Korea fines Twitch $327k for suspending service
koreatimes.co.kr
koreatimes.co.kr
> The Korea Telecommunications Commission (KCC) determined the suspension of the VOD service violated the local telecommunications business law by undermining the interests of users.
> The commission has requested relevant data to examine whether Twitch had a justifiable reason for limiting the maximum viewing quality, but Twitch turned down the request, citing contractual confidentiality obligations.
I wonder what the relevant law says. Forcing a non-essential website to host and stream video content feels strange to say the least, especially given that streaming software like OBS can easily record the video locally to be uploaded to YouTube, AfreecaTV or whatever.
If it's deemed essential then the ISPs shouldn't be able to extort and extract profits from both sides of the pipe.
Also wonder why Twitch didn't provide the numbers given that they have already publicly said that the costs are high.
Probably cuts down on the performative exits >.> Facebook in the EU, in an attempt to bully regulators.
Sender pays clearly has backfired but I don't know if there's a solution that satisfies everyone outside of gov't footing the bill a la public roads and calling it an economic multiplier. Because yes internet is a series of tubes and all but video sites are sending couches to everyone, making it FedEx's problem, and then acting shocked when FedEx wants paid for large item delivery.
Hackers for some reason really hate the "we charge a flat rate to everyone averaged across normal usage so almost everyone doesn't have to think about metering but then charge outliers more" pricing model. It works the same for roads, once you're driving semis the price goes up. XPO doesn't go "well we shouldn't have to pay for our road damage because the stuff we deliver is requested by our customer."
Or is that my misunderstanding something?
Companies really should consult lawyers when expanding to a new country.
Banks are regulated industry. If you want to start a bank you have to submit your business plan to regulators for approval, and then operate within very strict rules with criminal penalties for intentional deviation, and government inspectors who come by to make sure everything is by the book.
Twitch, a video game streaming service, being regulated in the way investment banks and nuclear power stations are regulated is a weird claim to make.
Telecommunications is generally a regulated industry in most countries, as is broadcast media
> Twitch ... being regulated in the way investment banks and nuclear power stations are regulated is a weird claim to make
You are literally responding to an article that explicitly says Twitch was fined by the regulatory body in charge of telecommunications, not a "general commerce [regulator]"
Those penalties don't always have exemptions for stopping service. In fact it might have the opposite to avoid trying to put political pressure by doing that.
Doesn't mean it is a regulated industry which is actually a very narrow term.
Remember you are generally required to follow regulations to collect sales tax which covers almost every company. That doesn't mean you are a regulated industry.
Medicine is a regulated industry. You can’t work as a doctor without an MD and good standing with the local licensing agency.
Banking is a regulated industry. You can’t start a bank without first asking permission. Your employees are held to higher standards than other industries, and with criminal repercussions for intentional or negligent violations.
Etc.
Summarizing the salient bits here:
>>>> Those penalties don't always have exemptions for stopping service. In fact it might have the opposite to avoid trying to put political pressure by doing that.
>>>> Doesn't mean it is a regulated industry which is actually a very narrow term.
>>> What is a regulated industry? I'm not aware of it as a legal term. Basically all industries are regulated in my understanding to a greater or lesser degree. Even in a lesser one, you can run up against those regs
>> [insert blurb about concrete instances of "regulated industries", where an intensional definition was clearly desired instead (not an incomplete, extensional definition)]
> Not a very operational definition. You can't start a hot dog stand without permission either.
So, from the top: some industries are regulated. But, oh, not all industries which are subject to regulation are what we would call "regulated industries" -- that's "a very narrow term."
Great! What exactly is the definition of that very narrow term?
The immediate response to that inquiry was several supposed examples of "regulated industries".
But that's not a satisfactory response, because it doesn't generalize. For instance, a hot dog stand is subject to regulation ("you can't start a hot dog stand without permission either") -- but is it a so called "regulated industry" (which, remember, "is actually a very narrow term")?
And then we have your response:
> That’s because restaurants are, believe it or not, also a regulated industry.
The sarcasm is cheeky, but it still doesn't provide a meaningful answer to the original question: if not all industries which are regulated are "regulated industries", then what exactly does "regulated industry" mean?
So, a couple questions for you:
1) How do you know that restaurants fit the original commentator's definition of "regulated industry"? Were you told that restaurants are among the set of "regulated industries", which you've accepted without understanding why?
2) If you actually do know what makes restaurants a "regulated industry" (not merely just regulated), why not share the definition?
3) Alternatively, could it be that neither of the first two question apply: you made your comment without first comprehending the conversation?
The definition was provided by linking to the description on the Cambridge dictionary.
The examples were likely provided because it's often easier to understand a definition with additional examples.
> a type of business that is controlled by government rules
And here's the comment that kicked off this sub-thread:
> Often the rules that require things of a company have penalties for non-compliance.
> [...]
> Doesn't mean it is a regulated industry which is actually a very narrow term.
So a regulated industry is a type of business that is controlled by government rules, but (per the aforementioned comment) not all businesses which are controlled by government rules are regulated industries.
So, again, I think the response of
> That’s because restaurants are, believe it or not, also a regulated industry.
is a bizarre blend of unhelpful and rude.
Perhaps you and I will just have to agree to disagree on that point.
That doesn't say anything about if those consequences are good, bad, or moral.
All web service operators including Twitch have signed an NDA about their cost of data transfer. But there are some estimations. 50-90 billions in KRW per year (from a financial report by Daishin Securities)
And now they're being told that they will be fined for not operating in Korea at all?
Is that correct?
The logical equivalence would be a government passing a law that said "Farmers must pay trucking companies more than the maximum profit on an apple, for every apple they ship, even though the trucking companies are already being paid by the recipient of the apples. Not only are you not allowed to ship fewer apples, you also can't decide to stop being an apple farmer." (I'm not sure if the Korean law also prevents twitch/apple farmers from increasing prices to cover the cost of those fees, but that would track the rest of the nonsense)
You forgot the bit where they also got fined for reducing the resolution. But otherwise, yeah, that seems accurate.
The phrase "heads I win, tails you lose" comes to mind.
I guess this is a novel new way around trade agreements - just add costs that only meaningfully apply to external products (e.g. "a carbon tax for all products that travel more than 6000 miles from site of manufacture or farming to the location of sale or final customer delivery" - sure that doesn't say it's an import duty, but it sure as hell means nothing from the US is subject to the tax in the US, but anything from china would be covered)
This is not different from Prime adding ads to paying customers who signed up to the service with the implied promise there were none.
Surprising that they’re fining them on top of it though!
This is why Twitch is leaving.
This is absolutely insane.
Korean ISPs can't charge the customers more, because many of the customers (both landline and mobile) have been promised "unlimited" data. There'd be a colossal shitstorm if they ever tried to take that back. So they look for easier prey: foreign video streaming platforms.
Considering the high payouts to streamers, the lack of benefits for premium members, the long streaming hours of games which incurs server costs and makes it difficult to display ads, I don't think their business model is sustainable in the long run.
What do you mean by this?
I know that if streamers showed ads every 10 minutes and I was forced to watch them, I would just not watch Twitch at all.
I don't game and I don't use twitch, but...
> the high payouts to streamers
This worked really well on Youtube and other platforms.
> the lack of benefits for premium members
If people are still subscribing without many benefits imagine what will happen if they introduce more? That's worked well for Amazon in other areas (eg Prime)
> long streaming hours of games which incurs server costs
I mean there is some server cost but this seems very manageable. I've done a bunch of video streaming work and the server requirements aren't high if you know what you are doing. Bandwith is hard sometimes but I suspect Amazon can optimize their bandwidth deals as well as anyone.
> makes it difficult to display ads
This seems wrong. The whole broadcast TV model is built around 24/7 ads.
> I don't think their business model is sustainable in the long run.
I take the opposing view. I think Twitch has the potential to be one of the biggest sources of revenue growth at Amazon.
Look how well YouTube has done for Google.
This very seldom happens to actual competitive events (which often have special deals that require them to run less ads), and most bigger streamers have worked out running ads between games.
It doesn’t.
I guess that is the Korean government wants all the internet company not from Korea to pulled out of Korea?
https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2022/09/sender-pays-wha...
> The story of South Korea’s settlement regime starts with one such cache offered by Facebook. Through peering arrangements amongst the largest ISPs (KT, SK Broadband, and LG Uplus), it enabled content that had previously been accessed over expensive transit links to Facebook’s server in, for example, Hong Kong, to now be accessed from Facebook’s cache in KTs network
> But in 2016 the Korean government implemented a set of amendments to its 2005 interconnection policy that fundamentally altered norms of voluntary negotiated interconnection by instead imposing a “sending party pays” regime. The critical piece of this change was to impose a “mutual settlement” requirement amongst same-tier operators, in which ISPs were required to compensate each other for traffic exchanged between them. Not long after, KT found themselves with large bills from the other two Tier-1 ISPs, asking for payment for the Facebook traffic that was sent from the cache in KTs network
> Faced with these claims for payment, now mandated under the new interconnection rules, KT sought to recoup these costs by instead charging Facebook for the traffic delivered from the cache. When negotiations between KT and Facebook failed, Facebook decided to disable its cache in KTs network, which meant that Korean users were instead routed to other caches overseas
> Due to this deteriorated service quality for connections to Facebook, KT made a claim to the regulator KCC that issued a fine against Facebook of USD $328,000 for deliberately disrupting its services
> While the story of Korea’s settlement regime is tied to the presence of large international content providers, it has been the domestic content providers that have borne the brunt of the impact. The 2016 rules that imposed a sender pays regime meant that hosting content in any of Korea’s networks became excessively expensive as the ISP would pass on costs to the content provider. While Facebook could simply disable its cache and route the traffic abroad when KT requested “network usage fees”, local content providers could not
aka "We'll gouge Twitch for all their worth", followed by "How DARE they close up shop after we gouged them?"
Suspend twitch? Oh wait