Jeff Pulver is launching a “Video on the Net Alliance” to advocate on behalf of the Internet video industry, focusing on educating the industry, users and government about the promise of Internet video and the best policy framework to foster innovation and evolution of Internet video.
“It is essential that we, the members of the Internet video community, dive into the political and policy debates shaping the future of the Internet, video, media and entertainment,” said Jonathan Askin, cofounder and Executive Director of the Alliance. “If we don’t engage government, rules will be established by those without all the necessary information and without the best interests of the Internet video industry and users.”
Separately, Pulver’s Network2.tv company filed a petition with the FCC seeking a declaratory ruling that Internet Video is not subject to regulation under Title III or Title VI of the Communications Act.
“Internet Video shares none of the conditions that provided the basis for traditional broadcast and cable regulation. From a technical standpoint, Internet Video is simply a piece of code, a software application riding over the Internet Protocol. Internet Video is not tied to underlying network infrastructure in the same ways that cable and broadcast-based video content currently is tethered,” said Jeff Pulver.
http://www.pulver.com
- In February 2004, the FCC voted 4-to-1 to approve a Declaratory Ruling that pulver.com’s Free World Dialup (FWD) service is neither a “telecommunications service�? nor “telecommunications,�? and therefore not subject to traditional telephone regulation. The FCC also declared FWD to be an unregulated information service that is subject to federal jurisdiction. Pulver’s FWD allowed users of broadband Internet access services to make VoIP or other types of peer-to-peer communications directly to other FWD members, without charge.
- The Pulver VoIP ruling was seen as formalizing the Commission’s policy of “non-regulation” of the Internet and, in so doing, preserves the Internet as a free and open platform for innovation.