In fact, as the statistics I have cited clearly demonstrate, the web audience is growing without any regulatory favoritism. Our sole concern is to have a level playing field to compete with established forms of mass media. We are not asking for government regulation or intervention and believe none is required at this time when the marketplace is finding new ways to meet consumer appetite for interactive online news and entertainment products. We are simply asking that all laws passed be technologically neutral and that Congress refrain from erecting special barriers to digital distribution simply because it is digital, without thinking through the implications for the important policy goals served by online media. The impressive growth of streaming on the Internet demonstrates consumer demand for online audio and visual content.
People today expect to find radio shows and film clips on web sites.
By its nature, the Internet is an unscheduled interactive medium that offers consumers more choice and more voices. Clearly, this medium dovetails with our longheld public policy principles of free speech and breaking content distribution bottlenecks. Much like Cable Access, Low Power TV and the old-fashioned soapbox, streaming media promotes localism and presents a platform for more speakers to reach the general public. The challenge in creating a compulsory license for the Internet is not to shoehorn the Internet into local topographies, but to fairly compensate program owners for the distribution of their content beyond the boundaries of their terrestrial signals. The technology allows a soccer fan in the U.S. to watch a World Cup match in France in real time over a modem.