I’m continuing to track the EU’s move to regulate Internet videobloggers via the “Television without Frontiers (TVwF)” regulatory plan. Help fight back.

Bryan Preston:

Some might argue in the EU’s defense that what it’s doing is no different from what the FCC does and has done for decades with respect to broadcast spectrum space. But that is an apples and oranges comparison. When broadcast technology was first invented and when radio stations began to appear, there was only one spectrum space available to them. It’s what we know as AM, for Amplitude Modulation, today. As more and more stations appeared, chaos ensued. Stations in different cities were broadcasting on the same frequencies, there were stations out of Mexico that were broadcasting at 500,000 watts on the same frequencies of some US stations and drowning them out, and it quickly became apparent that if there wasn’t some regulation of the limited available spectrum space, radio would soon turn into a wall of noise and interference.

Coupled with that, the government recognized the usefulness of of reserving some spectrum space for police, fire, rescue, the military, public broadcasting, etc. So the government began to regulate how the spectrum space, which it regarded as public property, would be used–what frequencies would be available for which kinds of broadcasts, what tower wattages would be available, and so forth. It was about bringing some order to chaos, in the initial years. Like all government agencies, the FCC has experienced some mission creep, but its initial reason to be was to impose some order on broadcasting so that it could grow and thrive as an industry.

The EU’s “Television Without Frontiers” effort isn’t about any of that. There is no limited spectrum space on the Internet, and as long as domain name regulation remains in force there’s no worry of one web TV station stepping on the signal of any other. The EU’s effort is all about grabbing power and dictating what is and isn’t acceptable speech. They don’t even attempt to hide their intentions, but openly state that they want to stamp out “hate speech.” Well, hate speech is in the eyes of the beholder, and you can be sure that the Brussels bureaucrats who will be in charge of the TWF will not play fair.

In some ways, the TWF is analogous to the current drive to bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine in the US. That effort is about anything but fairness. Fairness is letting all voices be heard and seeing which ones find an audience and which ones don’t. The Fairness Doctrine imposes speech codes that stifle free speech. And so will the TWF stifle free speech, if it’s allowed to become the law of Europe.

CNET rounds up Internet reaction. Patrick Ross at the Progress and Freedom Foundation points out:

…[A]nything less restrictive than the current proposal is preferable to the current proposal being adopted by the Parliament and implemented by EU member states. The time is now, however, as numerous EU committees are examining the proposed directive and will begin releasing proposals soon.

Modern Europe has embraced to a large extent the nanny state that Hayek warned against in “The Road to Serfdom” (although his target audience for that book was the UK intelligentsia, and it appears that nation has resisted nannyism better than its continental compatriots). But the irony here is that TVwF is part of the EU’s Lisbon agenda, a goal to catch up to the US in productivity by 2010 through embracing the digital world. Imposing burdensome regulations on new media in Europe will only serve to retard economic growth and productivity, continuing the stagnation that continent has endured throughout this decade.

The 463 blog, an inside tech blog, has been monitoring the regulatory plans.

As I note today at Hot Air, which might one day be required to obtain a license to broadcast, the price of Internet freedom is eternal vigilance. Stay informed.

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EU wants to stifle videobloggers

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