Today, “Walking
Dead” producer Gale Ann Hurd published an op-ed
in USA Today expressing concern
over the FCC’s recent proposal
to regulate set-top boxes. Ms. Hurd explains that the FCC’s proposal would
require set-top boxes to show and prioritize illegal content alongside legal content. She says the proposal “will make piracy as easy and dangerous in the
living room as it is on laptop and mobile devices.”
Ms. Hurd hits the
nail on the head. In a February
2016 blog, FSF Senior Fellow Seth Cooper stated that the FCC’s proposal to “unlock
the box” would actually unlock copyright protections for video content.
Additionally, in a
February 2016 Perspectives from FSF
Scholars entitled “FCC’s
Cognitive Dissonance Leads to Regulatory Policy Run Amok,” FSF President
Randolph May revealed that in June 2015 the Commission found local video markets
to be effectively competitive, but now, just seven months later, the FCC proposes
regulations. Despite what FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler claims
about the video device market, a
look at set-top box prices shows no monopoly power. In fact, as we showed
in a recent
infographic, consumer choices in the video market continue to grow because
of market-driven innovation and technological advances.
As Ms. Hurd states
in her op-ed, most people agree that piracy is a serious problem. And if you
can agree that piracy is a serious problem, then it should be obvious that the
FCC should not adopt regulations that would enable the posting and dissemination of illegal
content.
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