Remarks of FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Before the Churchill Club

When some in our nation’s capital look at the over-the-top video business, they see companies that have somehow escaped their regulatory clutches. Even though online video has thrived precisely because of the government's hands-off approach, they view the Internet as too important not to regulate. And so they want to do for online video what many governments have done for -- or more accurately, to -- Uber or Airbnb.

In particular, the Federal Communications Commission's leadership has announced that this fall, the agency will consider classifying certain online video providers as multichannnel video programming distributors (MVPDs). I would like to make clear that I strongly oppose this proposal. Given the remarkable success of the over-the-top video industry, the burden should be on those who favor new regulations to prove what's wrong and explain why we should change. That case just hasn't been made. Amazon put it well when it told the FCC, "there has been no indication that additional regulation is needed to enable this new industry to grow and bring consumers even more benefits."