Larry Hart

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s disastrous set-top box proposal to force companies to “share” their set-top box content with other businesses has faced almost unanimous opposition. As opposition mounts from creators, civil rights groups, Silicon Valley innovators, organized labor, almost 200 Members of Congress, and many others, the arguments of proponents of Chairman Wheeler’s set-top box regulation keep shifting. We’ve noticed that they seem to follow the famous five stages of grief.

1. Denial -- Almost immediately after Chairman Wheeler released his proposal, people began to point out that it was premised on allowing commercial use of copyrighted works without any provisions to ensure proper respect for those rights or existing copyright licenses.
2. Anger -- Perhaps sensing the weakness of their denial, in a fit of pique, proponents of the Wheeler regulations lashed out at the Copyright Office. Worse, a handful of academics went so far as to try to censor the Copyright Office’s analysis before it was written.
3. Bargaining -- When name-calling didn’t work, the trade association for Silicon Valley behemoths that want to use regulation to over-ride the free market (and call it “competition”) tried to offer a revised version of the Wheeler proposal.
4. Depression -- Having realized that Chairman Wheeler’s windfall is doomed, proponents have switched to a scorched-earth policy. T
5. Acceptance -- Don’t hold your breath. These guys are famous for never admitting they’re wrong. So expect to keep hearing attacks on the Copyright Office and empty claims about competition when what they really mean is government regulation.

[Dan Schneider is the executive director of the American Conservative Union. Larry Hart is a Senior Fellow for Government Reform with the American Conservative Union Foundation.]