FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is putting the final touches on a set-top box proposal that would create a central licensing agency that would oversee standards for an app-based approach to third-party access to video content.
Cable operators are not pleased, saying they are committed to licensing an app on reasonable terms, but that the FCC would create a new compulsory license.
According to an ex parte filing by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and sources talking with FCC staffers, the standards body would have years to come up with a standard license and would enforce it, though the FCC would review its work and put it out for comment.
The FCC would set the baseline terms of the license and be able to eliminate terms that did not promote device competition.
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Device makers over a certain size would be eligible for the license and could negotiate additional terms with MVPDs, who would have to develop an app for the device. If an MVPD felt the terms were not doable, it could seek a waiver from providing an app for that platform.
The license would apply to both HTML5 and non-HTML apps.
Wheeler is trying to promote a competitive set-top marketplace, so MVPD apps would have to offer parity with the consumer set-top experience to the degree technically feasible. That would include things like channel lineups and recording, the last of which MVPDs could handle via cloud DVR capability.
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Cable operators with fewer than 400,000 subs would be exempt, while those over 400,000 and less than a million would get a phase-in.
MVPDs would have to let third-party devices access consumer data, and MVPDs would have to build in an opt-in choice in the apps for sharing personal information.
NCTA pitched an apps-based approach and wants channel lineups protected, but the centralized standards body enforcing the licenses did not sit well with the trade group.
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In a meeting with FCC staffers, NCTA execs said the proposed licensing body approach is "unnecessary and unworkable; exceeds the Commission’s authority under Section 629; essentially imposes a royalty-free compulsory copyright license on MVPDs and programmers, which would also be well beyond the Commission’s authority to adopt; and raises other legal issues."
NCTA says MVPDs are committed to offering a standard license on reasonable terms, so a standards licensing body is unnecessary.
Wheeler is expected to bring up the proposal for a vote at the September meeting. Sept. 8 is the date when the FCC will circulate its tentative agenda for the meeting.
