As is sadly the case for all good things, the video Web site Hulu.com is likely about to come under attack by the government, specifically in the form of antitrust action by the Obama administration.

Socialism’s great horde of media apologists has begun a strong drumbeat calling for the U.S. government to go after Hulu, the immensely and increasingly successful source of online streaming media content.

Cord Blomquist of the Competitive Enterprise Institute documents the socialists’ campaign for a government attack on Hulu in an excellent article at the Technology Liberation Front website. "Many media commentators are already using the kind of language we associate with past media antitrust cases," Blomquist notes.

Blomquist’s conclusion is correct and sobering:

Hulu’s runaway success over the last year and its growing number of exclusivity agreeements mean that it could see some of the added scrutiny that Mr. Obama believes is necessary in the world of media.  Of course, there are thousands of arguments as to why an actual antitrust case would lack any real merit—the availability of media in other formats such as broadcast or DVD, the number of non-exclusive deals Hulu has signed, the low barriers to entry and low costs for others to offer similar streaming video services—yet these arguments have failed to impress judges and administrations in the past.

Blomquist is right. As always, the overwhelming desire of socialists is for unlimited power. When socialists find a successful enterprise, their first instinct is to tame it—and if they fail at that, they will surely destroy it.

—S. T. Karnick