In last week’s post, I discussed the MPAA’s petition for waiver of the FCC’s ban on selectable output control (SOC).

At the end, I suggested that one possible outcome is that a content provider could shut down ALL your existing standardized output plugs, forcing you to buy a new TV, DVD player, and DVR with a special “MPAA-approved” connector plug in order to view their content.

To some people, it might have sounded like FUD, but this time the truth comes a little close for comfort.

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The reason, incidentally, that I was in Korea last week wasn’t just to attend the Seoul Ministerial, but to moderate a panel at the Civil Society Stakeholder Forum this past Monday. Due to the vagaries of the air transport system, I arrived a bit late to my panel—by about twelve hours or so.

I had been asked to introduce the topic of convergence, open standards, and network neutrality—a broad topic—and had prepped a short piece to open the panel and introduce the panelists—who, by all accounts, gave fascinating presentations that I would gladly have given up my hotel and meal vouchers to have seen.

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Recently, I was in South Korea, attending the OECD’s Ministerial on the Future of the Internet Economy. Rather than try to give a blow-by-blow account, I’ve tried to package some of my thoughts in a series of posts. Here’s one:

A few days ago, I picked on Chairman Martin’s speech at the plenary session of the OECD Seoul Ministerial. Among the various deregulatory policies Martin cited as enhancing competition (and thus the United States’ position in terms of broadband pricing and deployment) was the removal of unbundling requirements for broadband.

Martin used the removal of unbundling requirements as one of many examples in creating a (false, I think) dichotomy between competition and regulation.

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Here I go again, trying to be constructive. But before I get there…

This Isn’t About You

I’d like to know what it would take to convince you, a visual artist, alive and creating today, that orphan works policy was not meant to apply to you? There are clearly tens of thousands of artists who are being scared out of the woodwork to write their representatives to stop orphan works legislation. If you’re one of these artist, who are savvy enough to know how to go to a website and click a button to write your member of Congress, then more than likely, if someone wants to use your work, they’re going to find you. Why? Because you exist. You’re with-it enough to be part of this debate, which in all likelihood means that after a user puts effort into finding you, you will actually be found.

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After graduating from college in 2005, I spent a year living in a small fishing village in Aomori Prefecture, on the northern tip of Japan’s main island, Honshu. Aomori is one of Japan’s poorest and most rural prefectures and its defining characteristics are cold weather, mountains and a lot of snow (I often jokingly refer to it as the “Wyoming of Japan”). My apartment in Aomori was lacking a number of amenities that we Americans take for granted—air conditioning, central heating and insulation being the most notable among them. One thing that I did have, however, was a 100 Mbps fiber-optic Internet connection, for which I paid the equivalent of around $30 USD per month. Fast forward to today. Verizon, the first major U.S. carrier to roll out fiber-to-the-home, has started selling its FiOS Internet service in a handful of U.S. markets. Unfortunately, you can’t yet get FiOS in places like Wyoming—so far, deployments have been mostly limited to urban areas like New York City and the suburbs of Washington D.C. You also can’t get 100 Mbps service—FiOS currently tops off at 50 Mbps. And how much, you ask, does that 50 Mbps service cost? $144.95 per month.

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