The FCC Should Say "No" to AllVid

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is circulating a regulatory proposal to his fellow commissioners that he hopes will create additional competition for pay-TV set-top boxes. This comes after a handful of technology companies advanced their own regulatory proposal, often referred to as AllVid.

We do not know the full details of what is in Chairman Wheeler’s draft, of course, but we do know what AllVid proponents asked him to do. And it is troubling. Supporters of AllVid claim critics are just defending set-top box revenues. That is certainly not the MPAA’s motivation, as content creators do not receive those revenues. What concerns content creators is that AllVid isn’t really about helping viewers access content they have paid for; it’s about companies profiting from content they haven’t paid for. What AllVid proponents are actually seeking is federal rules to siphon pay-TV content and repackage select portions of it for their own commercial exploitation through fees, advertising, or data collection, and without having to enter into agreements with the creators like others in the marketplace must do. This amounts to government-compelled speech—striking at the core of First Amendment and copyright law—and would undermine programmers’ ability to develop and make available high-quality content. Such a technology mandate could also increase content theft by weakening security, making it easier for piracy-laden “black boxes” to connect to legitimate services, and by prominently displaying stolen content from the Internet alongside authorized content. AllVid imposes these harms on content creators with little need—and even fewer benefits to viewers.