Webcasters Face Scrutiny - Government Activity

The question of whether red-hot streaming media on the Internet is washing away valuable television and video copyrights took center stage during a U.S. House hearing last week.

At issue is whether Web portals can rebroadcast television and video content without seeking licensing agreements from the content owners, and whether copyright laws need to be changed to reflect the Internet age. While testimony ran the gambit of opinion, the overriding message from broadcast, software and even streaming Internet representatives was not to be too hasty in changing federal law one way or the other.

The House Telecommunications Subcommittee's Feb. 16 hearing comes in the wake of a thorny case involving iCraveTV.com. The Canadian portal raised hackles among the U.S. television broadcast circles in January when it started snaring television programming from Buffalo and Toronto television stations and rebroadcasting it on the Web. A coalition of 10 movie studios, four networks, the National Football League and the National Basketball Association won an injunction from a U.S. District Court judge to halt the rebroadcasts.

"We're not pirates," Ian McCallum, VP-iCraveTV, told the subcommittee.

Part of the conflict has to do with the clash between old and new media philosophies, according to Internet analyst Michael Harris of Kinetic Strategies.

"With the Internet historically -- everything wants to be free -- and in reality it is not," Harris said. "How the freewheeling Internet clashes with the older, traditional media content providers will be an interesting thing to watch."

Indeed, a key question for the telecommunications subcommittee was whether Internet sites should be extended the same compulsory licenses granted to cable and satellite companies, allowing them to rebroadcast programs in their local area for a flat fee without gaining approval from the individual studios. Film studio representatives including Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenfi urged the legislators not to rush into that, despite demand for Web content.

Within the streaming industry, there is a recognition that content needs to be protected, according to Microsoft Corp.'s Dave Fester, director-marketing for the digital media division.

"Clearly, there is a balance -- you could lock it down so hard consumers can't use it. You want to make sure there is content protection, but on the flip side, you want to make it easy enough for the consumer to use."

He added that government intervention was not a good answer at this point. "The industry, I believe, can work that out," he said. "Government intervention is a hard thing to be thinking about."

The hearing testimony was also marked by the announcement of the formation of the Copyright Assembly, a coalition of television and movie studios, new media ventures, sports organizations and news outlets aimed at fighting cyberpiracy.

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