Co-regulation - Ofcom's view

Ofcom has released its final post-consultation report on its approach to co-regualation - the result of a 2-year process. It is largely a very well-written and researched and sensible document - I would have liked more emphasis on sustainability and 'mission creep' of self- and co-regulatory bodies but that's my report for the EXC - if you want your own work, write it yourself!

Excellent work by Tom Keidrowski and his team!

"We also received a link to the RAND study for the European Commission in the response

from Dr. Chris Marsden. The study examined a range of national schemes, including the

IMCB, ATVOD, ICSTIS, Nominet and IWF in the UK, as part of an evaluation of potential coand

self-regulatory solutions for online services. Similarly to our view - that a spectrum of

options is available when addressing particular issues -, the RAND study proposes a

‘Beaufort scale of self-regulation’ based on the degree of government intervention. While the

published study was an evaluation of schemes, it veered toward a view that there was merit

in considering co-regulation rather than purely self-regulation in many instances."

European TV developments

Very good up-to-date blog here.

Legislation on privacy before net neutrality in US?

California liberal Henry Waxman will be new head of the Commerce Committee, replacing Bellhead John Dingell. That makes both privacy and NN legislation more likely. Frannie Wellings, assistant to Sen. Dorgan, certainly expects that.

Meanwhile in the EU, the mini-super-regulator has been voted down by the Council of Ministers, and we grind on to the 2nd Reading in Parliament...

Content and its potential harms

Good new USC Annenberg academic papers here and here.

AVMS agreed December 2007

The European Parliament formally approved without amendments the Council's common position on the new Audiovisual Media Services without frontiers Directive.

Ofcom paper on convergence

In preparation for Monica Arino's seminar Wednesday at 12, you might find this new paper interesting: http://www.culture.gov.uk/Convergence/submissions/seminar1/ofcom_update4feb08.pdf

Council of Europe paper on jurisdiction

Very useful paper: http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/transfrontier_tv.pdf.en

Greater European Regulatory cooperation promised

Commissioner Viviene Reding hosts a meeting to discuss closer cooperation in view of the Al Manar case.

Short extracts and viewers' rights

The 'Right to Information' and Digital Broadcasting - About Monsters, Invisible Men, and the Future of European Broadcasting Regulation by Natali Helberger - focuses on viewers' right to consume rather than market arguments from economics.

Reading for Week 10, 21 March

Two pieces to collect at the end of the week-
first an article by Anna Herold about sports rights and public service TV,
second a quite dense and comlicated article about essential facilities and competition law, with a lot of media references - read only if you really want to take that question!

Anna is the legal advisor at the European Commission on the new Directive....

Competition law and IP

How Battlestar Gallactica killed broadcast TV

Overview with some interesting points

new report on advertising covering 34 countries, and the Commission's 5th Implementation Report

Both available here.

Market for TV Sports Rights

Interesting 2001 article from Norway.

Subjects and reading for Week 9, 14 March

We will mainly deal with the Premium Programming and Competition Law issues, but with a sideways look at media pluralism and diversity.
1. Read Cowie and Marsden (1999) on conditional access - don't spend too long on the standards part (rather technical).
2. Read Marsden for the Council of Europe esp. Part 3 on 'must carry'.
3. Read the articles on movies, football, especially Ungerer's 2003 article.
4. Those interested in state aid might want to read ahead on Eurovision/EBU - a case dealt with in the first blog entry:http://www.obs.coe.int/oea_publ/iris/iris_plus/iplus10_2005.pdf.en

70% of UK households have digital TV...

...and the World cup will drive this to 80% by this time next year, reports BBC News

Interesting take on IPTV and 'geo-coding' for DRM

But he is selling his open source solution...

Flash / Google AdSense video / VW ad

- Alltime classic flash animation from Joel Veitch on rathergood.com - independant woman
- Google's new adsense video adverts - first example described here
- An example of an advert being posted as content (NSFW)

Additional question requested

Is European competition law a sufficient tool for ensuring plurality and/or diversity in the broadcasting media? Refer specifically to either: [1] state aid case law involving public service broadcasters (specifically Eurovision and by extension Altmark), or [2] Article 81/82/merger case law.

Kappa Mikey: Flash animation

A piece in the New York Times Friday about a new show "Kappa Mikey" from The Animation Collective. What makes it interesting is that it is done in Flash.
Doing animation in Flash is nothing new nor is the idea of simplified production (as with South Park or even Clutch Cargo nearly half a century ago). Flash content doesn't take much network capacity because it is coded mostly as objects. It avoids the whole the need to compress - it is a compressed format.