ATVOD Watch

An internet news website the UKColumn have pulled all their news videos rather than submit to censorship and fee extortion from ATVOD.

Brian Gerrish and Mike Robinson discuss the attempted ATVOD regulation/censorship of the UK Column in a non-television-like way.

The video is available for download here . Please feel free to distribute as far and wide as you can, including your own Youtube channels.

See video from YouTube

See ATVOD determination [pdf] from atvod.co.uk

Update: ATVOD: A Major Risk To Freedom of Speech on the Internet

27th June. See pree release [pdf] from ukcolumn.org

The UK Column have issued a press release outlining their case against ATVOD:

The UK government has finally moved to directly regulate Youtube content and internet freedom of speech.

On the 2nd February 2014, the UK Column received a letter from ATVOD, the Authority for Television On Demand. ATVOD is a subsidiary of Ofcom, the UK government's communications regulator. The ATVOD letter gave notice to the UK Column that as the result of a Statutory Instrument amendment to the 2003 Communications Act, the UK Column was required to notify ATVOD that it was running an on demand programme service , to pay a fee, and to submit to regulation.

ATVOD mainly chooses organisations to regulate based upon whether or not they are perceived to produce television-like programmes . In several television conversations between the UK Column and ATVOD, an ATVOD representative admitted that there is no fixed standard for what constitutes television-like video content, and that their determinations are made on purely arbitrary opinion.

When asked by the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications Inquiry on Media Convergence and Its Public Policy Impact on the 5th February 2013 if [ATVOD] had trouble defining [television-like services], Ruth Evans Chairman of ATVOD replied, yes. It is an evolving art.

It is on the basis of the evolving art statement that ATVOD's claims of a light regulatory burden should be seen. At present ATVOD claims to exist in order to prevent harmful material becoming available to children and to prevent hate speech. It is clear, though, that anyone submitting to the current light regulatory framework joins a fluid and evolving regulatory framework with potentially draconian financial penalties. The penalties allowed for through the Communications Act 2003 amount to 5% of the regulated organisation's turnover or £250,000, whichever is the greater amount.

Following discussion with ATVOD, the UK Column made the decision that ATVOD's requirements would be detrimental to our freedom of speech and expression on the internet, and we would not submit to regulation by ATVOD.

ATVOD subsequently issued an enforcement notice giving the UK Column ten working days to comply with their demands. Having carefully considered our options, we decided to cease the activity which ATVOD describes as an on demand television service, and removed all UK Column video on demand content from the internet.

UK Column co-editor Brian Gerrish says:

This represents an immediate and dangerous attack on free speech on the internet and should be of massive concern to all Youtube users, as the government seems to be moving to censor individuals directly, putting them on the same regulatory footing as global corporations like the BBC and CNN. As a government agency, ATVOD's clearly flawed working practices and their alignment to the corporate media pose a direct threat to our personal liberty and freedoms.

UK Column co-editor Mike Robinson says:

It used to be that to produce high quality studio based video content, the financial barrier to entry was very high. Today, with television studios in a box costing as little as a few hundred pounds, ATVOD seems to be attempting to extend its remit to even the one man band producer operating out of his bedroom. This is a dangerous road to tread.

ATVOD publishes determinations that 6 adult video on demand services operating across 29 websites had breached onerous censorship rules applying to UK video on demand providers.

According to ATVOD, hardcore porn ranging from explicit real sex to BDSM could be accessed by children on the internet services.

The six online video on demand services - Bra Busters of Britain, Hardglam, Madame Caramel, Miss Jessica Wood, One Stop Porno Shop and Speedy Bee were held to be in breach of a statutory rule which requires that material which might seriously impair under 18's can only be made available to fee paying adults with credit cards (not the more commonly held debit cards).

The services each broke the statutory rules in two ways. Firstly, they allowed any visitor free, unrestricted access to hardcore pornographic or bondage, domination and sado-masochism (BDSM) video promos/trailers or still images featuring real sex in explicit detail or strong BDSM activity. Secondly, access to the full videos was open to any visitor who paid a fee. As the services accepted payment methods such as debit cards which theoretically can be used by under 18's, ATVOD ruled that each service had also failed to put in place effective access controls in relation to the full videos.

ATVOD have never presented any evidence suggesting the unlikely occurrence of children actually paying for porn with a debit card.

Four services, Hardglam, Madame Caramel, One Stop Porno Shop and Speedy Bee, which failed to make their services fully compliant in accordance with a timetable set by ATVOD have been referred to Ofcom for consideration of a sanction. Under this sanctions procedure, operators who fail to comply may be fined - Playboy TV was fined £100,000 for similar breaches in 2013 - or have their right to provide a service suspended, as happened in relation to the service Jessica Pressley last year.

Given that most websites which allow UK children to access hardcore pornography operate from outside the UK and therefore fall outside ATVOD's remit, then it seems highly unlikely that ATVOD's commercially unviable rules have done anything to prevent under 18's watching porn.

ATVOD Chair Ruth Evans said:

ATVOD has no power to require services based outside the UK to protect children from hardcore pornography. We will continue to work with policy makers and other stakeholders to investigate ways in which UK children might be better protected from porn websites operating from other countries, which may be unregulated.

Such websites often offer free content as a shop window to attract subscription payments. Over the past year, ATVOD has worked with the UK payments industry -- including MasterCard, Visa Europe, PayPal, UK Cards Association, the Payments Council and the British Bankers' Association -- to design a process which would enable payments to be prevented to foreign services which allow children to view hardcore pornography.

The payments industry has now made clear that to put such a process into place there would need to be clarity that foreign websites which allow children to view hardcore porn are acting in breach of UK law. The payments industry has therefore proposed a licensing scheme -- similar to that being introduced for foreign gambling websites -- as the best way of providing the necessary clarity. ATVOD and representatives of the UK payments industry discussed the initiative with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) earlier this month and DCMS is currently considering the feasibility of the licensing proposal. An Opposition amendment which would introduce such a licensing regime has been tabled to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, currently at Report stage.