Since Japan has decided to terminate analog broadcasting on July 24, 2011and make all the people have broadband Internet access in 2010, it needs to review legal structure for
Communications and Broadcasting in order to cope with the new ICT society.
Currently, there are four laws for broadcasting, three laws for telecommunications business, and two laws for transmission facilities. The laws include Telecommunications Business Act,
• provides NCC’s responsibilities
& relevant operating rules Telecommunications Act
Radio and TV Act Cable Radio and TV Act Satellite Broadcasting Act
• defines the principles for the responsibilities between NCC and the Executive Branch
• sets common regulatory principles for communications services
Fundamental Communications Act 2004.1
NCC Organization Act 2005.11
•provide regulations for communication & broadcasting businesses
Radio Act, Wire Telecommunications Act, Act Concerning Wire Broadcasting Telephones Business, Laws and Ordinances concerning Measures against Illegal and harmful information, Broadcast Act, Act to Regulate the Operation of the Cable Radio Broadcasting Services, Cable Television
Broadcast Act, and Act Concerning Broadcast on Telecommunication Services. Before the
Democratic Party took the helm in August 2009, Japan planned to integrate these nine laws into one.
However, on March 5, Japan announced that it would realign eight laws concerning
communications and broadcasting into four laws (Radio Netherland Worldwide, March 3, 2010).
Unlike Taiwan, Japan started a converged law framework working group to give the
governments directions. The former Minister of MIC Takenaka took the initiative in 2006. He organized a panel for the Comprehensive Legal Structure of Information and Communication in January 2006. The following were the timetable for the preparation of the converged law framework.
Table 1 Timetable for the preparation of the converged law framework (Japan) Time Task
January 2006
Former MIC minister Takenaka formed a Panel to study the convergence issues.
June 2006 The Panel on Frameworks of
Communications and Broadcasting submitted report.
June 2006 Agreement between the Government and the Ruling parties on Regulatory Frameworks for Communications and Broadcasting was reached.
July 2006 The LDP and the MIC released the Joint Paper.
August 2006 Study Group on a Comprehensive Legal System for Telecommunications and
Broadcasting was formed.
September 2006
Process program regarding the reform of Communication and broadcasting fields June 2007 The Interim report was released.
December 2007
Study Group on a Comprehensive Legal System for Communications and
Broadcasting submitted final report.
February 2008
Had consultation with the Telecommunications Council on Comprehensive Legal System for Communications and Broadcasting March 2008 The Second Study Group was formed.
June 2008 Invited public comment—Interim Report by Panel on Issues
December 2008
Summarized as “Discussion Agenda on Comprehensive legal System for Communications and Broadcasting”
August 2009 The Telecommunication Council (at the MIC) authorized the final report from the Second Study Group.
September 2009
The LDP left and the Democratic Party took the helm and organized a new Cabinet.
March 2010 Realign eight laws into four laws May 2010 The MIC Minister submitted the New
Broadcasting Law to the Diet.
May 2010 The New Broadcasting Law was passed in the House of Representatives.
November 2010
The New Broadcasting Law was passed in the House of Councilors.
Sources; Sugaya (2009); Sugaya (2010); MIC website; NHK website.
The above records can be found on the MIC website. In the beginning, the broadcasting industry opposed to adopt the converged framework, because they were afraid that many new comers would come in the market and share their advertising revenues. Also, they were afraid that they would be asked to transform from vertical structure to horizontal structure (i.e. give up the transmission part to be the content provider to follow the layer model). It took the government some time to work with different stakeholders.
The MIC held 20 meetings of Study Group on a Comprehensive Legal System for
telecommunications and broadcasting since August 2006 in order to study the legal system for convergence of communications and broadcasting. The Study Group compiled its final report at the 20th meeting in December 2007 and gave the following recommendations (MIC
Communications News, Feb. 8, 2008).
1. Recognizing the necessity to undertake a fundamental revision of the legal system for telecommunications and broadcasting
“Vertical structure” limits markets and usage patterns according to the physical attributes of each medium. “Horizontal (layer) structure” would enable free combinations of networks and contents.
The industry can create new services and new markets by building a horizontal business model that goes beyond existing vertical media. Therefore, the government can consider changing the current vertical structure to a layered structure and unifying the current legal systems into a single
“Information and Communications Law”.
2. Legal system for content
The Final Report of the Study Group divided the contents into two types: items that are not open in nature such as the specified communications between people (i.e. personal correspondence) and items that are open in nature. For the non-open nature content, safeguarding confidentiality in transmissions has to be assured. For the open nature content, there are two categories: (1) open
media contents: the transmission of telecommunications that is not aimed at any specific person such as web pages. Also, the elements do not have a special influence on society; (2) media service: existing broadcasting and content distribution services that can be analogized to broadcasting that is expected to appear in the future. Also, the elements do have a special influence on society (Sugaya, 2009; MIC Communications News, February 2008).
3. Legal system for transmission infrastructure
There are two parts: (1) transmission service regulation: the government can consider integrating transmission service regulations and speeding up flexible and free business development. Also, it can place emphasis on promoting fair competition and the security of users. (2) Transmission facility regulation: revise radio licensing system and restructure the system to promote usages for telecommunications and broadcasting.
4. Legal system for platforms, and interplay rules
The report said there was no need to enact regulations for platforms as independent from other layers. However, if platforms create bottleneck to harm free flow of information, it is necessary to prevent any discriminatory handling. With regard to interplay rules, the operators should have freedom to promote their business development beyond layers.
Taiwan
In Taiwan at present there are three electronic media laws (the Radio and Television Act, Cable Radio and Television Act and Satellite Broadcasting Act) and one Telecommunications Act.
However, with the convergence of telecommunication and broadcasting, many laws and regulations have become outdated.
As a matter of fact, Article 16 of the Fundamental Communications Actdid not say which government agency should take the initiative to revise the laws. The NCC believed it was its responsibility to revise the laws. Also, whether the NCC should revise the individual
communication laws or to integrate the laws, it was debatable. However, the NCC did not revise the separate laws. Instead, it wanted to integrate all the telecommunication and
broadcasting-related laws into one comprehensive law.
It finished the first draft in September 2007 and held two-step public consultations in September and November 2007. The stakeholders such as communication scholars, experts, public interest groups, and representatives of the telecommunication and broadcasting sectors all expressed their concerns about the draft. It was felt that more discussion and dialogues were needed.
Because of time restraints, the NCC submitted the draft converged law to the Executive Yuan in December 2007. Thus, it came as no surprise that the Executive Yuan returned the draft of the integrated law to the NCC in April 2008. After the second- term NCC Commissioners came to the office in August 2008, they decided to revise the current laws individually. Therefore, the converged law draft was temporarily put off.
In the Commission Meeting, during the discussion of the draft law, Commissioner Yu-li Liu wrote two major dissenting opinions. She argued that the converged law initiative should base on the policy and the goal the government wants to achieve rather than just write a new law. The new law should give the industry flexibility to decide how many layers they want to manage.
Otherwise, it will be meaningless to integrate the laws (www.ncc.gov.tw).
Table 2 Timetable for the Converged Communications Law (Taiwan)
Time Task
September 11, 2007 NCC finished the draft and opened it for public consultation September 26-28, 2007 First round public hearings November 9, 2007 Explain the policy for the
converged law draft
November 21, 2007 Second round public hearings December 20, 2007 Submitted the draft to the
Executive Yuan
January 2008 KMT became the ruling party
after the election
April 2008 The Executive Yuan returned the draft bill to the NCC August 2008 The second term NCC
Commissioners assumed the post and decided to suspend the draft
August 2009 NCC established a Convergence Policy Development Task Force which was divided into three groups: structure and behaviour, communication content, and network & resources.
November 2009—May 2010
NCC held several meetings on convergence issues.
July 2010 The Executive Yuan passed the Digital Convergence Policy Initiative calling for a two-stage regulatory reform. The NCC was asked to relax the relevant laws and regulations by 2014 in order to help the industry cope with convergence
In the draft, there were three directions for the converged draft bill: (1) technological convergence: allow separation of network and content, relax cross media ownership rule, and improve digital divide; (2) marketplace order: set spectrum planning principle, prevent unfair competition; (3) social norm and regulation: implement self regulation, introduce ombudsman
system, respect press autonomy, allow product placement and advertisement flexibility.