Who owns the airwaves in the u.s

Skip to Main Content Skip to Search. News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services. Dow Jones. Opinion Read the Latest. To Read the Full Story. Posted by: Michael L. Grace June 25, In a decision with implications for the television industry, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Aereo, a start-up streaming service, had violated copyright laws by capturing broadcast signals on miniature antennas and delivering them to subscribers for a fee.

ABC v. Yet, it would be a sad day for the cause of liberty if the main remaining arguments favoring freedom became simply those showing it to be more efficient.

The major issue involved here should be a free communications system versus a controlled one. Whether radio and television are good or bad should concern us little.

Supermarkets have not destroyed the quality delicatessen stores, and mass-produced automobiles have not ruined the quality sportscar market. The result: the coming of a rival forced the BBC to begin competing for audiences by using the same type of program fare.

Yet this was only competition of a very limited kind. The government does not really own them fully, because their use has been allocated to private broadcasting by the Communications Act.

In discussing the possibility of removing federal control of the airwaves, one quickly finds himself swept into a narrow "either-or" argument. Despoilers of Public Property? It is this claim of ownership that casts the broadcaster in a role only slightly above that of a free-loader or a despoiler of public property. Side-stepping the "either-or" argument, one begins to see a possibility of reasonable solution through private ownership and control of the airwaves.

At this point you will hear the "What-about-obscenity and-sedition? The private ownership or leasing arrangement has been advocated by Professor R. Everything Else Is Limited, Too! Well, of course, that is what has already happened even under the FCC! Professor Coase answered that argument very well by pointing out that land, labor, capital, and almost everything else of commercial value is in limited supply. Indeed, if the supply were unlimited, the commercial value might not be high!

Use of the airwaves would tend to revert swiftly to those who could make the best use of it. And would not the availability of more channels eliminate for all time the often-heard complaints that wonderful programs with only 10 million viewers were removed from the programming to make way for westerns watched by 30 million viewers?

Would not broadcasters seek to serve minority audiences as they are now unable to do? Of and For the People Thus, I argue that the people and not the government ought to own the airwaves.

We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. The system that underpins wireless communication in the United States is about to dramatically change.

In a massive, complex undertaking that will be unfolding for years, the federal government will shuffle the airwaves that carry TV and wireless signals to consumers, making room for the next generation of service. Last month, the Federal Communications Commission kicked off the broadcast incentive auction, starting the chain of events that will lead to the restructuring.

By the end of the month, the FCC is expected to finish an early round of the auction, an agency spokesperson told The Verge. Here's a brief look at how the auction works, and how it'll affect you.

The broadcast incentive auction is a never-before-attempted at least, not in this way plan to free up wireless airwaves. One big reason is something called "spectrum crunch. To fight back that nightmare scenario, Congress authorized the National Broadband Plan in , tasking the FCC with conducting the auction.

By some clever rearrangement in markets around the US, airwaves set aside for TV broadcasts will be repurposed for wireless, hopefully offsetting that problem. Decades ago, the FCC freely gave away spectrum to local stations, and now they have the opportunity to sell off some space. Many will be looking at a huge pay day, either by vacating that space entirely or by doubling up through channel-sharing technology on spectrum already occupied by other stations.

It's complicated. Step one is a "reverse" auction. In your standard auction, bidders offer the maximum they're willing to pay, driving up the price of the product. In a reverse auction, or "Dutch" auction, a single buyer makes an offer of payment to multiple sellers.

The buyer slowly lowers its offer, and the sellers unwilling to sell for the lower price drop out of bidding, until a final selling price is reached.