Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 10:29 AM PT

 

Congressman-Cam Debuts on YouTube

Forget C-SPAN: Massachussets Rep. Ed Markey kicked off a House telecommunications and Internet subcommittee hearing on “the future of video” in fine DIY fashion, with a “chairman-cam” clip that his staff quickly posted to YouTube.

“The fact that any consumer can be a programmer and get their video content up on the web is changing the way the industry works,” Markey said. “Anyone can put their video up on YouTube and we’re going to prove that.”

I asked a friend going to school in Washington, D.C. to take notes on the hearing, which addressed a variety of concerns about how legislation and the video industry will interact.

HDNet co-founder Mark Cuban emphasized infrastructure problems, concluding “the internet is not prepared to take on what digital video is calling for.”

Talking up the Slingbox being used everyone from servicepeople in Iraq to a TV station in San Francisco, Sling Media CEO Blake Krikorian testified, “This is one of the technologies that turns local to global, and thank heaven for the regulations of fair use.”

Phil Rosenthal, who created Everybody Loves Raymond and was representing the Writers’ Guild and Screen Actors Guild, expressed his concern about product placement entering plotlines, effectively “turning the shows themselves into commercials.”

Further testimony came from YouTube CEO Chad Hurley, TiVo CEO Thomas Rodgers, and Disney, ESPN Networks President Ben Pyne, and QUALCOMM MediaFLO USA President Gina Lombardi, but unfortunately my friend had to get to class! We’ll check back on the committee website for an archived webcast.

Update: There’s additional YouTube coverage of the hearing, including a sit-down interview between Markey and Hurley. (Thanks Sean! More videos of the testimony coming at The 463 blog.)

Update 2: Here’s the archived video webcast.

With help from Paul Kapustka and Sabina Henneberg.

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Comments & Trackbacks

  1. [...] still pretty good: Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee has a post up about a House of Congress committee hearing on telecom and the Internet (including testimony from Mark Cuban and Chad Hurley, among others), and it starts [...]

    Congress discovers YouTube » mathewingram.com/media on May 10th, 2007 at 11:39 am - Permalink
  2. Nice to see Congress getting into the DIY crowd. I sure hope this doesn’t confuse them more.

    Tim Street on May 10th, 2007 at 12:40 pm - Permalink
  3. [...] Congressman-Cam Debuts on YouTube: NewTeeVee [...]

    Zatz Not Funny!»Blog Archive » Digital Media Bytes: Capitol Hill Edition on May 11th, 2007 at 7:52 am - Permalink
  4. Wow. Funny guy! Someone needs to tech him how to hold the camera steady, though, eh? Ah… user-created content. sighs

    Mark Schoneveld on May 11th, 2007 at 8:14 am - Permalink
  5. Thanks, Liz. Now, nearly all of the hearing is up at The 463 is YouTubed, bite-sized chunks. (Click my name below for the link.)

    Sean Garrett on May 11th, 2007 at 7:38 pm - Permalink
  6. [...] issue is popping up all over the place this week. At the congressional hearings on video last week, Phil Rosenthal denounced “product integration,” where writers and actors end [...]

    NewTeeVee » What Role Should Product Placement Play? on May 17th, 2007 at 12:59 pm - Permalink
  7. [...] See also: paidContent, IP Democracy, NewTeeVee [...]

    » NewTube goes to Washington | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com on May 24th, 2007 at 12:29 pm - Permalink

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