Content Delivery Networks

7Competition and the Regulatory Environment

In the preceding chapter I touched on several fairly sensitive aspects of the handling of content. In particular, DRM conversations can be fraught with strong opinions. But the topic is much broader than that. To really understand some of the historic evolution of the regulations that streaming and online content delivery engineers have to understand, one has to take a very encompassing view.

When I started webcasting, it was immediately apparent that I was entering a brave new world. There was a complete and utter sense of pioneering. The people who were interested and focusing on the technology were few and far between, and in terms of any regulation we were it. The only real regulation was one of our peers looking at what we were broadcasting or how we were using technology and sucking a tooth. The “policy” was highly opinionated and fell to each individual.

At the time the advertising standards bodies, the music licensing, the pornography “monitors” … none of them had a strategy. Webcasts were open to tobacco funding, to running adult content 24/7, to streaming betting services from overseas, etc.

Sadly, I am not that “bad boy” – but I know so many groups and individuals who suddenly had unregulated businesses with access to vast new markets.

Particularly with porn, but also with betting and other content genres, the problem everywhere was that the companies were unable to prevent their competition taking market share from them. ...