Rumor has it that the RIAA and the MPAA are joining forces to make sure that the FCC has statutory authorization to impose technology mandates covering both digital audio and video.

Look how broad this draft language is:

The Federal Communications Commission --

(a) has authority to adopt such regulations governing digital audio broadcast transmissions and digital audio receiving devices that are appropriate to control the unauthorized copying and redistribution of digital audio content by or over digital reception devices, related equipment, and digital networks, including regulations governing permissible copying and redistribution of such audio content....

That covers all possible home copying and transmission, all possible consumer devices, and all possible online audio services.  The DTV provision will be just as broad.

Everything you do with digital content will need regulatory permission.

What's really going on here is that the content industry and the network providers are joining forces to go backwards in time.  They're working on re-creating the era before CarterPhone (no unapproved devices!) and the 1996 Act.  They're working on reinstantiating the physical borders and boundaries that used to serve them so well before the internet came along.

The collective goal of these powerful actors:  Apartheid.  Technological separateness.  Online audio and video services will be cleanly categorized and billable.  Only permitted devices will be allowed to interconnect.  There will be no required interconnection to unauthorized services or devices.

The arguments of both content and network providers are the same:  "This is our property.  We own it.  We will have no incentives to produce more of it -- more broadband access or more movies -- unless our rights are protected."

This is the key battle.  As interesting as muni wireless is, it's a distraction from this central dispute over the future of the digital era.  (In fact, I'm even wondering whether ex-MPAA Jon Leibowitz's fiery statements about muni wireless yesterday were calculated to draw more attention to this briar patch.)

Surely it's too late to go backwards.