Towards a Political Economy of the Internet: The Cultural Industries and Upcoming Forms of Regulation and Self-Regulation

Abstract

This paper sets out a analytical framework to explore the relations between Internet actors, technical and software instruments of control and the regulatory environment supporting, questioning or regulating the use of these instruments. We introduce six abstract dimensions of control which are characteristic for the Internet space. These different dimensions of control are: 1) control over space—who can access content from where, 2) control over time — who can access content when, 3) control over speed — who can have access at what speed, 4) control over quality — who can access what quality, 5) control over access—who can access what content, 6) control over attention — who can influence what users see. The framework will be validated by way of the cultural industries and more particular the movie and TV sector — we will refer to this as the video industry. Especially after the bad experience the music industry has had with Internet piracy, the movie and television industry are moving strongly in the direction of DRM and other techniques to protect their content. Furthermore this sector is characterised by business models which rely on versioning — cinema, pay TV, DVD, TV — and geographic windowing e.g. for television productions — home country and then abroad, which risk to be undercut by the Internet. The video industry has therefore a strong interest in keeping these types of systems in place, also in a digital environment. We will discuss how they are trying to do that by using what instruments. Apart from this we will look at the role of ISPs and how they exert control over certain dimensions.