5 ms·

You would legally force a private company to share its property with others?

by dimino 11y ago

yarou 11y ago
Comcast is publicly traded. And it behaves closer to a utility more than anything else.
- dimino 11y ago
  In content production? No, it's not a utility. The ISP? Yeah, sure whatever. Not on the table right now, though. We're talking about NBCUniversal's content library. This is basically saying the US government should take over the movie making business. Why?
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    The point is to make it painful for the ISP (or meaningful parent) to own the content company, so it sure is on the table. Requiring divestiture is a frequent thing in mergers, it is not nationalization.
  - yarou 11y ago
    When you are talking about "Comcast" as a business entity, those are one and the same. Comcast has a natural monopoly because of its utility status, and a result of those network effects, can enjoy a free distribution network. You don't think that should be regulated? Edit: autocorrect fail
    - strange_quark 11y ago
      Not NBCUniversal. Why should it? Would you be ok with forcing Netflix or HBO to license their content for $0 as the parent suggested?
- adventured 11y ago
  The parent comment likely meant private as in non-government (I doubt they were unaware Comcast is publicly traded). Being traded on a stock index has nothing to do with that, you're still wholly owned by private shareholders. Property rights don't vaporize just because you do an IPO. By current law Comcast is not in fact a utility - they offer a utility product that is regulated by the FCC, there's a critical difference between those two concepts.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    I'm proposing regulating the meaningful operator of the ISP business and saying that they are not allowed to set a price for customers of their content business. If they want to sell off the content business, I expect they would still get the market price for their property. The point is to enjoin the cable company from leveraging content to make competitive offerings less attractive.
    - dimino 11y ago
      This has nothing to do with the ISP arm of Comcast, and everything to do with you wanting content without paying for it.
      - maxerickson 11y ago
        I really don't understand how you got that idea. I really don't. I just don't want a corporate entity that owns an ISP to be allowed to own content production companies. You're riding a ballistic missile (rather than making a leap) to get to me wanting to get content without paying for it.
        dimino 11y ago
        And I don't want the next two Avatar movies to get made, but I'm not the one advocating we get the US government to enforce such a thing. It makes zero sense for the US government to get involved in this deal.
maxerickson 11y ago
Yep. They are a bit of a special case in that they often enjoy protection from competition in their cable business, so such a rule might make more sense attached to that (which would be nice for the satellite operators). I don't really buy the story that an ever bigger Comcast does the public in general any good at all (there would be plenty of investment in the cable space if there were 20 companies operating). The basic premise of a corporation is that it is beneficial to afford the shareholders some extra protection to encourage investment, so I'm fine drawing lines that I don't think will hurt investment but will probably benefit or protect the public.
- dimino 11y ago
  You're talking about nationalizing NBCUniversal.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    How do you figure? Under my proposed rule, the people who own it now are free to meaningfully split it off from Comcast and operate it as a content production company, probably with Comcast as a customer. No national ownership involved at all. I'm certainly talking about restricting what we allow privileged capital structures to do.
    - dimino 11y ago
      No, under your proposed rule NBCUniversal would be forced to share the content it spends millions of dollars creating for free with its competitors because of a government mandate. This isn't divesture, this is nationalization. You're forcing a company's investments into the public's hands.
      - maxerickson 11y ago
        They have the option of splitting the ownership! It would be incredibly foolish not to take that option. But that is sort of the point.
nitrogen 11y ago
Compulsory licensing already exists for music covers. Why not for mass market video?
- dimino 11y ago
  Profit motivation. Do you really think Comcast just can't help but make TV shows and movies, like musicians can't help but make music? You're basically ripping out the budget from the hands of producers and directors, for absolutely no reason. People are willing to pay, it's a completely optional resource that impacts in no way the quality of one's overall health, why the hell would we regulate something like this? Not seeing a movie/TV show is just not a big deal, certainly not a big enough deal to have the US government force content producers to share their IP...
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    No, I think all IP (at least above a certain scale) should come with compulsory licensing, with RAND or better terms. Then I could, in theory, pay directly for any TV show in an amount commensurate to the advertising revenue my viewing would generate, as could any streaming provider, cable/satellite network, etc.
oldmanjay 11y ago
Never underestimate the logical contortions people can make when they want free entertainment.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  It's not about free content, I know I put the $0 up there in the comment and it makes it hard to read the rest of it, but it's about ownership structures. I made a ~dozen comments explaining myself before you posted this snipe.

You would legally force a private company to share its property with others?

by dimino 11y ago

You would legally force a private company to share its property with others?

yarou 11y ago

Comcast is publicly traded. And it behaves closer to a utility more than anything else.

dimino 11y ago
In content production? No, it's not a utility. The ISP? Yeah, sure whatever. Not on the table right now, though. We're talking about NBCUniversal's content library. This is basically saying the US government should take over the movie making business. Why?
- maxerickson 11y ago
  The point is to make it painful for the ISP (or meaningful parent) to own the content company, so it sure is on the table. Requiring divestiture is a frequent thing in mergers, it is not nationalization.
- yarou 11y ago
  When you are talking about "Comcast" as a business entity, those are one and the same. Comcast has a natural monopoly because of its utility status, and a result of those network effects, can enjoy a free distribution network. You don't think that should be regulated? Edit: autocorrect fail
  - strange_quark 11y ago
    Not NBCUniversal. Why should it? Would you be ok with forcing Netflix or HBO to license their content for $0 as the parent suggested?
adventured 11y ago
The parent comment likely meant private as in non-government (I doubt they were unaware Comcast is publicly traded). Being traded on a stock index has nothing to do with that, you're still wholly owned by private shareholders. Property rights don't vaporize just because you do an IPO. By current law Comcast is not in fact a utility - they offer a utility product that is regulated by the FCC, there's a critical difference between those two concepts.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  I'm proposing regulating the meaningful operator of the ISP business and saying that they are not allowed to set a price for customers of their content business. If they want to sell off the content business, I expect they would still get the market price for their property. The point is to enjoin the cable company from leveraging content to make competitive offerings less attractive.
  - dimino 11y ago
    This has nothing to do with the ISP arm of Comcast, and everything to do with you wanting content without paying for it.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      I really don't understand how you got that idea. I really don't. I just don't want a corporate entity that owns an ISP to be allowed to own content production companies. You're riding a ballistic missile (rather than making a leap) to get to me wanting to get content without paying for it.
      - dimino 11y ago
        And I don't want the next two Avatar movies to get made, but I'm not the one advocating we get the US government to enforce such a thing. It makes zero sense for the US government to get involved in this deal.

maxerickson 11y ago

Yep. They are a bit of a special case in that they often enjoy protection from competition in their cable business, so such a rule might make more sense attached to that (which would be nice for the satellite operators). I don't really buy the story that an ever bigger Comcast does the public in general any good at all (there would be plenty of investment in the cable space if there were 20 companies operating). The basic premise of a corporation is that it is beneficial to afford the shareholders some extra protection to encourage investment, so I'm fine drawing lines that I don't think will hurt investment but will probably benefit or protect the public.

dimino 11y ago
You're talking about nationalizing NBCUniversal.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  How do you figure? Under my proposed rule, the people who own it now are free to meaningfully split it off from Comcast and operate it as a content production company, probably with Comcast as a customer. No national ownership involved at all. I'm certainly talking about restricting what we allow privileged capital structures to do.
  - dimino 11y ago
    No, under your proposed rule NBCUniversal would be forced to share the content it spends millions of dollars creating for free with its competitors because of a government mandate. This isn't divesture, this is nationalization. You're forcing a company's investments into the public's hands.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      They have the option of splitting the ownership! It would be incredibly foolish not to take that option. But that is sort of the point.

nitrogen 11y ago

Compulsory licensing already exists for music covers. Why not for mass market video?

dimino 11y ago
Profit motivation. Do you really think Comcast just can't help but make TV shows and movies, like musicians can't help but make music? You're basically ripping out the budget from the hands of producers and directors, for absolutely no reason. People are willing to pay, it's a completely optional resource that impacts in no way the quality of one's overall health, why the hell would we regulate something like this? Not seeing a movie/TV show is just not a big deal, certainly not a big enough deal to have the US government force content producers to share their IP...
- nitrogen 11y ago
  No, I think all IP (at least above a certain scale) should come with compulsory licensing, with RAND or better terms. Then I could, in theory, pay directly for any TV show in an amount commensurate to the advertising revenue my viewing would generate, as could any streaming provider, cable/satellite network, etc.

oldmanjay 11y ago

Never underestimate the logical contortions people can make when they want free entertainment.

maxerickson 11y ago
It's not about free content, I know I put the $0 up there in the comment and it makes it hard to read the rest of it, but it's about ownership structures. I made a ~dozen comments explaining myself before you posted this snipe.