The Powers That Be

Google sent a letter to the FCC to open the white spaces in the UHF band. Microsoft is cooperating with Google in fighting with the FCC. Last year the FCC tested their cognitive radio technology and concluded that interference could not be avoided, but Bill Gates insists that it is possible to allocate the white spaces to Wi-Fi and other broadband radio technologies.

National Association of Broadcasting (NAB) quickly released a statement with 70 politicians that nobody can eliminate the interference completely when the white spaces are used by users without licenses. It's true nobody can guarantee something never happens. Even NAB can't guarantee that David Rehr, the President of NAB, will never be killed in a traffic accident. If so, do they demand the government to enforce everybody not to drive until the traffic accident is completely eliminated?

Japanese broadcasters also succeeded in blocking their competitors with their strong political power. There are few Multiple Systems Operators (MSO) in Japan because the licenses of cable operators were limited in a city. The transponders of broadcasting satellites were filled up by the subsidiaries of broadcasters. They insists that IP broadcasting is not broadcasting because it distributes the program on demand in the last one mile.

Since the "reporter's clubs" in the government bureaus are monopolized by newspapers and TVs that control the information of the government, media can cover up the "inconvenient truth" for them. Even worth, most TV stations' largest shareholders are newspapers, so newspapers don't criticize TVs and vice versa.

In 2006, when the Fair Trade Commission tried to remove the exception of Anti-Trust Act that enables newspapers to set retail prices by collusion, all newspapers in Japan insisted that FTC was destroying katsuji bunka (culture of movable type) and many politicians including Sanae Takaichi, a notorious fighter against the Internet who is trying to enact Communication Decency Act in Japan.

So broadcasters in Japan collude to refuse the Internet. When Livedoor, an Internet startup, tried to buy a radio station in 2005, broadcasters argued against the bid, and Takafumi Horie, the president of Livedoor, was arrested in charge of "creative accounting" at last.

All incumbent Japanese broadcasters deploy BS Conditional Access System (B-CAS) that encrypts airwaves and decrypts them with a card in the digital TV set. It's strange because the DTV is free broadcasting. Why do they encrypt the spectrum to be broadcast free? They say it implements Digital Rights Management (DRM) that permits audience to copy programs only once.

But there is no free broadcasting that restricts copying in other countries. In the United States, broadcast flag was judged illegal. In Japan, the MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication) didn't enforce the DRM, but all TV stations and TV manufacturers made a cartel to implement B-CAS, which has no legal ground.

It's funny that the president of B-CAS company is an amakudari (descendant from the parent company) from NHK, a pubic broadcasting station. NHK has been involved in serial scandals recently, but it insists that it should not be privatized. Why does NHK deploy B-CAS, a private CAS that encrypts their programs? NHK answers that it doesn't encrypt the emergency news because they are public. Does it mean the other NHK programs aren't public? It would violate the Broadcasting Act that prohibits NHK to exclude anybody from watching it.

So B-CAS might be the violation of Anti-Trust Act and the Broadcasting Act, but no media accuse it because they are affiliates of TV stations. There is no freedom of speech in Japanese media. They are often called the Fourth Estate, but in Japan they are The Powers That Be, as David Halberstam said.