Comcast Seeking Control of Both Pipes and Content? 241
techmuse writes "Reuters reports that Comcast may be attempting to use its huge cash reserves to purchase a large media content provider, such as Disney, Viacom, or Time Warner. This would result in Comcast controlling both the delivery mechanism for content, and the content itself. Potentially, it could limit access to content it owns to subscribers to its own services, thus shutting out competing services (where they still exist at all)."
Bad timing (Score:5, Insightful)
We can only hope that they're one Administration too late to pull it off.
Re:Bad timing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Disturbing (Score:3, Insightful)
We see this in many areas. Soon you will have to select brand of TV depending on cable operator too.
Like it is today with some telecom operators - you may only select the phones THEY are offering, not the phone you want.
Its times like these... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hah! Their timing couldn't be better (Score:1, Insightful)
Comcast can just wait until Obama needs something [google.com], then get it in a quid pro quo.
Or do you really still believe anything Obama says?
Troops out of Iraq? Yeah, on BUSH'S schedule?
End to warrantless wiretapping? Not so fast.
95% of us will get a tax cut? Yeah, sure.
Healthcare reform? Let's cut a deal and split the saving with big drug companies!
Re:Bad timing (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, historically Democrats are in bed with the Hollywood types so it's not a certain thing that media owners might not see some love too.
But besides that I blame this on google. Yes google and their don't be evil motto. Seems like there's this fixed amount of evil and if one company tries not to use evil then it just accumulates somewhere else.
Hacker ethic, arise once more. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's clear that our strength is technology and our weakness is the legal system. The legal system will always be in favor of those with deep pockets and have (at best) a tenuous grip on the ethical and moral considerations of the larger society. It's become so ineffective, insepid and innane as to become harmful to society -- Forget them. Laws do not govern moral conduct and never have. Integrity has no need of rules! But that's just a stop-gap. We need new technology -- and I think we need to go back to the basics to get there.
We need to bring the internet back as a peer-to-peer exchange, but to do that we're going to need to create protocols that are specifically designed to resist attack and interference from intermediaries. The original concept of the internet was based on a flawed model that the network could be trusted to deliver packets from point A to point B using the same logic throughout; It was assumed that the network would be managed by a central authority. This hasn't been the case for awhile, and now we are seeing an increasing desire to bend and break the original standards to serve commercial interests. The protocols must be redesigned to only present the minimal amount of information necessary -- the source and destination, and the actual payload encrypted and made tamper-evident.
To hell with demands that we have protocols with data exposed for "law enforcement", "national security" or "protecting the children" or any other specious argument. The ultimate expression of democracy is the free flow of information between citizens, and that's an ideal that comes ahead of all other considerations: We need to make a conscious and deliberate choice to accept the risks that come in embracing those early ideals, and not let the edge cases (terrorism, sexual predators, and elvis) sway us from the immense benefits of doing this. If the signal is to travel at all, it must travel freely.
If this doesn't come to pass then our future as a democratic society is at an end. Democracy is more important to me (and I hope you as well) than my personal safety or material comforts. A free and open communication medium between all members of society must be a universal, because it's the only way to maximize our individual and collective potentials. This is another step in a slow descent into a life we do not want, and we won't notice until it's too late how much we've lost.
Re:FCC! Now! (Score:5, Insightful)
The FCC has no interest in protecting individual rights or promoting a competitive market. They are there to sell off public assets to private corporations, and enforce rules and fines to ensure societal conformity to the morals of politically important voting blocs.
If Comcast is prevented from acquiring someone due to federal interference, they will probably sue because they will claim that the free market is being tampered with. Just like any corporation, their definition of free market has nothing to do with the liberty of individuals to have access to a competitive market system. It has to do with the corporate right to be unbound by any rules and have the freedom to stifle competition and destroy the market for their own profit.
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the publick; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens... It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it. --Adam Smith
Re:Bad timing (Score:3, Insightful)
We can only hope that they're one Administration too late to pull it off.
If you're counting on one man to save the world, you've been watching too much TV.
Re:Bad timing (Score:1, Insightful)
Who's the IDIOT who modded parent post a troll?
It's a fact that Dems are pretty much owned by the entertainment industry [opensecrets.org].
And lawyers [opensecrets.org]
AOL tried this and failed (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't anyone remember the AOL/Time Warner merger? it was approximately 10 years ago now that it was announced. it was a dismal failure as technology changed in 2 years to make the whole thing worthless. The only media deal that can make sense is to buy the NFL, MLB, NASCAR or NBA because people will pay up for sports even in a recession. If the Disney channel suddenly becomes a premium channel I won't be getting it. even though i have a child.
and with Verizon laying fiber along with AT&T were a few years away from another networking technology explosion that will make this deal obsolete.
Re:Didn't AOL try this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Only because AOL utterly failed to capitalize on their market dominance or prepare for the future. What did they think, dialup would last forever? That people would actually want their terrible service on top of broadband?
TW/RR? (Score:1, Insightful)
How is this any different than Time-Warner/Roadrunner?
Re:Bad timing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:FCC! Now! (Score:4, Insightful)
If Comcast is prevented from acquiring someone due to federal interference, they will probably sue because they will claim that the free market is being tampered with.
As the summary states, Comcast has an enormous stash of (not-so-hard-earned) cash. They're acting like squirrels: if they see food they don't need right away, they just shove it into a hole somewhere until they find a use for it. That probably should not be allowed: it's one thing to put something away for a rainy day, but when corporations end up so flush with cash that they can influence entire markets and ruthlessly suppress competition something is wrong. It also means they're probably significantly overcharging for their goods and services (as an ex-Comcast-down-to-the-depths-of-Hell subscriber I can attest to that.)
Comcast's management also has other things in common with squirrels.
Re:Bad timing (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Disturbing (Score:3, Insightful)
yah, these rights are firmly installed in the Constitution AND the Bible.
They are part of anti-trust. Or do you expect the supreme document to detail every last thing that we do in this country? Seems excessive.
Re:Bad timing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad timing (Score:3, Insightful)
Er.. Time Warner... Hello ??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Has the poster never heard of Time Warner Cable? You know.. the nations second largest cable network and one of the largest ISPs in the US?
Pretty sure Time Warner already owns pipes AND content... seeing how they still own AOL and about a dozen high-traffic websites, not to mention a ton of TV channels and network programs (each of which has substantial web content of course)
Re:Bad timing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad timing (Score:5, Insightful)
A competitive company making money by producing a product that people are willing to use/pay for without coercion is not a bad thing.
However, a state-granted monopoly on common household services that makes obscene amounts of money by overcharging for said services and not developing the infrastructure is a bad thing. Internet services are more than a mere convenience in the modern world, and should be treated as a utility like power and water. Cable television is obviously less critical, although it should still be regulated more firmly since they are granted that monopoly. I'm a registered Republican and all for pro-business legislation and minimization of regulation where appropriate, but when there is no free market, you have to regulate it to protect consumers since they can't choose another option.
Re:Bad timing (Score:4, Insightful)
Business != Conservative
Just because people are in business does not mean they're conservative. In fact, one would expect liberal-dominated industries to attract business-minded liberals. A quick look at opensecrets.org shows that donations from the "TV/Music/Movies" [opensecrets.org] category go overwhelmingly to the Democrats. This category represents employees of entertainment companies (rather than the artists who contract with them) so it would cover all those supposedly 'conservative' executives. In 2008, donations went 78% to Democrats and 22% to Republican. In 2004, at the height of the Republican tide, it was still 69% Dem - 30% Rep
If you break it down to the sub-categories, it gets even more lopsided. The 2008 percentages (Democrat - Republican):
The only subcategory that shows anything near parity is Commercial TV and Radio stations [opensecrets.org] with 53 - 47. Presumably this includes all those local TV stations in 'flyover country'.
So no, Hollywood is not divided politically, even among the non-artists it's overwhelmingly Democrat.
Re:Hah! Their timing couldn't be better (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hah! Their timing couldn't be better (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care much about guns...I'm not against them, they're just not an issue for me. I don't have one, I don't want one.
If you care about the rest of your civil liberties you should care about the 2nd amendment. You don't have to own a firearm to realize the value of protecting the right of your fellow citizens to do the same. Put another way: If Government can infringe on the 2nd amendment then what's to stop it from infringing on the 1st, 4th or 5th amendments?
Go take a look at the UK -- they started with gun "control" and have since neutered the right to keep silent, the right against self-incrimination and they keep expanding the length of time you can be held without being charged. If the people are willing to surrender one civil liberty why should the government assume that they won't surrender others?