FCC to Soon Give Internet Video Same Rights as Cable Companies Under development for some time, the FCC appears poised to vote to approve rule changes that would give over the top streaming operators the same rights as cable companies. Multichannel News notes the FCC appears to have a Democratic majority on the vote, which should occur at the commission's January meeting. The rules mean that OTT players would technically be classified as MPVDs, meaning they'd get FCC-enforced access to vertically integrated programming, but they'd also have to negotiate retransmission consent with broadcasters.







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Most recommended from 29 comments

elefante72

join:2010-12-03

East Amherst, NY 2 recommendations elefante72 Member OK, how does this do anything The crux of Aereo was to rid us of the retrans, not double down. Operator



OperatorMike: Hey I have an idea. I can take your free product and market it where I have millions of subscribers, so you can make more money and sell advertising.



ContentDragon: Wow. You can take my product where it reaches 10% of the population and put in front of 95% of the population. That is great. Sign me up. I'll make a killing on selling ads!



OperatorMike: No problem. It helps both of us, because now I can sign these people up for a subscription.



Fast forward 20 years:



Content Dragon: Mike,..Well uh. Now that you are in 95% of the homes, uh our free stuff is really valuable to your business, and we just paid off a bunch of congressmen to make some rules that you are not going to like. Guess what, that still free content, you are going to have to pay ME now to let you use, and you don't have a choice. Thanks for building my business up and distributing it for me in a quality fashion! You are the best.



Operator Mike: What! You are going to now charge me for something that is free and "I" got you in front of 95% of the people when you only had 10%. That just doesn't make and business sense.



ContentDragon: Well we signed some billion dollar sports contracts and we have to pay for them soemhow. We didn't consult you, but thought you would understand because you have no choice but to pay us and it's only going to get worse.



OperatorMike: But I will just pull your stuff out.



Content Dragon: Yes jedi, but I OWN the content, so I will just use my medium to disparage you, and since I own the press companies too, easily erect a false populist claim that you are the bad guy. Power of the press! Sorry. Oh, and your bill just went up again this week.