With broadcasting available on cell phones, iPods and computer screens, "having a cup of coffee with your morning paper no longer requires any paper," said Tony Varona, a professor at the Washington College of Law at a panel on media convergence last week.
Panelists discussed whether old government regulations apply to the modern media age.
With mass media companies consolidating, Neal Goldberg, a member of the General Council of the National Cable Telecommunications Association, said the government should minimize economic regulations while leaving community service requirements found in the Public Trustee Doctrine.
Television and radio stations are granted licenses over airwaves from the Federal Communications Commission at no cost in return for airing programming in the public interest, Verona said.
In the past, licenses were limited because the radio frequency spectrum was scarce, but due to technological advances that is no longer true, according to Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, an advocacy group for technology innovation and fair use of public information.
Sohn said broadcast companies should not own exclusive rights to the waves. She said she was a lot more willing to trust the marketplace than the government to regulate programming.
Regulatory successes include closed captioning and restriction of advertisement during children's programming, according to Jeffrey Cross, senior vice president of legal affairs for Discovery Communications.
Cross said that cable companies such as the Discovery Channel, should regulate themselves because government regulations cannot catch up with rapid changes in technology. He complained that regulations unfairly gave an advantage to broadcast companies over cable. "Let's all compete based on our content," Cross said.
The FCC should reverse the rule forbidding newspapers from owning broadcast stations in the same market, according to Richard Wiley, former chairman and general counsel of the FCC. Wiley said that newspapers are superior to broadcast stations in covering local news.
Panelists also discussed Google Print, an online book search, and the right of authors to protect content on the Internet. Sohn said the government should not require broadcast flags, which would prevent media content from being distributed over the Internet. She said Google Print should be protected under fair use doctrine. Wiley, however, argued that the project broke copyright laws.
"There were a lot of points I would like to know more about," said Rani Sengottaiyan, a first year law student who attended the panel. Sengottaiyan said she wished the panel had addressed other issues, such as program content, which she said should be regulated on public airways.
