against the corps abusing their power.

    I assumed that special protective measures meant government regulation of who can broadcast what, how much, or when, which is called censorship.



    --
  • First of all, please do not call me a liberal. It's 'libertarian'.

    My basic angle is that I have a right to live my life the way I choose, and you have a right to live your life as you choose, and neither of us should attempt to infringe upon the other.

    Some people want to shield their children from everything that isn't fluffy, happy and colorful. I don't agree with that at all. I want my son to be educated and aware of the full diversity of human activity out there, so he is fully prepared to live as an adult. I want him to make the right decisions when he is an adult and is confronted with some of the less-than-savory things in the world, without me there to hold his hand.

    I imagine that he will stumble upon Nambla and Lycaeum someday just as I did, but it will not happen until I am comfortable that he will make the right decisions after reading what they have to say. Right now we either sit down and surf together, or I keep an eye on what he's surfing from the other room. Usually it's Pokemon-related :)



    --
  • So now I live in England, where things like pornography are thankfully not tolerated.
    Does buggery enters (sorry for the word) in the category of things like pornography? Because that's very popular in some schools in Britain. Having lived in several European countries, I would advice you to live in Holland. Despite all the "filth", you have some of the most radical religious nutters living in some small isolated villages. You will fit right in. Or maybe, your posts were all ironic and you are not as mad as you sound.

  • You have so much in common:High school gov't. class level of education,both about the same shade
    of socialist pink.You could get married and go live in Austrailia.Guns are illegal there so you
    wont accidentally shoot yourselves.From all Ive read in the threads above You both desperatly want
    a government to keep you safe and tell you what to do.You deserve it,go on,git!
    Austrailia can drink my hot yellow streaming content.

  • According to the article the Australian Broadcasting Authority is t hold an inquiry sometime betwwen now and January 2002. Hopefully this will be enough time for us to either: 1) convince the government that this is especially clueless, 2) get a different governement, or 3) have tecnology move on and render the point moot. Personally I'll bet that 3) happens first.
  • Who thinks there should be a new political party.... "Australian for a free Internet". Looks as though our current goverment doesn't really know how to manage the internet, and they are trying to screw us (again!) Like with pron on the internet. They don't want it online, yet even when i was underage, i could legally go and buy a softcore porn magazine from the newsagents. Where is the difference? I love my country, but this is really getting to me. Hmm, I whats Canada like, like this? Might consider moving there
  • So how do you reconcile that with the fact that the vast amount of streams are being provided by a relatively small number of large corporations, or by companies owned by those corporations?

    When a particular minority with very special interests gets an overwhelming amount of mindspace, the public needs special protective measures against the corps abusing their power.

    But the fundamental difference between traditional broadcast and (almost) anything "net" related are the barriers to entry. With broadcst there are many barriers to entry, cost, (as others have so oft mentioned) bandwidth to name but two. On the net there are virtually none. As such, Joe Public with killer content is going to be just as good as XCorp at getting that content out (within the obvious constraints of available bandwidth but that is purely a commercial question, ie there is not the same upfront infrastructure barriers, eg building a TV station). The same goes for Peter Minority so the barrier to getting out the content is non existent and so minoroty views have no barrier to expression.

    FWIW I recall some testimony given by one Packer comma K fullstop to a senate inquiry in Oz where he stated (and it is obvious) that the fact that he could "broadcast" his opinions through his vast array of media interests was not a side effect of his ownership but the purpose of ownership. It is important to ask the kind of questions that the Australian government is asking but it is critical that they get the right answer - ie that internet content is not broadcasting. $0.02

  • I can make a stream exactly as good as anything Mr. Murdoch puts out

    And that's exactly why he's giving us this POS legislation.
  • A cwntury or so from now, when the media on which all this valuable digital content has been recorded has deteriorated beyond recovery, the only examples of our our art to survive will be pornography, because that's all that'll have been backed up.
    Very little of the media content covered under copyright restrictions will survive because very little of the media will survive that long, perhaps a half century at best.
    Steamboat Willie will go the way of Air Pirate Funnies.
  • Ha! Look at American TV for a counterexample, whereby the huge flood of "open" channels has provided nothing of any worth and more mindless drivel, pornographics filth and immoral posturings than any other country. Licensing imposes at least some kind of quality control.

    Do we need quality control? We filthy Americans like that sort of "pornographics filth and immoral posturing". As long as it's not illegal and as long as the wrong people (minors) don't have access to it, what's the problem?

    Incidentally, if some aspect of pornographic or immoral material is deemed too offensive or detrimental, it should be banned outright, rather than selectively for Internet (streaming) media.
  • Such things was in our coutnry (Czech Republic) some months ago, and no one really cares :) But it was denied, coz nobody in our goverment really knows what streaming is :)
  • Why? The licensing of broadcasting is for the simple purpose of protecting the radio spectrum of the broadcaster against interference, not to protect the government or to regulate the content. Since streaming media does not "use up" radio spectrum, there is no reason for the government to regulate it any more than it would regulate a newspaper. The use of the internet to spread content is no more or no less than a telephone conference call that the end user can listen into at their whim.
  • The U.S. government is currently paying the television networks to add anti-drug messages into the plot of popular television shows.

    This isn't really an uncommon practice though. Product placement is very popular, and its essentially the same thing. (although some countries have restrictions on that sort of thing). As long as the government has the same restrictions as large companies, they should have the same rights.

    Although I'm not quite sure what you mean about "look at russia". I've never seen any of their television, but I don't think it would have a more anti-capitalist bias than CNN has a pro-capitalist bias.
  • Nope. To be extradited, you have to make a crank phone call to find out which way the water goes down the plug hole.

    Worked for Bart Simpson anyway.
  • Surely the main justification for regulation of radio broadcasting is that the useable spectrum is limited.

    Of course there's going to be a lot of absolute crap out there. The existence of crap doesn't prevent the existence of quality. There's room for both. What exactly do they expect to gain here?
  • I am Australian myself and I agree with you about the benefits of quotas to the local industry.

    However with this and other similar laws that Australia legislators are considering I have to ask myself who their technical advisors are. I wonder if they are aware of the technical issues that are involved in blocking internet content. Unless we go the way of Singapore with 3 large proxy servers for the whole country then is type of law will not work.

    If all else fails I can always dial an ISP in New Zealand for my internet access.

  • That was one of my favorite episodes and I'm Australian!
  • I think you just breathed a little bit of MY air.
    I'd like $10 million USD, please.

    --
  • And while I'm at it, maybe I'll buy the visible spectrum; and then sue everyone who owns a light emitter. Yeah, that's the ticket.

    --
  • This mutex property applies to most other property too. You can't eat the sandwich I've eaten, and you can't transport treacle in a tanker lorry I've filled with bleach.
    There is a difference, in that your usurping my usage of a lorry requires you to actually physically possess that lorry. Eating my sandwich (and thereby depriving me of eating it) requires you to physically possess the sandwich: you can't eat it abstractly.

    But spectrum is not a tangible thing like lorries or sandwiches. Any old bloke with a generator and a crystal can pollute "your" slice of spectrum and deprive you of its usage. Sure, he can't use it any more than you can, but sometimes that isn't important.

    However, I agree mostly with the poster's follow-on comment,

    The correct solution is: for the government to police EM usage but not control it. IOW people would own parts of it in given areas, could sell or buy, could split or merge, and could sue if someone "sets up shop on their property".
    To my eye, this model is a better one than the current licensing schemes. Of course, it puts EM spectrum on a footing perilously close to "intellectual property" -- "ownership" of an abstract concept and control of its concrete instantiation. I think it leaves spectrum open to many of the same concerns as IP. Of course, I think the whole edifice of "ownership" of intangibles is an unwarranted (and unsafe) extension of the laws of physical property into socioeconomic spaces wherein they might not be valid.
  • Not that broadcasting licenses should be required, but the FCC should mandate which streaming formats are allowed and open them up!

    No more proprietary RealAudio or Windows Media Player standards. The specs/formats should be made public just like the standards for AM, FM, and TV are.

    Unfortunately, the FCC has been completely gutless in setting standards of any kind for many years, going back to the '70s. This has to change. All forms of communications are required to serve the "public interest, convenience, and necessity" and that includes the internet. The FCC is mandated to enforce this but chooses not to do so, even though they do have the right to. Open-sourcing streaming media standards would go a long way to accomplish this.

  • They are certainly easier to ignore on the net. This situation is disappearing, though. Each day, as the net grows and more people get on it, the megacorps get more and more influence over it.

    All the more reason for those who care about its freedom to get out and start gathering their own information. Compete on the ground, where the sky can't touch you. Legislation (which is likely to be corporate-biased anyhow) isn't going to help us.

    The traditional media is not yet gone. The traditional media are very important, and they are the traditional media. They leverage this power to dominate the net. Think about all the ads for websites you've seen on TV, the papers or billboards.

    What about them? They are simply advertisements for yet another informational resource of theirs that I won't bother seeing unless I feel it's necessary. I do have a choice in the matter once I get my browser going :)

    The government defends the interests of the corps. They will not do such a thing. Hell, in the US, governments are forcing TV programs made by corporate owned entities, and full of advertisements, on the schools.

    So wait. You say that the government won't defend our right to think, but will bend over backwards to make sure everyone's voice is heard on the Internet? It would appear that the true nature of governmental interference is pro-corporate in both cases- licensing will be used to defend the interests of those with the money to pursue them.

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow
  • I was assuming licensing that respects the interest of the public. You are otherwise right.

    That is a *very dangerous assumption*, given the general government attitude toward corporate interests, which you yourself mention.

    You are absolutely out of touch with what the average net user is doing nowadays.

    As I said above, it is our duty to inform others, and attempt to fight this. Licensing is unlikely to solve this problem- it is most likely to make it worse.

    My greatest concerns in this area lie with the preponderance of advertising content being dumped on individuals by means of "free PC" type services, with the portal of choice being mandated by the hardware provider. This might be an area for government regulation, seeing as it creates a physical limitation, not unlike that of conventional broadcast.

    Attacking the source of the media is not the way to go- working to protect the individual's point of access is.

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow
  • As the net grows, expect less and less ISPs providing web space with basic subscription (natural cost-cutting move in a competitive market), and more and more concentration of the ISP market in a few companies. All which mean that the ratio of non-corporate content on the net will decrease, and that same content will be far less visible and hard to find for the average user. It's happening already.

    What sort of licensing do you suggest that will keep the corporations in their box, without putting me at a disadvantage? I'd love to hear it- I hate corporatization as much as you do. I just don't think this sort of thing is the way to fight it.

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow
  • Bullshit. Some imaginable legislation would help; some other imaginable legislation wouldn't. Saying "legislation won't help us" is nothing but private totalitarian minarchist propaganda. Please be aware of this fact when you consider saying something like this again.

    What's your idea of the imaginable legislation that would help? The only sort of legislation that I can picture coming out of a government workgroup is one that puts clamps on what I can throw over a stream, and leaves those with more money than me free to do whatever they would like.

    Again, if legislation is created that is designed to keep news corporations in a box without harming my freedom to send out anything I'd like, then I'm all for it. But you can't have a discussion like this without a touch of realism- and that touch tells me that such a thing is extremely unlikely to happen. Quite frankly, I don't think such a thing is within the imagination of a legislative body, and nor do I think they would understand it if you explained it to them.

    Calling corporate propaganda "informational resources" is doublespeak.

    Feel free to call it "dogshit", I was just trying to keep from being profane for once.

    Normally, I swear like Wesley Willis. If you'd like me to do that, I can :)

    And you totally elude my point, anyway. Look at the browsing habits of the typical net user, not some 1337 slashbot, please.

    What kind of licensing could possibly affect the habits of the typical net user in a positive manner?

    Your rhetoric about "true nature of govermental inference" just evades the point. There are two kinds of things you need to distinguish: what governments do, and what governments should do. When you separate these, all is clear enough.

    I know what the government should be doing. I watch it do the exact opposite every day.

    This concerns me.

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow
  • Duh-- imposing licensing on corporations, not real people. Remember, legally, a corporation is a fake person, with all the rights that people have. Stupid, isn't it? Somehow people nowadays accept it as "natural".

    Of course, all of this means that the problem is much deeper, anyway: we need to stop treating corporations as people.

    Ah! Now you hit the heart of the matter.

    I'll agree there- a corporation is an agglomeration of resources, and shouldn't have any more rights than a cardboard box or a cargo container.

    But you tell me what kind of corporation would sit still for emasculation?

    No sir! The dollars would fly, and the legislation would die.

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow
  • Sounds cool to me. Then you can be treated to the pidgin German of my real name :)

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow
  • Should have said that at the beginning. Could have saved us all a little typing :)

    Corporate goat-fuckers! Poisoning the well of truth with their bullshit, turning imagination and creative effort into feces and dust.

    Hee :)

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow
  • And WTF do you think will make the net "accessible to all", then? Do you think this is happening all by itself?

    So you like the idea that Virgin or Coca-Cola or Disney or whoever has direct hardware control over what the user sees, through the so-called "portal"?

    I've got no problem with the free PC- but perhaps a little more oversight is needed to make sure that it's libre as well as gratis.

    It'll never happen, of course- you say so yourself :)

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow

  • broadcasting regulation (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As an austrialian with a sense of national pride i agree on the principle of regulating broadcast content. While i believe in an unregulated market to provide the highest possible quality there is a factor here that can't be measured by economic value - it is important that certain material is localy produced for a local market. I don't want my children learning to speak with an american accent about some american tradition. I don't want my world news to be biased to a foreign viewpoint (CNN). The problem is, with the internet serving more of this content it will be impossible to stop. What i imagine we will see is a repeat of the recent net regulations which contain a big fat "where possible" statement that makes it totally ineffective. So we'll be one step closer to being McDonaldsLand the second - as if we're not close enough allready. :(
  • http://users.erols.com/jcalder/CONTISLAND.html [erols.com]

    I believe that the consensus is that Australia is a continent.

  • I though Australia was a continent. When did it get downgraded to an island?

  • You as a parent should be in control over what your children watch, be it on over-the-air TV, cable TV, or internet. If you think the content is inappropriate, then decline to allow them to view it. If you think you need a government to help you with it, then I guess that's your business since I don't live in Australia. It wouldn't go over very well here.

    One way to ensure you have an Australian content is to work to make sure there is a lot of Australian content being produced. Actually I'd love to watch it from here in Texas.

  • Although I normally despise government interference, there are some thing I would accept. While I would NOT want the FCC to decide on what the standards are, I would find it acceptable that the standards be open for compatibility purposes (except communications not crossing a state boundary which the federals have no authority to control).

  • The same way they are "policing" the adult content that everyone on /. mocks .au for?

    Heh. For those outside .au, the censorship laws passed re content have NOT been enforced in the slightest...

    You can still use Telstra's ISP News Servers (Telstra is partly gov-owned) and get a full alt.sex.* feed if you so wish.

  • "now restricts tightly even mildly sexual content on web sites, not to mention mere stories and text"

    In theory. That law has not been enforced. I have not heard of a single case, and as mentioned previously, on a partly government-owned ISP, you are still free to download anything from Usenet, the Web, whatever.

  • It is a private transfer between privately owned machines, using privately hired connections, just like a telephone conversation.

    It is especially not broadcasting because there is no limit to the number of people who can offer content in this manner (though there may be a limited number who can receive at any one time). Anyone can do it, and it doesn't push anyone else out their spot.

    It's a lot more like renting videos than watching television.
  • They already are married (if not the same person) They are trolls, and a big reason why /. sucks pretty bad from time to time.

    Remember, if you can't believe how big an idiot someone is, usually it's cause they are trying to be the biggest idiot they can.
    --
  • Okay, firstly it's Australian Broadcasting Corporation. [abc.net.au] I'm pedantic, so sue me! ;)

    It's interesting that there's an emphasis on 'streaming', because after all in terms of data transfer, the streaming is no more a broadcast than any other form of data on the net is it?
    That may be nitpicking, but I really can't see a similarity between a TV/Radio broadcast and an ordered download of a video file!
    It's really a one-to-one file tranfer that's initiated by the user, and stoppable by the user. It's also only part of the medium.

    I suppose it just depends where you draw the line on a broadcast. What I am trying to convey is that it's less intrusive than traidional broadcast media. For now at least.

    If it'll stop the net turning into a big TV at the expense of bandwidth, it probably a good thing though!

    "How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge [insurge.com.au] - AK47
  • I notice your e-mail addy places you in Canada. Did you know the CRTC backed off regulating content on the Internet for the time being until things stabilize?

    I don't think the geeks here are just being "libertarian" and defending "the right of corporations" - what about the right of individuals too? There's a much better chance that a large corporation run by someone like, oh, I dunno, Rupert Murdoch, could pull together the legal fees and lawyers necessary to get a license as opposed to a couple guys running a Shoutcast or Real stream of their favourite trance hits.

    After all, streaming content is broadcasting, which is something that, being of public interest, governments regulate. So in principle, there should be nothing against them doing it.

    Broadcasting over airwaves is regulated because it's possible and easy to disrupt broadcasts if multiple sources try to use the same frequency at once. It would rather suck if a Top 40 station suddenly decided to use the police or EMS bands in a large city. The only limiting factor over the 'net is bandwidth, and that's an issue for ISPs to deal with.

    There's also something of a "freedom principle" on the 'net, where any Joe, Bob or Suzy is able to put up their own content adhering only to criminal laws of their home countries and the terms of serivce of their ISPs. This includes streaming content; I occasionally listen to a Shoutcast stream [rantradio.com] run by a few guys out of the Canadian West for the hell of it.

    They could impose good restraints on large corporations going into this-- like space for public interest spots and so on.

    And individuals? Would they also have to get a license to stream using MP3 or Real or whatever? Right now, the 'net is rather close to reaching the same state the "public" airwaves are in - controlled by a few large companies, with some token gestures toward "public broadcasting". This stream licensing business sounds like another step in that direction, meant to benefit only a few who can afford it.

    I say: if it makes the establishment more accountable to the general populace, more power to Australians.

    Great, now how will this make the "establishment" more accountable? For that matter, what is the establishment? Just the government? Or does that include any large entities that thrive on media control? Perhaps nothing is the "establishment" - just people in power constantly jockeying for position. Either way, I think it's better that the bandwidth remain open for people to set up their own streams - at least give the public one outlet they can handle on their own without being marginalized!
  • I was assuming licensing that respects the interest of the public.

    Your odd notion that the government will actually represent the "interest of the public" rather than the interest of the loudest and most obnoxious special interest reminds me of the joke about the quarterback, the acrobat, and the economist stuck on a desert island.

    They found a coconut tree, and tried various ways to get the coconuts down. The quarterback slammed into the tree to shake some loose, but none of them fell. The acrobat tried to climb the tree, but the tall branchless trunk defeated him.

    The economist watched this for a while, then burst out laughing. "The solution is so simple! First, assume a ladder...."
    /.

  • The goverment of Australia regulates broadcasting for the same reasons except that
    1) there is a bunch more frequency bands per market (tv channles can't conflict, the cities are too far apart)
    2) They have strict rules about content that relate to protecting children from the normal things.
    3) They like having their hand in everything.

    It would seem to me that bringing the regulations in will require streaming media to contain rating tags. To get "offical" rating tags, you have to pay the goverment about $4000 to rate things like video games.

  • This reminds me of a quaint story I once heard. It seems that a mother was cooking a roast one day. She hacked off one corner of the roast before placing the lot in the cooker, at which point her young daughter asked her why she always did that. "Well, that's how my mom always did it." It did get her to thinking though, so she asked her mother why she always cooked a roast like that. Her mother didn't know either, it was just because grandma did it that way. So finally they went to grandma and asked her why she hacked a corner off the roast all the time. "Well," she chuckled, "that old pot I used to do my roast in was just too damn small to fit it all in one piece!"

    If Australia forces licensing of streaming media in the same manner of broadcast, they'll be hacking the roast, because the whole point of broadcast licensing is simply to control the bandwidth and prevent interference. That's something the FCC has forgotten here as they put their greasy fingers into things such as censorship where they have no business meddling. They're a technical service, and should know better. Since the Internet is a theoretically unlimited resource, and we already have Internic to prevent "interference", then government regulation of streaming media would just be another bureacracy to boost big business... the only ones who would be able to afford the licensing.
    Besides, it's not Australia's net. It's everyone's. There are no borders.

  • Ouch, man.

    I would rather chance my 8 .y.o. son stumbling upon some pornography on the net than having someone else; some bureaucrat or appointed holier-than-thou 'decency commissioner' control what content is available on the Internet.

    I don't need Big Brother telling me how to do my job as a parent, or dictating what ideas and pictures are too 'dangerous' for me or my child to see. I am fully capable of making my own personal decisions - I don't need you or anyone else to make them for me.

    --
  • Hear, hear.

    Every once in a while I drop into the CNN site to see what the sheep are watching these days, but other than that I have almost completely tuned out the corporate media blather.

    If you don't like corporate-run sites, don't visit them. I don't understand why you would want the viewing habits of other people to be controlled. Shouldn't they be free to make their own decisions?

    Besides, Open Media is about to eat Old Media for lunch. Haven't you been reading Jon Katz's stories? ;)

    --
  • When something is being broadcasted the traditional way it is literally pushed into our homes. All the content is coming in whether I specifically asked for it or not. In the case of cable or satellite I'd have to subscribe to the general service first but still the end result is that all of that information is being pushed to me. The good thing is that I can choose not to watch it if I don't like it.

    Now consider streaming. It is more like renting a videotape. Nothing is pushed into your home unless you specifically ask for it. I don't think that it could be considered broadcasting in the traditional sense. Yup, a lot of people in a large area can watch that stuff simultaneously but it just isn't the same. If anything is being licensed it should be done the same way like with video rentals.

    BTW. Is there anything good that's internet-related in Australia? With all the recent news it seems to me like the legislators down under are mostly out of their minds..

  • Corporations aren't much more than governments with opaque control structures. Like governments, some will do whatever works to serve the ends of their masters. Some corporations will kill you (eg. Tobacco [tobacco.org]) if they figure that it'll make them a net profit. Other corporations, such as Shell Oil [shell.com] are willing to use terrorist tactic [mosopcanada.org] including the death of a Nobel Laurate to achieve their goals.

    You'd rather have corporations than governments control the web, eh? SO who would you rather turn your web site over to: The MPAA, Microsoft, or CyberCop?

  • The whole Australian Internet censorship fiasco is not an indication of the Australian peoples, but is simply a result of an unfortunate political circumstance.

    About 5 years ago, the Australian conservative party (ironically called the Liberals) were elected to power for the first time in over a decade. This is generally thought to be a result of the fact that the Labor party had held office for so long, that people thought it was time for "a change", and elected the conservatives. The conservatives generally count the right-wing segment of the populace as their strongest constituents, and so, in an attempt to please them, they have enacted a large-scale Internet censorship campaign.

    A large proportion of the population welcome this, as having never used the Internet, they see it as a large cesspool of sex, violence, and immoral behaviour, because that is what the evening news generally portrays it as.

    The right-wing constituents are pleased, and so the "Liberal" party continue their campaign of censorship. They also relish using taxpayers' money for large-scale propaganda campaigns to assure they are re-elected.

    Thankfully, the voters are starting to see through the propaganda, and realise that the "Liberals" are mismanaging the economy, and implementing unworkable censorship laws. Rest assured that as soon as the Labor party win office at the next election, everything will return to normal.
  • I personally broadcast a radio show via the internet because it's free and I can. The reason I don't do it via public access or radio is the licensing fees or broadcasting fees that come along with that. I'm not an Australlian, but I'm sure there are people from Australlia with the same situation as me and I know I wouldn't take kindly to a situation such as this.
  • Blockquoth the poster:
    But thankfully, traditional British TV is still available to those who desire decent, moral programming.
    Yes, thank goodness we live in a world where you are free to seek programming with which you agree, free to buck the popular trend, free to make your own choices ...

    Oh, wait. You don't like that world. Apparently choice == bad for you.

    Everyone likes a police state, when they get to be the police. But the only chance for true freedom, and true human dignity, comes from allowing the widest possible choice. For democracy to work, you have to trust the people. But a lot of those clamoring for "decency" can't be bothered with the arduous task of convincing their peers and compatriots to do the right thing ... so they cry for the government to step in and do it for them.

  • ...broadcasting for a few reasons:

    1) Infinite amount of channels. Having government licensing/regulation over this is unnecessary. It is a layer of bureaucracy where there need be none (especially since streaming media is highly decentralized.)

    2) Since there is an infinite amount of channel space, it is also extremely hard for a child to stumble onto truly inappropriate media. So, the government doesn't need to get in on this, either.

    3) Infinite amount of choice. Public interest spots/equal time are not needed, since there is not a limited amount of channel space. So, each individual can select whatever his/her pleasure may be. Is one stream too biased? Check out another, just a click away!

    In short, streaming media is egalitarian enough- I can make a stream exactly as good as anything Mr. Murdoch puts out. All I need to do is score the capacity, and off I go. In the real world, I need frequency licenses to operate- but on the Internet, there are no frequencies.

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow

  • 3) Infinite amount of choice. Public interest spots/equal time are not needed, since there is not a limited amount of channel space. So, each individual can select whatever his/her pleasure may be.

    So how do you reconcile that with the fact that the vast amount of streams are being provided by a relatively small number of large corporations, or by companies owned by those corporations?

    By creating my own, and publicizing it. It's not hard :)

    When a particular minority with very special interests gets an overwhelming amount of mindspace, the public needs special protective measures against the corps abusing their power.

    But how will licensing protect the individual? I see it only as a means by which the largest folks can stick their hands in and deny others the ability to broadcast. Surely you would prefer a world in which everyone has the right to broadcast whatever they like? The key is that I am limited in my choices by physical difficulty in radio/TV. On the Internet, the only thing limiting me is how hard I'm willing to look.

    Now you could say "but no one is willing to make the effort to inform themselves!" This is true. But current regulations involving conventional broadcasting do nothing to assist this. They only make sure that Channel A isn't stepping on Channel B's frequency. At best, they affect political campaigning, which essentially results in everyone getting their 10 seconds at the end of the evening news. Not terribly effective. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink it.

    Go to Yahoo Full Coverage, and see the streams they provide. Very rarely you'll see a link to some non big media stream. Certainly, "other" streams are more than a click away.

    Surely, these portals are not the alpha and omega of the Internet! To a new user, they are a beginning- but the nature of the medium is to expand the user's informational horizons.

    These efforts are best pursued in conventional broadcasting, where the space is severely limited and only a few specific individuals have control of nearly everything.

    --Perianwyr Stormcrow
  • The thing I have always found amusing is that the p0rn industry in Australia is mostly in ACT (for those who don't know that's appromimatly the equivilent of it being based in Washington DC)

  • Yeah, in your little fantasy world maybe, but the sad fact is that in our current socioeconomic model nothing, except masturbation, is free. As more and more services move online it only makes sense that the government, who has been democratically elected by the people, should exert regulatory powers over content and service. After all, you'd squeal loud enough if you got ripped off online, wouldn't you?

    Why should people on the net be allowed to put out shoddy and/or offensive material? You wouldn't want to let your kids see pornographic filth on TV, why should you let them watch it on the net. This kind of fuzzy-headed liberal thinking is what has led to the current backlash against the net by decent people in Australia today, and doesn't to anyone any good.

    So, the net is not free, and indeed shouldn't be free.



    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • That is a *very dangerous assumption*, given the general government attitude toward corporate interests, which you yourself mention.

    The government is supposed to act within the interests of all of its citizens, whether they are corporate or personal... you can't make a cake without breaking some eggs after all, no government is ever going to make everyone happy.

    Remember, healthy corporations mean lots of tax revenue which is good for everyone. Governments are right to encourage corporate profitability.

    Licensing is unlikely to solve this problem- it is most likely to make it worse.

    Ha! Look at American TV for a counterexample, whereby the huge flood of "open" channels has provided nothing of any worth and more mindless drivel, pornographics filth and immoral posturings than any other country. Licensing imposes at least some kind of quality control.

    My greatest concerns in this area lie with the preponderance of advertising content being dumped on individuals by means of "free PC" type services, with the portal of choice being mandated by the hardware provider.

    And? If you want to "free" PC then you have to put up with these conditions... I think it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that it's not really going to be free. If they don't realise this then they deserve everything they get IMHO.



    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • I would rather chance my 8 .y.o. son stumbling upon some pornography on the net than having someone else; some bureaucrat or appointed holier-than-thou 'decency commissioner' control what content is available on the Internet.

    What is this whole preoccupation with "freedom" that people here on /. seem to have such an obsession with? If you want freedom then go and live in a cave somewhere and let your beard grow long, because freedom and civilisation are incompatible goals by their very natures.

    If you are part of a civilisation then there are certain things which you cannot do since they are detrimental to others, thus impairing their "freedom". Thus, to ensure this concept of freedom, you must restrict freedom... so the concept of freedom is a mythical beast at best.

    Sure, you may want your child to have access to hardcore pornography, but most of us wouldn't want our children to be able to see that kind of perversion at that age, for the child's own good! Only liberals like yourself seem to believe that this kind of thing is right, and that it doesn't harm children in any way! Why not point him to NAMBLA or the Lycaeum whie you're at it!

    Sorry, but I pity the children thanks to the world people like you are creating for them, all in the name of "freedom".

    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • You don't know what you're talking about. I mean, don't you know that most of the traffic in the web is from people who pay porn sites to have material to watch while they jerk off?

    Yes, I am fully aware of the vast amount of pornographic filth that is available to those of weak morals on the Internet, and I deplore the current wave of liberal, atheistic thinking which proudly proclaims that it is alright to engage in the "fruits" of an industry that makes its money from the degredation and rape of women. Attempts to make pornography sound like a genuine business are at best misguided and at worst the work of the Devil himself!

    Those that make use of this particular "service" are filthy sinners who are obviously unable to find themselves a woman and instead must resort to an unethical, un-Christian practice which all right-minded people should deplore.

    Of course, this also neatly proves that the net is a haven of male privilege.

    Of course, the net was created by men and run by men. Men are better with technology, women are better with the "softer" sides of life. What's your point?

    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • Sorry, but you are so wrong it makes me want to cry for how stupid you are. I used to live in America until I couldn't take the sheer perversion of a nation which has not only turned its back on God, but has indeed spat on God himself! A country in which books like Daddy's Roommate are allowed to be published is not one I wanted to live in.

    So now I live in England, where things like pornography are thankfully not tolerated. You, my ignorant friend, are thinking of places like Denmark and Holland where the law practically rewards those who engage in this foul business! Until America, and indeed mainland Europe, accepts that pornography is immoral and wrong, I will be staying here.

    Europe is a decadend society.

    Decadent, my ignorant friend.

    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • After all, streaming content is broadcasting, which is something that, being of public interest, governments regulate. So in principle, there should be nothing against them doing it. They could impose good restraints on large corporations going into this-- like space for public interest spots and so on.

    Of course, since this is /., now the "geeks" will cry "censorship", and rant about how the net should be "free". Some "Libertarians" and/or Randians will decry government interfering with corporations (nevermind that governments create corporations in the first place). I say: if it makes the establishment more accountable to the general populace, more power to Australians.

  • 3) Infinite amount of choice. Public interest spots/equal time are not needed, since there is not a limited amount of channel space. So, each individual can select whatever his/her pleasure may be.

    So how do you reconcile that with the fact that the vast amount of streams are being provided by a relatively small number of large corporations, or by companies owned by those corporations?

    When a particular minority with very special interests gets an overwhelming amount of mindspace, the public needs special protective measures against the corps abusing their power.

    Is one stream too biased? Check out another, just a click away! Go to Yahoo Full Coverage [yahoo.com], and see the streams they provide. Very rarely you'll see a link to some non big media stream. Certainly, "other" streams are more than a click away.

  • I moved here from the US, and noticed a vast difference in the govt. attitude towards the net/media.

    The US policy in general is that business must be left alone, unless necessary to safeguard consumers. The Australian policy is that govt. must *guarantee* good results to consumers. This can take comical effect.

    In parliament, you can hear the Prime minister and the opposition leader argue over the management details of how Telstra, the govt. monopoly phone company, should be run, what the pricing policy should be, etc. From a US perspective, this is shocking stuff - elected leaders running company business.

    Thus it is not surprising that the govt. here is dreaming about regulating streaming media on the net. For all the whining that Americans do about how bad they have it, they have no clue how lucky they are.

    The problem is not that the Aussie govt. is particularly clueless about the net. All govts. are equally clueless - the problem is that the Aussie govt. has WAY too much power over what people can hear and read.

    The govt. can decide what/when/how things should be broadcast. Check out this story on ABC news [abc.net.au], the govt. funded media/news corporation. But it's even funnier when politicians regulate pr0n. [abc.net.au]

    Yes, Virginia, there is censorship in Australia. Want to see what the Aussie govt. thinks of your favorite multiplayer game? Go check it out! [203.41.245.34] Yes, books are censored too. Don't you want to be sure the public doesn't read naughty things?

    Having said there, there is considerable irony in some situations. Breasts can be seen all over the place, even on movie posters in public view. Some weeks ago there was a TV show on censorship, and lo and behold, there was shown a scene of two women licking breasts, on prime time news. Unthinkable on good old American soil, land of free speech and all. Yet openly shown in a country with censorship, on a program on censorship, on a govt. funded TV channel. The irony doth overflow.

    Overall, though, the regulation stifles competition. One side effect of all this is that Australia lags behind the US by about 4-5 years in bandwidth, because everything is so heavily regulated and the competition is dampened. When I check out ISPs, there are still those stupid "plans", depending on your download limits and how many hours you spend online. Not one ISP in this city offers unlimited bandwidth AND unlimited hours. All on 56K, of course.

    Anyway, I'm done with my ranting. Australia sucks on a grand scale when it comes to the internet.

    w/m

    more censorship info here [efa.org.au]

  • Digital Television (Score:3)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @10:30PM (#935133) Homepage
    This appears to be related to proposed legislation that would ban the use of data channels (datacasting) in digital television broadcast transmissions for streaming audio/video. The goal of the legislation is to prevent people from competing with the Australian television networks by stuffing video programming in a datacasting stream. See this article [smh.com.au] for a fuller description of the controversy.

  • It could happen in the USA, too (Score:3)

    by Skapare ( 16644 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @02:17AM (#935134) Homepage

    The principle behind FCC regulation of broadcasting in the USA was that the radio spectrum needed to be managed because it was not practical to just allow anyone who wanted to use it however they wanted to use it to go ahead and use it. Today, technology allows much great use of the radio spectrum in the air than they could have imagined then. Still, there are only 67 TV channels in the USA, and that number is declining (most cities cannot use 14-20).

    FCC regulation has extended to Cable TV which doesn't have the problems of over the air broadcasting. Anyone with the money to hang their own wires could do so and it won't interfere (for the most part). Still, it is regulated. And there are some causes for it, or at least there used to be. One reason was that the resources required were so immense, but once paid out and deployed, so much was possible on a shared basis, that governments thought this should be done. That and the fact that public resources were being used to lay the wires (varies by jurisdiction).

    The FCC could very well try to apply regulations of Cable TV to internet broadcasting. Obviously the internet model already permits massive sharing, and the technology has made so much possible. But government bureaucrats may still not see it this way. They may still want to control things such as content. Can we legally advertise cigarettes on the internet, even if it is a broadcasting format? What about pornographic images of children which there are clearly broad laws against? How do you define what laws apply and what laws do not (especially laws made before the internet existed)?

    There is an opposing danger, too. What if monopoly control of the internet facilities ends up giving too few too much control over it all, and they end up doing things that stop the little guy, or the controversial (especially anti-big-corporation) speech, from happening or getting out very far? Would we want government to step in and prevent the monopoly control?

    How to balance this is the big issue I see.

  • Just because it looks like a duck... (Score:3)

    by zatz ( 37585 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @10:34PM (#935135) Homepage

    does not make it a duck. It's just a "review" at this point, and hopefully someone will explain to this board the difference between analog broadcasting over public frequencies and packet-based unicast on private leased lines. Regulating one is management of a finite shared resource; regulating the other doesn't serve the public interest and is mostly unenforceable.

    The only analogous situation I can imagine would be if the Australian government subsidized a national IP network which supported multicast, and people were transmitting ("broadcasting") things on that. This study sounds like a case of either the government seeking a new source of revenue, or traditional media lobbying for a "level playing field" to help them compete.

    Even if they do come to some ridiculous conclusions and make them law, that shouldn't have any effect on streams coming from outside Australia, any more than they could make someone in Malaysia get an Australian license for their late-night shortwave broadcasts.

    Eventually I expect IP-over-radio services for portable computers (or other network-aware devices) will be available in many areas, and it will be interesting to see how that pans out in terms of regulation, especially if any bandwidth currently used for analog transmissions is reclaimed for packet radio.

  • Re:LOL! Only in a perfect world... (Score:3)

    by zatz ( 37585 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @11:00PM (#935136) Homepage

    "Democratic elections" does not mean we should ignore what they do when they aren't campaigning. And constitutional governments exist because some ideas about public policy should not have legal or military force behind them, no matter how many idiot citizens think they are a good idea when you poll them!

    Actually, I would want to "let my kids seen pornographic filth on TV". Some state and local governments in the US have passed weird restrictions on when adult programming can be aired ("cabled" actually) or how it has to be scrambled to "protect children", and a lot of them have been struck down by the Supreme Court(s), because they were found to infringe on the rights of adults to view such material.

    So what if the ACLU stands up for my right to filth just because a lot of their money comes from adult video stores... they stand up for my Constitutional rights in general, and I thank them for it. Anyway, there are a lot worse things that happen to children than seeing some bad acting by naked people... and if the government wants to "help the children" (I'm thinking particularly of state and local governments in the US), perhaps they should devote their energies to at least refocusing the public schools from babysitting to learning.

    I'm really tired of fundamentalist zealots telling me what it's OK for me to do based on their ideas about raising their children. I don't care for the implied comparison, and I don't need the government to play father for me.

    The Internet should at least be "free" to the extent that speech between people in public and in private is, and communities that can't handle that should feel "free" to collapse into black holes of superdense self-righteousness from which no rational thought escapes--and sever your phone lines while you're at it!

    BTW, while we are on the subject of "fuzzy-headed thinking", try to understand the distinction between "free speech" and "free beer". Taxing certain kinds of speech impinges on both forms of "freedom".

    And if I am just responding to a troll responding to a troll... well, sometimes the tripe people post is so ridiculous and narrow-minded I cannot bear to leave it unanswered.

  • What do you regulate though? (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @03:14AM (#935137) Homepage Journal
    If you've got a private company with a private LAN, would streaming content over that also be licensed?

    How about if a bunch of citizens set up a private network apart from the Internet? It'd be fairly easy to do -- DSL is relatively cheap and point to point, so you could establish a private network with just a few lines.

    How about establishing a private VPN on top of the Internet? Would that be prone to the same government regulation?

    How big would any of these have to get to become a blip on the governmental radar? It's the same thing with setting up an alternative DNS. If only a few dozen people use it, no one notices. No trademark suits will likely arise from its use. If a million or so people start using it, that would likely change, despite the fact that the service would be essentially a private creation with no affiliation to any of the traditional internet governing bodies. At what point does it become regulatable property?

  • Blockquoth the poster:
    Why the hell should the E.M. spectrum be "public property"? Is there any honest reason why it shouldn't become privately owned property, like any other natural resource?
    Some might ask why natural resources should be private property, but hey... There is a sound technological reason why EM spectrum is regulated and licensed. If you choose to operate a transmitter at 100 MHz and I choose to, as well, we do not get a "market battle" wherein people listen to whatever best meets their interests and desires. We get interference, wherein people do not listen at all. Unlike physical property, where at least you can establish precedence by the simple fact of being there first, EM spectrum is open to any yahoo with A/C current.

    Like it or not (and I guess most don't), there really are good reasons for government intervention sometimes.

  • Hurting the little guy (Score:3)

    by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @10:42PM (#935139)
    The main reasoning behind this , I assume, is due to local politics regarding one or two multi-billionare type moguls (packer? murdoch?) not being given a free-to-air tv licence due to verry sensible cross-media licencing laws. The idea I assume is that with the convergence with the net, the bastards will get around this IP wise

    Now the problem for me is that we sell video streaming stuff, but low end (AXIS 2400's etc) streaming JPEG stuff , for small end corporate use (IP security cams etc).

    Now my first thought would be to licence it as say free for under 10,000 viewers and at a rate above that, but on further thought, the bastards would just take it offshore, leaving the little guy paying the bill.

    Radio frequencies are indeed getting crowded, but don't kill video conferencing IP style just yet. That'd just be dumb.

    Stupid govt. I'm voting Labor next time.

  • does this ignore the original purpose? (Score:3)

    by jesterzog ( 189797 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @10:11PM (#935140) Journal

    I don't agree with what they're doing at all, but I think one of the main reasons behind this would be so the Australian government can help "encourage" local content.

    The media in Australia has some very strict local content quotas and although I don't live there at the moment (I'm from New Zealand), it's been very successful in making sure that Australians get some decent good quality local productions. It's also been great for the local music industry because, for example, the radio stations have to play a certain amount of "new" local content meaning they have to keep scouting for it.

    What they're probably doing for better or worse, is trying to grasp control of internet streaming before it gets away from them so they can control it in the same way. It's no secret that sooner or later, internet types of media will eventually replace analogue transmissions. If the Australian government is not in control of it by that time, it would be much harder to transfer the quotas.


    ===

  • What a silly idea (Score:3)

    by Howl ( 193583 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @09:57PM (#935141)
    I think the thing people (governments in particular) miss about the net is that there is no "there" on the net. In practical terms all they can do is hurt the domestic industry by regulations while people in other parts of the world will ignore the regulations.

    We've already seen this happen with cryptography, betting and porn. The standard for the net as a whole is set by the least restrictive country that is connected.

  • Licensing broadcast media makes sense because, and was originally done because, there's a limited amount of broadcast frequency available and because broadcasting effectively travels across everyone else's property.

    Not so of web broadcasts--there's an effectively unlimited number of frequencies (URLs) and bandwidth is plentiful. The two rationales for licensing streaming content are therefore censorship and taxation.

    As for taxation, I don't know how it is in Australia (can someone from Down Under inform us?), but here in the U.S. we don't even tax traditional broadcasters much for the frequencies they use--it's always annoyed me that the airwaves in the U.S. are practically given away to large corporations, when they should be rented by the government at a fair market value instead. But instead of taxing the corporations in this country, we tax the people... blech...

    Censorship is of course the biggest issue here, and probably the one which most excites the Australian government. It amazes me that the same country which used to fairly often publish pictures of naked 16 year olds in the Australian version of Playboy, now restricts tightly even mildly sexual content on web sites, not to mention mere stories and text. Western cultures and societies have to start moving towards less censorship and more understanding of different viewpoints and their value, or endure a tyranny of the majority which will stamp out all individuality and turn us into something from an Orwell novel. Regulating Net video streams may not seem a step in this direction, but it is. Restricting violent video games, as a story from earlier today says Canada is doing, doesn't seem a step in this direction, but it is. Things which are personally offensive must be tolerated, if for no other reason than that each of us likes something or another that someone else will find offensive, and if we each got the government to censor what we don't like, nothing unique would be left uncensored.

    That's why it bothers me so much when Australians censor sex, violence, and drugs on the Net, when Americans censor sex on TV and everywhere else, and when Europeans censor even unrealistic violence, when France censors opinions about WWII and even WWII relics, and when Canadians censor books and magazines about homosexuality. What kind of a Western Civilization does that leave us with? What kind of a future can we look forward to, when "global culture" emerges full of the censorships and biases of each country melded into one seamless McDonaldsization of mediocre sameness? We have to start working extra hard to make sure we emphasize our rights and freedoms, not our selfish desire to censor, because we're living in times when those very rights are in flux thanks to new media.

  • Theory behind broadcast regulation? (Score:4)

    by khym ( 117618 ) <matt@@@nightrealms...com> on Thursday July 13, 2000 @10:10PM (#935143)

    In the United States, the theory on why the government should regulate broadcasting is:

    1. There are only a limited number of frequency bands out there to use.
    2. The electro-magnetic spectrum is public property.
    (Or it used to be something like this).

    However, the Internet isn't limited to a certain number of bands, and the Internet isn't considered public property, so the FCC hasn't applied broadcasting regulations to the Internet (thank God!).

    But in Australia, what is the theory behind regulating broadcast mediums? Would this theory hold that the Internet should be regulated as well?

    --
    Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose that you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

  • Some questions (Score:4)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @09:54PM (#935144) Homepage
    Does this apply to content being sent into Australia? If so, will anyone providing streaming video/audio be required to block any IP from Australia?

    Will they be setting up a block on any streaming media arriving in Austrailia? Maybe they will require ISPs to block every unlicensed stream? What about buddyphone?

    Anyone want a free trip or Australia? Just send some streaming media there, and they'll haul you off to Australia for a trial.

  • australia has powerful media moguls (Score:5)

    by matthew_gream ( 113862 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @09:54PM (#935145) Homepage
    As most Australians know, the media moguls (in particular Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch, and to a lesser extent, Kerry Stokes) wield considerable power and few politicians dare to defy them. Possibly this "suggestion" has something to do with them trying to retain their power base. I agree that it's not a very sensible idea.

  • Re: Some Questions (Score:5)

    by sstrick ( 137546 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @10:42PM (#935146)
    Anyone want a free trip or Australia? Just send some streaming media there, and they'll haul you off to Australia for a trial.

    Just like the old days!

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