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Comcast Seeking Control of Both Pipes and Content?

Posted by timothy on from the some-of-each-perhaps dept.

techmuse writes "Reuters reports that Comcast may be attempting to use its huge cash reserves to purchase a large media content provider, such as Disney, Viacom, or Time Warner. This would result in Comcast controlling both the delivery mechanism for content, and the content itself. Potentially, it could limit access to content it owns to subscribers to its own services, thus shutting out competing services (where they still exist at all)."

7 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Bad timing by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We can only hope that they're one Administration too late to pull it off.

    1. Re:Bad timing by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yah right, all they need to do is say that it will get them more money to either A) expand broadband or B) create more jobs, and you can bet that it will be accepted.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:Bad timing by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, historically Democrats are in bed with the Hollywood types so it's not a certain thing that media owners might not see some love too.

      But besides that I blame this on google. Yes google and their don't be evil motto. Seems like there's this fixed amount of evil and if one company tries not to use evil then it just accumulates somewhere else.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    3. Re:Bad timing by Nyeerrmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A competitive company making money by producing a product that people are willing to use/pay for without coercion is not a bad thing.

      However, a state-granted monopoly on common household services that makes obscene amounts of money by overcharging for said services and not developing the infrastructure is a bad thing. Internet services are more than a mere convenience in the modern world, and should be treated as a utility like power and water. Cable television is obviously less critical, although it should still be regulated more firmly since they are granted that monopoly. I'm a registered Republican and all for pro-business legislation and minimization of regulation where appropriate, but when there is no free market, you have to regulate it to protect consumers since they can't choose another option.

    4. Re:Bad timing by jaycagey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Business != Conservative

      Just because people are in business does not mean they're conservative. In fact, one would expect liberal-dominated industries to attract business-minded liberals. A quick look at opensecrets.org shows that donations from the "TV/Music/Movies" category go overwhelmingly to the Democrats. This category represents employees of entertainment companies (rather than the artists who contract with them) so it would cover all those supposedly 'conservative' executives. In 2008, donations went 78% to Democrats and 22% to Republican. In 2004, at the height of the Republican tide, it was still 69% Dem - 30% Rep

      If you break it down to the sub-categories, it gets even more lopsided. The 2008 percentages (Democrat - Republican):

      The only subcategory that shows anything near parity is Commercial TV and Radio stations with 53 - 47. Presumably this includes all those local TV stations in 'flyover country'.

      So no, Hollywood is not divided politically, even among the non-artists it's overwhelmingly Democrat.

  2. Hacker ethic, arise once more. by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's clear that our strength is technology and our weakness is the legal system. The legal system will always be in favor of those with deep pockets and have (at best) a tenuous grip on the ethical and moral considerations of the larger society. It's become so ineffective, insepid and innane as to become harmful to society -- Forget them. Laws do not govern moral conduct and never have. Integrity has no need of rules! But that's just a stop-gap. We need new technology -- and I think we need to go back to the basics to get there.

    We need to bring the internet back as a peer-to-peer exchange, but to do that we're going to need to create protocols that are specifically designed to resist attack and interference from intermediaries. The original concept of the internet was based on a flawed model that the network could be trusted to deliver packets from point A to point B using the same logic throughout; It was assumed that the network would be managed by a central authority. This hasn't been the case for awhile, and now we are seeing an increasing desire to bend and break the original standards to serve commercial interests. The protocols must be redesigned to only present the minimal amount of information necessary -- the source and destination, and the actual payload encrypted and made tamper-evident.

    To hell with demands that we have protocols with data exposed for "law enforcement", "national security" or "protecting the children" or any other specious argument. The ultimate expression of democracy is the free flow of information between citizens, and that's an ideal that comes ahead of all other considerations: We need to make a conscious and deliberate choice to accept the risks that come in embracing those early ideals, and not let the edge cases (terrorism, sexual predators, and elvis) sway us from the immense benefits of doing this. If the signal is to travel at all, it must travel freely.

    If this doesn't come to pass then our future as a democratic society is at an end. Democracy is more important to me (and I hope you as well) than my personal safety or material comforts. A free and open communication medium between all members of society must be a universal, because it's the only way to maximize our individual and collective potentials. This is another step in a slow descent into a life we do not want, and we won't notice until it's too late how much we've lost.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  3. Re:FCC! Now! by copponex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The FCC has no interest in protecting individual rights or promoting a competitive market. They are there to sell off public assets to private corporations, and enforce rules and fines to ensure societal conformity to the morals of politically important voting blocs.

    If Comcast is prevented from acquiring someone due to federal interference, they will probably sue because they will claim that the free market is being tampered with. Just like any corporation, their definition of free market has nothing to do with the liberty of individuals to have access to a competitive market system. It has to do with the corporate right to be unbound by any rules and have the freedom to stifle competition and destroy the market for their own profit.

    To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the publick; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens... It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it. --Adam Smith