Amazon joins set-top box licensing critics

Amazon has joined critics of a key part of the Federal Communications Commission’s heavily revised set-top box proposal.

The proposal, announced last week, would require pay-television providers to create applications through which consumers could view live programming. In a filing published online on Tuesday, Amazon — which has built a large streaming video business and produces tablets  — said it was a worried about an approach that gave the FCC oversight over the agreements between video providers and device manufacturers.

{mosads}“Millions of app developers already work productively within [the marketplace],” said two lawyers representing the company while disclosing a meeting from last week. “In this context, there is no need for app licensing terms to be determined by an industry group subject to Commission oversight.”

“The process to create such a license and oversight body will delay competition and delay customers from receiving the MVPD services they already pay for on the device of their choice.”

The phone meeting took place the day the commission announced the proposal, and the filing did not disclose what information about the commission’s thinking Amazon was provided with during the conversation. In the final proposal, the FCC said it would have the ability to intervene if the standard license between manufacturers and providers did not promote competition.

Amazon is one of many critics of the approach in industry, despite the fact that pay-television providers have for months championed an app-based approach. App developers have also pushed back on the new proposal.

The proposal is actually a step back from a previous plan floated by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler at the beginning of the year. Under those proposed rules, video providers would have been required to open up their feeds to third-party box manufacturers. That rankled industry — which pushed back with an aggressive lobbying campaign and its app alternative.

The full commission is expected to vote on the proposal later this month.

This post was updated at 1:56 p.m.