The Regulatory Concept of “Platform Neutrality”: Focusing on the Competition between OTT TV and Pay TV

• Main Authors: Cheng，Ti, 鄭迪
• Other Authors: Peng，Shin-Yi
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/9273wf

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 科技法律研究所 === 103 === During the era of digital convergence, the rise of Over-the-Top TV (OTT TV) service have brought many impacts on all traditional Pay TV services particularly the steep declining of subscribers. In order to maintain the overall wellness of the industry ecosystem as well as protecting the market order, many governments tend to use different types of regulatory regimes on OTT TV services. However, no regimes have yet achieved the perfect result. Because of this, “how or what regulatory regime shall be applied?” has become a very popular topic for debating among the scholars. Basing the regulatory concept which derived from idea of “Platform Neutrality”, this paper intends to argue the possibility for Taiwanese government to apply equal force of regulatory intensity between OTT TV service and Pay TV service. The paper starts by outlining the current regulatory framework—dichotomic supervision—that Taiwanese government used and how it is applied to govern telecommunication industry. Then the paper proceeds to an analysis of how the framework leads to the development of regulatory gap between OTTV TV regulation and Pay TV regulation. Next, using as reference, the paper outlines other countries’ regulatory methods and classified them into the following categories: high regulatory intensity, low regulatory intensity, and self-regulation (or co-regulation). Afterward, the paper proceeds to explore EU’s regulatory regime—horizontal supervision—in depth and how Taiwanese government tries to resolve its own existed regulatory gap between the two services by incorporated EU’s model into its own regulatory structure but still end up with many problems. Finally, the paper first brought back the idea of “Platform Neutrality” then draws a conclusion that basing on current Taiwan civil right and society attributes for Taiwanese government to achieve applying equal regulatory intensity for both OTTV TV service and Pay TV service is nearly impossible just by copying other countries’ regime or playing with regulations. The paper suggested that for government to really achieve “Platform Neutrality” it should setup short and long term missions that focus on even-out the playing field between OTT TV services and Pay TV services. Short term goal should focusing on even out the competition between the two services which involved step-by-step deregulating of the Pay TV service and drafting incentive plans that attracts OTT TV provider to participate with the local law. Long term goal should focus on redrafting the legislature basing on the era of digital convergences.