Hello, I havent finished reading the document yet, but from what Ive read so far the key is the scope, and they certainly dont want to include all uk youtubers etc in this, especially as this is a more pro-active form of regulation than the FTC stuff in that VOD broadcasters have to register as being such with the regulators.
Its basically aimed at online equivalents of TV networks/broadcasters. Again there are probably some murky areas where only time will tell how this is handled, eg if you produce a heck of a lot of content that is 'tv show-like' and have tons of viewers then its possible you'd start to slip within their scope. That could get quite messy as there is more regulatory burden with these rules than the FTC stuff, but as the regulator themselves likely dont want this burden any more than the creators, this scenario may well never happen. Maybe there will be a test case at some point which will allow these issues to be explored with more concrete detail, maybe not, anyway as the UK rules are based on EU legislation I would be keen to know the detail of how other EU countries have implemented this stuff within their own national laws. Certainly if the scope of these rules ended up being very broad and encompassed the uk vlogosphere, then the fact that a collection of companies from the industry get to do some of the regulating would become a huge issue. The idea of these corps policing the little man would crate a big stink, and the companies, the government regulator and the masses would have a nightmare on their hands. But I take this as a sign that thats not a scenerio they want to get into with this regulation, rather than a sign that the government & corps want to bind & crush us. Regarding my failure to take slippery slope concepts seriously, I do not completely rule out that things are sometimes just 'the tip of the iceberg'. But as its possible to imagine icebergs everywhere, in every area of life, politics, policy law, every time someone suggested doing anything pro-active at all, I prefer not to get carried away with hyping the threat. I think I recently rad a US news item about a man who was doing census work for the fed who ended up dead, and some people were suggesting that a right wing blogger who had implied that census data was being collected with the purpose of putting US citizens in concentration camps in future, was a potential factor in the sort of anti-fed sentiment that can sometimes go too far and lead to loss of life. Having said all that, on occasions in the past where some were predicting or fearing that corporations will try to crush vloggers ability to vlog, I suggested it was more likely that government would be more likely to impose restrictions on vvloggers than corporations, although that was partly because I have trouble with the idea that corporations see indy vloggers as a threat to their domination. Cheers Steve Elbows --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Jay dedman <jay.ded...@...> wrote: > > > In the context of the recent discussion about the FTC clampdown on > > "blogola" and, in particular, the mud being thrown from across > > the pond at the idea of slippery slopes, I note these new rules soon > > to come in to force in the UK. > > http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/vod/ > > I'd like to hear what the folks from Britain have to say about their own rule. > > Jay > > -- > http://ryanishungry.com > http://jaydedman.com > http://twitter.com/jaydedman > 917 371 6790 >
