Reason: Do you think the current copyright extensions are legitimate?
Powell: I'm not a copyright expert. I have no interest in becoming a place to resolve digital copyright issues more broadly.
Now, the broadcast flag is about a very specific problem associated with the transition to digital television. To me that has a greater good associated with it, which is recouping $70 billion of [spectrum] assets to deploy at a higher and better use.
Reason: Are you going to be able to stop digital piracy of copyrighted materials?
Powell: You'll never stop free downloading, but can iTunes be compelling enough to restrict the bleeding enough to create a rough balance? The copying machine lets you copy a book, but there are certain transaction costs and barriers. I still think the vast majority of people want to do things legally, and if it's cheap and compelling enough, they'll do it legally. Millions of consumers still buy DVDs quite happily, so I don't think the answer is you've got to stop everything. I think the answer is you have to deter the most egregious abuses so that the producers will continue to produce.
Reason: Let's turn that around. Can you have enough piracy to get big content promoters to give people the things they want?
Powell: Well, I think the music industry is a beautiful case in point. They might kill me for saying so, but I think [Napster inventor] Shawn Fanning did America a service. If Napster hadn't woken them up, I don't think you would have had MP3 players. I don't think you would've had iTunes. I don't think you would've had the iPod. I don't think you would've had the idea of the single-song transaction.
There's a long tradition of that in communication technology. If you didn't have Bill McGowan breaking the law, you would've never had MCI. You would've never had a competitive long-distance industry. If you didn't have [Dish Network founder] Charlie Ergen, who dared to say "I'm going to pop up a few satellites and challenge broadcasters in a different way...."
What's bright about this future is there's so much more power in radical innovators and their work that there'll be constant new challenges to innovate or die.
Reason: Two weeks ago the FCC approved the FBI request to permit wiretapping of voice-over-Internet calls, even though the law clearly exempts the Internet.
Powell: Tentatively concluded. An important distinction.
Reason: What was the rationale for that, if the Internet is exempted?
Powell: The question presented to us was, could something be a telecommunications service under the provisions of digital wiretap law even if ultimately it became an information service under the Telecom Act--two different statutes? The tentative conclusion was it could be.
Reason: Everyone's saying you've bent over backward because you want the Department of Justice to support your appeal on the Brand X Internet Services decision, which would have permitted regulation of cable modems. Is that what's going on here?
Powell: I think that's too cynical, but parts of it are true. The Brand X decision is the scariest and worst decision that exists on the books today for the future of the Internet. I think it's been underobserved and underappreciated how dangerous it is. It says that every Internet transport provider just became a telephone company. That means broadband over power line, that means WiFi, that means ultrawideband, third generation wireless. The costs to consumers in the cable industry alone are breathtaking.
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