FSF's Randolph May Welcomes Deferral of Vote on FCC's Video Device Mandate In reaction to the Federal Communications Commission's decision today to defer the vote to mandate a new government-designed standardized video navigation device, Free State Foundation President Randolph May issued this statement:"I welcome the decision by the Democrat majority of the FCC to pull the item from today's agenda that would have imposed a new regulatory mandate for video navigation devices and apps. To the extent that Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel's continued concerns about the wisdom of Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed approach were responsible for deferring the vote, I commend her for this.
Now, with the deferral, there is time for reflection concerning fundamental principles. Start here: Only fifteen months ago, the FCC determined that, on a nationwide basis, all video distribution markets are presumptively competitive. In that June 2015 decision, the Commission touted the competition among cable operators, DBS satellite providers, and telephone companies in the video marketplace. Indeed, the agency said there had been a 'transformation' of the video market as a result of the competition. It appeared the FCC was about to take a great leap backward by imposing a costly new regulatory mandate just when the agency should be standing aside and allowing the competitive video marketplace to continue to work. There is no dispute that cable operators and the other multichannel video distributors are already responding to consumer demand by offering new, free, easy-to-use navigation apps that allow consumers to access to their programming both directly and from a variety of popular online services, such as Roku, Hulu, and Amazon, and from devices such as smart TVs and Xboxes. This is what you would expect in a competitive market. It appeared that, in the rush to act, the Commission's Democrat majority was prepared to jeopardize copyrights and consumer privacy, while, at the same time, deterring future innovation and investment. Now, the Commission should use the opportunity of further time to consider whether it really wants to rush to regulate in a fast-changing, dynamic marketplace. In any event, if and when the Commission proposes to act on the navigation device item again, it should be in the Sunshine at an open meeting after the public has had an opportunity to comment on what obviously have been significant changes in a constantly evolving controversial proposal."
* * * Randolph J. May, President of the Free State Foundation, is a former FCC Associate General Counsel and a former Chairman of the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. Mr. May is a current public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and a Fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration. Mr. May is a nationally recognized expert in communications law, Internet law and policy, and administrative law and regulatory practice. He is the author of more than 180 scholarly articles and essays on communications law and policy, administrative law, and constitutional law. Most recently, Mr. May is the co-author, with FSF Senior Fellow Seth Cooper, of the recently released The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property and is the editor of the book, Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age: The Next Five Years. He is the author of A Call for a Radical New Communications Policy: Proposals for Free Market Reform. And he is the editor of the book, New Directions in Communications Policy and co-editor of other two books on communications law and policy: Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated And Communications Deregulation and FCC Reform. The Free State Foundation is a non-profit, independent free market-oriented think tank.
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