Melon Farmers Original Version

Internet Video X News


VOD Streaming Downloads 2005

 2005   2006 

 

7th October

    Light on Sincerity

How many times have we heard of politicians who don't believe in censorship BUT...  then impose it with undisguised relish

From DTG

Culture secretary Tessa Jowell has pledged the UK Government will pursue a light touch approach to the regulation of television content distributed via broadband internet and mobile networks.

Speaking at a Creative Economy Conference, Jowell said it was clear that new measures would be needed.

But in a clear signal to Brussels, which is reviewing its Television Without Frontiers Directive for the era of multi-network digital distribution, Jowell said: We don't want to use a sledge-hammer to crack a nut, as regulation of these platforms will have an enormous impact on how they develop. Creativity and enterprise can't flourish if they are beset by reams of red tape.

In May, Ofcom senior partner Robin Foster cautioned against more stringent regulation of the internet, amid proposals being considered by the EU to extend its regulatory guidelines for the media to cover online broadcasts

 

27th September

    Hardcore at the Hilton

Typical tabloid bollox. Presumably the films are distributed electronically as per the Internet (or an Intranet) and hence are not covered by the VRA which governs physical media nor by broadcasting considerations.It is perfectly legal to view R18 type material distributed by the Internet so why shouldn't hotels take advantage. Besides that, a hotel room is considered as an extension of ones home rather than a public space, hence one can buy drinks from the night porter outside licensing hours etc.

I wonder when the Daily Mail will pick up on the challenge of legal hardcore distribution to anybody who wants it via the Internet. And just to make it easier for all, the Internet computer can be hidden away in a neat and easy to use set top box.

Based on an article from Hotels

Major hotel chains are showing hardcore pornography, rated R18 on sets in guests' bedrooms.

The Mail on Sunday claimed that this was enabled by a legal loop hole and that pay-per-view sex movies are on offer in luxury hotel groups including Hilton, Intercontinental and De Vere.

Last night the Government announced a belated inquiry into why the hotels should be immune from a rigidly-enforced blanket ban on the broadcast of hardcore films on terrestrial, satellite and cable television channels.

Ironically, the hotel TV porn system the Government is set to investigate is readily available in at least one of the two Hilton hotels being used by the Prime Minister and Cabinet colleagues at this week's Labour Party Conference in Brighton.

The films now on offer in many British hotels would carry the special 'R18' certificate, which is issued by the BBFC, primarily 'for explicit works of consenting sex between adults.' R18 films can only be purchased by over-18s from licensed sex shops or viewed in specially-licensed cinemas where the age of every ticket purchaser can be verified.

The Hilton Group, whose hotels offer the 'adult' channel at Pounds £12.95 per 24 hours, said yesterday it had consulted the Department for Culture, Media and Sport before making the R18 material available.

When The Mail on Sunday first approached the DCMS to ask what it planned to do to shut down the legal loophole, a spokesman said it was ultimately for the hotel chains to decide what television services they provide for their customers but obviously they have to do operate within the parameters of the law.

The hotels showing hardcore porn insist they can put an electronic block on adult TV channels in guest rooms and say there are onscreen warnings that the viewer is about to access explicit material unsuitable for minors.

Last night a spokeswoman for Hilton, which offers the films in 60 of its 70 UK hotels, said: We started to introduce these films in our hotels in April, which was after some of the other major chains. We took advice from leading counsel and the DCMS before we did so and we are satisfied that it is within the law. Our supplier, Acentic, has also assured us that we are not breaking any regulations. There is also no question of children accessing this material.

There are warnings on every stage of the menu process on the pay-TV screen and when families check in to our hotels it is our policy to ask the parents if they want the adult channel blocked. A spokeswoman for De Vere, which has 19 four-star and fivestar hotels in the UK, confirmed they were also showing R18 films. We understand from our suppliers that it has been legal for two years,' she said.

We offer this service because it has become standard throughout the industry and it is a service that our guests demand. At the Intercontinental Group, which has around 300 hotels in the UK, including the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza brands, a spokeswoman confirmed it began showing R18 films in the spring of this year after taking legal advice.

In a second statement issued late yesterday afternoon, the DCMS said: 'The Government takes very seriously extreme pornographic images and the protection of children. We are grateful to The Mail on Sunday for drawing this to our attention. It may be that the present legislation creates a loophole for new technologies to provide pornographic material that was not intended under existing legislation. We are therefore examining with the Home Office what action needs to be taken to ensure that the law as intended is complied with. The DCMS spokesman added that he was not aware whether any of the hotel chains contacted them before installing the film system.

 

20th September

    Playboy Magazine On Demand

From The Independent

Playboy magazine is not what it was. It has become diluted and over-merchandised until it stands for little more than a parallel version of the worst of hip-hop culture, all bling and no substance.

And so to try and make sense of this: Playboy UK has re-launched itself as a digital multimedia entertainment company with a presence in every portal . The new brand integrates the "full suite" of Playboy products (six Playboy television channels, the newly launched website www.playboy.co.uk) and, of course, the magazine. According to Richard Gale, director of marketing and sales, this collective offering brings the consumer "an array of exclusive lifestyle benefits".

According to the chief executive Jeremy Yates, this re-branding is a reaction to user demand for a single billing point for TV, online and magazine services . At Playboy, they are very excited about "convergence" - that one day we will all have one box to unite all our pornographic needs - but until that time it is enough that they can "deliver content wherever you want it", or, in other words, deliver adult entertainment to your television, your computer, your phone, your PDA or your portable games machine.

And where does the magazine fit into all this? Subscribers to the full digital package (£36pm) receive Playboy magazine as part of the deal - but it seems like an afterthought, a bonus for the viewer, rather than anything the company is focusing on. This seems to be the view shared by the magazine's editorial offices in New York. Yes, the magazine is bundled with Playboy UK as a promotion, but it is just that, a promotion, says a spokeswoman, when I ask to speak to someone from the editorial side. Because of the differing explicitness of content in various territories we would probably not want to comment further on the magazine in relation to this re-branding.

While playing up the men's lifestyle elements in Playboy on-line (for which read boy's toys and gadgets), Yates admits Playboy's central contradiction: that, on the one hand, the hardcore stuff is not branded (so, in addition to the softcore Playboy TV, the stronger broadcast content appears on the internet broadband versions of the Adult Channel & Spice), but, on the other hand, the hardcore stuff is what Playboy feels compelled to provide, to compete with the internet and pay per view, and despite keeping it at arm's length to try and protect the lucrative teen clothing and stationery image, the hardcore streaming is, to use Yates's indelicate phrase, "the meat in the sandwich".

 

8th September

    EC Warned off IPTV

From The Register

The European Commission should be cautious about extending the Television Without Frontiers Directive (TVWF Directive) to cover the provision of online audiovisual content services, according to trade group the E-Business Regulatory Alliance.

The group made its comments in response to a consultation by the European Commission on whether the provision of audiovisual content services – by television broadcast, broadband or 3G – needs a new legal regime.

The Commission believes that telecom providers will soon be able to deliver broadcasting services in a quality equal to traditional TV, while traditional content providers will enter the communications markets. It therefore wants to make sure now that the new regime has better competition and consumer choice together with protection for children and cultural diversity.

Comments on the proposals were invited by 5 September, in time for a forthcoming EU audiovisual content conference to be held in Liverpool later this month.

According to the E-Business Regulatory Alliance, the existing framework governing audiovisual and information society services is working well. It is not convinced that any change is necessary.

"The internet is not a virtual 'Wild West', but is already heavily regulated with several instruments, for example the e-Commerce Directive and the Copyright Directive. Member States also have horizontal laws that can be generally applied to the internet," says the Alliance.

"Where public policy issues, for example the protection of minors and human dignity, are important to the online environment, national legislation or industry self regulation is already adequate. The online business sector has done much to protect children and minors by introducing, for example, parental/guardian controls and age verification," it adds.

The Alliance calls on the Commission to conduct a Regulatory Impact Assessment – along the lines of the UK's model – in each business sector likely to be affected by any new regulations.

It is also concerned that simply extending the Directive will not solve the problem, in that businesses are unable to predict what developments will take place, and therefore what laws will be needed in the future. Nor does the Alliance believe that the timescale set for publishing the draft Directive – the end of this year – is workable, especially given the need for proper Regulatory Impact Assessments.

It calls for a light touch in respect of any proposals for regulating the internet, and questions whether the proposals will provide for legal certainty. It calls on the Commission to ensure high levels of subsidiarity and to maintain a strong country of origin approach – so that businesses are not subject to different rules if offering services in different Member States, but merely have to satisfy those in their country of origin.

 

4th September

    G Spot G Rated

From The Times

The BBC is launching a cinema-style classification to warn parents of programmes containing sex, violence and strong language. Programmes suitable mostly for adults are to be labelled with the symbol "G" for "guidance".

Initially the G-certificate will be available only to people viewing on their computers, but audiences using the next generation of televisions should be able to click on the symbol on their screens to be alerted to the adult content. The symbol could eventually replace the traditional 9pm watershed.

The corporation is introducing the system to coincide with the release of most of the output of BBC1, BBC2 and its other networks on the internet. Many of its radio programmes are already available "on demand" in this way for seven days after they have been broadcast.

Because viewers will be able to watch programmes from the previous week's output whenever they want, children will no longer be protected by the conventional watershed.

Initially only 5,000 viewers taking part in a trial this month of the BBC's system for downloading programmes — the "integrated media player" — will encounter the G-system. Now, any BBC programme included in the new service will have to be classified as G or non-G.

If downloading television programmes on computer becomes nationally available — the BBC's director-general Mark Thompson is hoping to win the governors' approval to launch it next year — the G-symbol will become familiar in almost every household and is likely to be adopted by other broadcasters. We need to give audiences the equivalent of a new watershed, to give them a different signpost ," said Rachel Hermer, the BBC adviser on editorial policy.

Parents will be able to adjust computers so children cannot watch G-rated programmes without permission.

 

15th August

    IPTV Marginally Better than DVD?

Some interesting points, I do not see IPTV as Utopia as I tend to be a collector and like to own DVDs complete with covers and a belief that I can watch them again any time in the next few years. Maybe porn can be an exception as far too little is of sufficient quality to worry about watching again.

From UK adult producer Phil McCavity

DVD sales have been dive bombing over the last 12-18 months and there is less profit margin in the production and distribution of them due to the pirates that are rife in the industry. All the biggest movie distributors, Warner Bros, MGM, Disney etc are all going down the IPTV route and it is expected that all movies in the future will be streamed for a global audience on the same day with no delays to all regions. This will undoubtedly close the black hole currently draining the DVD industry of some $80 million a month either spent on fighting piracy or lost revenue to piracy.

In an attempt to fight piracy Gladiator was used as a test. Eight thousand prints of the movie were made at a cost of $40M and distributed via Cannes etc and it was the biggest loss ever to piracy even being pirated before it reached the first screening cinemas.

This is why IPTV is going to be the only solution to combating DVD piracy. On a given time and date the AVI stored in a server and secured with Digital Rights Management is transmitted globally to Cinemas, then a few weeks later the server will be opened up to the end user in the home to stream to either PC or set top box. This will mean the DVD distributors of today are becoming the online streaming distributors for the IPTV age and it's happening right now.

As an example take Harry Potter 4 . People will be able to see the making of the movie long before it even becomes a product. It will generate revenue streams before the movie is even a production and captivate the audience and media interest ready for the launch day. At the time of launch a button will be pressed in a data centre storing the master AVI file and instantaneously enable cinemas all around the world to have a premier of the movie on the same night. The glitz and glamour of the premiers we see today won't have to be in one cinema in the country or region but in every cinema around the globe capable of receiving the signal through fibre lines.

The home consumer will receive the same treat as the cinemas only a few days or a few weeks later when a reduced stream is enabled and controlled under DRM license as an on-demand movie. There will be no DVD availability, no download and therefore DVD pirate copies for sale at the car boot on a Sunday for £5. Instead the consumer can pay £2.50, £4 or whatever the cost is set at to stream it over the phone line and be allowed a set number of plays for the price.

No DVD and cheaper to watch than a PIRATE at Hi-Def quality if you like,

Its here......Consumers, Punters, friends and gentlemen get prepared coz its coming your way, www.gdbtv.co.uk

 

 26th July

Television without Frontiers but with Frontiers


By Paul Taverner of Ofwatch at Westminster Media Forum's TVWF consultation seminar: The View from UK Stakeholders
held on the 20th July.

A more complete article is available on Ofwatch

I was fortunate enough to attended a Westminster Media Forum seminar concerning the revision of the Television Without Frontiers (TVWF) directive last Wednesday (20th July). The TVWF directive is of great importance to adult service consumers as it lays down the basic regulation required for television services across Europe. It is of particular interest right now as the European Commission have announced their intention to expand this directive to include many web based services.

There is still a great deal of work to be done before the new version of the directive is anywhere near ready, but the basic thrust is clear. Television and Internet technologies are converging and what we need (so we are told) is more regulation that includes Internet services. Regulation will continue for traditional broadcast services in much the same way as it does now, but will be extended to include IPTV, streamed content and near Video On Demand under the heading of linear services. In addition a new tier of regulation will be created introducing basic regulation with fewer restrictions for non-linear services (where the consumer decides the schedule) such as full VOD services and similar.

The subject of the seminar was the five discussion papers that were released on the 11th July to prompt debate over draft proposals. These draft proposals were a very mixed bag.

Some of the suggestions were highly controversial such as extending the existing broadcasting right of reply to web based services. Perhaps not a serious issue from an adult service perspective, but that one will run and run nevertheless. Expect to see it in the papers when the time comes in the coming months and years ahead.

Some of the suggestions were totally ill conceived and even the rather conservative Chris Bone from the DCMS was heard to mutter that "some of these proposals loose touch with reality" when faced with suggestions that foreign web sites might choose to register in one country or another to avoid being regulated by all nations separately.

There was great support for the idea that trans frontier communications should remain unrestricted, indeed this is such a fundamental point that the directive is named after it (i.e. Television Without Frontiers). There was also support for the idea of continuing to allow nation states their national margin of appreciation when interpreting the TVWF principles over what content was acceptable and where lines should be drawn in their territory, but there wasn't any real idea of what would happen when you mixed these two principles together in a fully IPTV enabled world, or any appreciation that they are in fact mutually exclusive.

If trans frontier communications are to remain truly open and free and if any person in any country can watch any content from anywhere, what is the point in a national margin of appreciation? But if every nation needs to enforce its own national margin, then it will be necessary to ring fence each nation with barriers to ensure that content that falls outside the national margin is kept out. Hardly in keeping with open communications and probably entirely impractical as well.

Of course this problem is already with us today, but has been limited for various technological, financial, geographical and political reasons. Whilst Transgression of one national margin into another does occur (e.g. Euro adult services such as Satisfaction TV), it is limited in scope and within politically manageable proportions. But IPTV will bring this issue into sharp focus by removing the technological, financial and geographical obstacles.

The massive force of technological progress pushing towards open trans frontier communications would seem to be unstoppable and yet national Governments resolve to maintain control at all costs would appear to be immovable. So there is guaranteed to be tears before bedtime on this issue not to mention a serious risk of creating a number of white elephant regulations  for political purposes in the process. The real problem was highlighted by one of the other speakers at the seminar who said "legislators and regulators are trying to regulate in a world that they don't understand".

So there is no answer to this conflict at the moment, but there is certainly the need for us to get involved in the European consultation on these matters. More of that later. 

Specific questions posed by Ofwatch

Paul Tavener: I would like to ask what is going to happen when the national margin of appreciation meets the future reality of Internet Protocol TV. In a world where citizens from any nation can access any television service from any other nation what place is left for the national margin of appreciation over what is acceptable to broadcast? And on that note I would also like to ask him what happened to the request for a proscription order for Satisfaction Television that the ITC requested almost five years ago? Is the minister still considering the matter?

Chris Bone : OK I'll answer the second question first. Um ya we, er, still have that under consideration. You may or may not know that there was actually a proscription order posted earlier this year against another television service which has since gone off the air; nice to know. And we're still considering in the light of that and various other legal considerations what can or can not be done about Satisfaction so there we are.

As regards the first question I think this is perhaps where I say ask the commission what they think, because there is clearly a major issue about this. If there is not, and undoubtedly there never will be in our lifetimes, world wide sort of international control of what's available on the web then people are going to be able to get what they want through the web. There's only so much that nation states and EU commissioners can do. There are co-regulatory and self regulatory solutions, we have found, for example through the work of the Internet Watch Foundation over the last few years that the amount of unacceptable child pornography coming out of the UK has diminished very markedly. That doesn't stop it being available unfortunately if people want to see it, but it's not coming from the UK anymore and it does show that solutions which involve the operators themselves getting together with Governments and regulators and trawling there own content on a notice and take down basis, these solutions, do work and that's all I can say about that.

Paul Tavener: What is going to happen to the national margin of appreciation in the future when we have Internet Protocol TV and where citizens from any nation can access any television service from any other nation?

Tim Suter of Ofcom: Well to the extent that services are regulated by virtue of a licence, they are regulated by virtue of a licence that is handled through Ofcom and it's codes and where that regulation doesn't run to unlicensed services, such as services delivered over the Internet, they are not licensed in the same way.

Paul Tavener: The question really was why are we having a big debate about what the regulation is in this country when really the debate needs to be in Europe. It's a Europe based issue. If we can access content from anywhere then what is the point in having specific UK regulation if we can access French services, Polish services, whatever services?

Tim Suter Well I think there is a principle of regulation that has been fully reflected in the recent comments about the country of origin principle. A lot of content regulation is culturally specific and that is part of the point of it and we need to recognise that and therefore there is a sense that there is a basic set of rules that can be adapted within certain frameworks by content regulators in member states. The subsidiarity principle is terribly important. I don't think the fact that something is necessarily available somewhere else or not available somewhere else should be the determining factor for what we as a society decide we want to have.

The tentative proposals

Chris Bone (head of International broadcasting at the Department of Culture Media and Sport) gave us an outline of the initial thinking:

Existing regulations covering traditional broadcast television should be extended to include new Internet based services such as IPTV and VOD. There should be two tiers of regulation with 'linear' services covering existing television, IPTV and near VOD where the broadcaster decides the schedule and where the rules will be " detailed " (in other words strict), and " non-linear " services for VOD and similar services where the viewer decides the schedule and where the rules will be " basic " (in other words less strict). All Regulations should be technologically neutral meaning that the same rules apply regardless of the means of transmission. Rules for the basic tier of regulation should include: 

  • Protection of minors and human dignity

  • Identification of commercial communications

  • Minimum qualitative obligations regarding commercial communication

  • Right of reply

  • Basic identification / masthead requirements.

The right of reply requirement will be hugely controversial and may not make it into the final directive, but as far as protection of minors and human dignity were concerned there was less controversy and this is what the focus groups had to say:

"The implementation of the TVWF Directive in the Member States shows that there are no European standards of public decency which would allow the terms "pornography" or "gratuitous violence" to be defined at European level. It therefore should to be left to the Member States to define these notions. Although the level of protection should be similar notwithstanding the linear or non linear character of the service, the means employed to protect minors and human dignity would vary according to the characteristics of the service."

One key point made was that the country of origin principle should be retained. The country of origin principle means that any services must be regulated by one country and only one country. Despite this there was still some pressure to water down the existing principle allowing exceptions in cases where broadcasters have been established in another country with the sole intention of circumventing the target countries rules (e.g. Red Hot Dutch etc) and new powers to restrict retransmission within a target country in some circumstances. 

Timetable

  • 11th July: Issue papers released for discussion
  • 5th September: Closing date for comments from the public
  • 20th-22nd September: Major conference in Liverpool discussing TVWF issues
  • Late 2005: draft directive white paper
  • 2006/7 council of ministers and European Parliament start to process the draft directive
  • mid/late 2007 New audio-visual content directive
  • 2010 incorporated into UK law 

All of the discussion papers are available for those who wish to read more. Westminster media forum will make electronic copies of the seminar discussions available in a months time.

The next big event will be an EU conference in Liverpool where more than 500 regulators, legislators and experts from the broadcasting industry from across Europe will meet to discuss the new directive. It will assist the European Commission in developing its proposals for the revision of the directive. I was given the opportunity to create a 600 word article that will be included as part of the information pack that will be given to all 500 delegates at the Liverpool conference. Hopefully at least some of them will read it. 

 

16th July

    Censored Hardcore for the US

It sounds like one to avoid as the tag XX rated means that it is censored hardcore with all anal and cumshots excised.

From AVN

Deep Star Broadcasting Systems, Inc. took a major step forward with today's announcement of the launch of its first adult video-on-demand service, Heat On Demand.

Through the initial launch, which took place last Thursday, July 7, Heat On Demand is now being introduced to 2,000,000 VOD homes in the United States

Heat On Demand features talent such as Michael Ninn, Simon Wolf, Suze Randall, Private Media Group and Illicit Pictures.

John Chambliss, president of Deep Star touched on an important revenue sharing program that ensures Heat On Demand a position of dominance in attracting filmmakers. This is a distinct advantage we will continue to enjoy because of our willingness to share revenues with our content providers, representing financial rewards offered by no other adult aggregator.

Bill Furrelle, senior VP of affiliate sales for Deep Star, announced that in August, the broadcasting company will next launch a new XX rated Spanish language, VOD service, Caliente En Demanda. Combined with our cutting edge Heat on Demand, I think we now have all of the bases covered as we embark on a journey of satisfying an insatiable audience whose thirst for adult entertainment continues to show no end.

 

12th July

    Regulation On Demand

From The Times

Europe wants to begin to regulate the internet for the first time by introducing controversial rules to cover television online.

Brussels is considering regulating areas such as taste and decency, accuracy and impartiality for internet broadcasters. More broadly, it is thinking about relaxing rules governing the frequency and amount of advertising on television.

The proposals are expected to prompt an immediate battle because Ofcom, the media regulator, believes that traditionally strict broadcast regulations should not be extended to the internet.

Viviane Reding, the European Information Commissioner, will set out the idea today as part of the biggest revision of European television regulation since 1989.

She will unveil five "issues papers", one of which will discuss the impact of technological change since then, and conclude that "non-linear audio-visual content", television downloads, needs to be subject to regulation.

Some of the changes mooted, such as the extension of rules governing the protection of children, are unlikely to be controversial, but others, such as the need for internet broadcasters to provide a statutory right of reply, are likely to provoke fierce debate.

Tim Suter, Ofcom's partner for content and standards, said: Whatever happens, it is not appropriate to take the set of rules that apply to television and apply them to other media. Where possible, we should be looking at self-regulation or co-regulation, because that is something that can deliver the goods.

The idea is that any website trying to make money from broadcasting television, perhaps by providing video clips in addition to text, could be brought into the net. However, Commission officials say that the rules for websites will be less strict than those currently applying to the BBC.

Today, television delivered via the internet is unregulated in Britain. There is, therefore, nobody with legal power to force an internet broadcaster to respect rules governing accuracy and impartiality or taste and decency that apply to all other analogue and digital broadcasters.

Home Choice, the leading internet television broadcaster, has formed its own self-regulatory body, which mirrors most of the existing rules. Ofcom believes that this approach is sufficient for responsible broadcasters, while any others are likely to operate offshore from jurisdictions beyond the European Union's reach.

The new rules will come out of a rewrite of Television Without Frontiers, the 1989 European directive that set the benchmark for television regulation.

Although the issues papers to be published tomorrow will not contain firm conclusions, broadcasters will have until September 5 to respond in writing. A draft directive will be produced at the end of this year.

As well as covering internet regulation, the consultation documents will signal a liberalising of the prescriptive regulations covering the amount of advertising that a TV channel can sho, an existing limit of 12 minutes an hour, is likely to be scrapped.

 

22ndJune

    R18 on Demand in Hotels

As far as I can see an internet based video on demand system would be perfectly legal for hotels to implement. Hardcore is perfectly legal in the UK on the Internet as it is not covered by the arbitrary applied licensing authority of Ofcon nor is it distribution via disks or tape that would put it in the scope of the Video Recordings Act.

Perhaps IPTV technology will make Ofcon's recent ban on broadcast hardcore pretty redundant in the very near future. The weight of money driving Internet based hardcore will surely brush aside the moral high grounders of the British establishment.

From The Melon Farmers' Forum

LDB1:

I have been watching with interest the R18 scenario for a number of years and was incredibly peaved at Ofcom`s code which was recently released and the subsequent denial of R18 material on PIN protected subscription satellite channels.

I was recently staying at a hotel in the UK and was flicking through the usual film selection on offer in the room. I noticed an "Adult" section which was quite obvious in the listings and not hidden away, and decided to adventure. The trouble was that the channels were PIN protected - oh damn I thought, whats the PIN? I selected the "help" option on the remote and it quite simply told me on screen - put 0 in front of your room number and thats the PIN. Curiosity got the better of me and I entered the "Adult area".

Sure enough there were 4 "Adult" films in the list and they all had the R18 certification logo next to them! Surely these films cannot be accessed this easily I thought, so I selected 1 of them. I was presented with a warning that the film would be billed to the room and would appear as "Room Service" on the bill - so that it can be easily hidden as food or drink - how childproof is that! Well you guessed it, I selected it and yep it was full blown R18 material.

My point is, why on earth can we gain access to R18 material via a PIN which is "given to you" - literally, and is not secure against child access on a non subscription service in a hotel room in the UK, yet we cannot gain access to R18 material via a protected PIN which we keep to ourselves in our own home on subscription satellite!

Kit Ryan :

That pretty much sums up the stupidity of the current situation. It sounds like the system in the hotel was some sort of Video on Demand system (not regulated by Ofcom) and will be perfectly legal.

 

23rd May

    No Demand for On Demand Regulation

From Ofwatch , who have also posted Lord Currie's full speech to the newspaper society

Ofcom's Chairman Lord Currie recently made a speech to the Newspaper society in which he reiterated Ofcom's position concerning television regulation and it's diminishing role. There was talk of "evidence-based and transparent regulation" and "a bias against intervention". This short extract gives an encouraging impression:

The Communications Act, rightly, in my view, gives Ofcom no powers over television content delivered over the internet. It follows inexorably that when your TV programme can be delivered via broadband alongside the conventional broadcast signal, Ofcom's powers to regulate must fade.

However, there will be, and should be, a lively debate about whether content regulation of the kind that we are used to in broadcasting should extend to internet content. To fully inform that debate, in the year ahead, Ofcom will ask the following questions and will research the answers:
 

  • firstly, is regulation of TV content over the internet practicable?
  • Secondly, are there effective alternatives to direct regulation?
  • And, thirdly, is regulation, on balance, desirable?

While I don't want to say in advance what the research is likely to show, my hunch is that the answers will be:

  • On the practicability of regulation of TV over the internet – probably not;
  • On whether there are effective alternatives to direct regulation – definitely;
  • And on the desirability of direct regulation – almost certainly not.

Even if feasible, my own view is that extending direct regulation is absolutely not the right response. It would give enormous succour to oppressive regimes around the world which seek to censor what their peoples can access. I do want to see parents given the knowledge and the tools to protect their children against inappropriate content. The need for such protected walled gardens is very high on the list of concerns that people have about the digital age and the internet sector is already responding to that need.

 

13th May

    Ofcom Reply to Brussels

From IT Week

Ofcom has said it would be impossible for it to effectively police television content streamed over the internet and this job must rest with the individual viewer. The warning from the communications watchdog comes after proposals from Brussels aim to make media regulators such as Ofcom responsible for keeping television content on the internet clean.

Both live and recorded television content is already available on the internet. Using the internet and especially broadband to deliver programmes gives content providers and broadcasters new ways of offering new services to their customers, such as programmes on demand.

But under a revamp of the Television without Frontiers directive, the European Union has suggested that in the same way regulators monitor and rule on television programmes for taste and decency, they should regulate internet broadcast content.

Currently, a complaint to Ofcom about harm and offence in a television programme would be investigated by the regulator, and if the broadcaster was in breach, this would trigger regulatory action. But Ofcom said trying to regulate the myriad new services and technologies delivering television such as broadband or 3G couldn't be done using the traditional methods.

It pointed out it currently did not have the necessary powers to regulate television content accessible via the internet. Ofcom said the proposals also didn't take into account different laws and interpretations of laws in other countries. Parliament has decided in the Communications Act that Ofcom should have no remit over internet content. I believe this was the right outcome for today's environment. Ofcom has no role to play whatsoever said David Currie, Ofcom's chairman.

The proposals have also concerned internet service providers who don't believe it is their job to act as monitors of people's viewing habits and believe such laws would not be feasible to enforce. The need for consumer protection is evident [but] the issue could run into areas of censorship, a can of worms that Ofcom would surely prefer to avoid opening - where would the line then be drawn? Begin regulating internet content and do you then have to regulate internet-based phone conversations, said Steve Harris of the UK Internet Forum.

Ofcom said it is in favour of a mix of existing laws such as obscenity and copyright and protection for children. The industry as a whole has a duty to provide 'safe havens'. But this had to be combined with greater consumer internet literacy because ultimately said Ofcom, the regulators would ultimately have to be the viewers themselves blocking content they personally were unhappy with.

 

7th May

    Television in the Frontier Zone

From The Guardian

Media regulators across Europe could be forced to police internet content for taste and decency in the same way as television programmes, according to proposals under consideration in Brussels. The plans have led to fears at the British media watchdog Ofcom that this may stifle innovation in the nascent broadband content industry and prove impossible to enforce.

This year the UK regulator will review the likely impact of broadband and other new services such as 3G over the next decade and consult the public and the industry over whether content delivered over them can and should be regulated.

The issue has come to a head as Brussels debates changes to a revamped Television Without Frontiers directive, which sets the agenda for European media regulation. New draft proposals are due to be issued later this year. The thinking in Brussels is that it will contain plans for Europe-wide regulation of television-style broadcasts over the internet.

And with overseas content providers able to broadcast internationally over the internet, there are also concerns that it would put British companies at a competitive disadvantage.

The proposals, if implemented, would run counter to Ofcom's determination to reduce its regulatory burden and switch to a "light touch". Robin Foster, Ofcom's senior partner in charge of strategy, said: [Television Without Frontiers] seems to be geared to extending traditional broadcasting regulation into new media and the internet. The slight worry is that it takes a very regulatory approach to new media, which may have a number of benefits, but it may not be positive and may stop new ideas developing in a broadband world. We shouldn't just assume that we should regulate.

Instead, Ofcom is believed to favour a mix of existing laws, such as those on obscenity and copyright, and advocating greater media literacy so consumers can block unwelcome content themselves. One idea floated last year would be to rate content on all websites.

The industry, from internet service providers to websites, is also sceptical over whether the medium can be regulated in any meaningful way.  A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers' Association, a trade body, said: There's been laws passed against spam. But in a situation where spam is coming from around the world and there are different laws in place in Europe and the US, what do you do?

Already an increasing number of broadband subscribers watch television programmes over the web as prices come down and connection speeds increase. Later this year telecom companies including BT and France Telecom's Wanadoo plan to launch video-on-demand services to be delivered over broadband lines via a set-top box to the television.

 




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