I’m in San Jose, CA for Streaming Media West, an online media conference, which begins tomorrow. I’m very interested in hearing tomorrow’s keynote by Ashwin Navin, President & Co-Founder of BitTorrent, who is talking about how a commercial P2P network can be used to distribute legal audio and video content.
I hope he’ll address the recent revelation about Comcast interfering with its customers BitTorrent traffic and how that might be affecting his company’s business model. I can’t imagine he can ignore the issue — otherwise it’ll be the 900 pound gorilla in the room (and I’ll ask the question myself).
My experience in the online media industry is that network neutrality is the issue nobody wants to talk about too much, both because regulation is rarely a popular issue, and because there is the real hope that it isn’t needed. Unfortunately, Comcast’s interference with BitTorrent traffic–regardless of whether the shared content is permitted to be shared or not–is the single most clear example of a non-neutral network in action. So I’m very curious what BitTorrent thinks about Net Neutrality now.
I’ll be sure to blog this keynote the best I can (delayed a few moments due to the fact there’s no wifi in the presentation rooms themselves).
Ars Technica reports on a change in the terms of service for AT&T broadband customers that gives the company the company to terminate service for anyone who “tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.”
Yes, it’s overbroad, overly vague, and therefore probably too difficult to enforce across the board. Nevertheless these terms give the company a good excuse if it wants to go after some overly critical blogger who also happens to be a customer. And, yes, I am an AT&T customer, so I wonder if some company hack will go through my archives of less-than-flattering comment about its former incarnation as SBC, or my critical words about its merger with BellSouth.
Nevertheless, as Free Press’ Ben Scott points out, this represents a basic abrogation of freedom of speech that must be addressed:
“Phone companies are supposed to deliver our messages, not censor them,” said Ben Scott, of Free Press. “If the phone company can’t tell you what to say on a phone call, then they shouldn’t be able to tell you what to say in a text message, an e-mail, or anywhere else. We can’t trust these corporate gatekeepers. Congress needs to step in immediately to safeguard free speech and the free flow of information.”
It isn’t enough to drag his feet on obligations to inform and engage the public on the media ownership proceeding. Now FCC Chair Kevin Martin is ready to sign off on the proposed AT&T – BellSouth merger without imposing a single condition.
While he may have a bit more political savvy than his predecessor, Martin still apparently has brass balls, jumping ahead of the Justice Department’s antitrust review to give a big old early Christmas present to Ed Whitacre, public interest enemy #1. If the national cable franchise bill passes the Senate and this merger survives, then AT&T will become the nation’s largest telecommunications company, poised to become the largest cable and broadband provider, with barely any competition in any local market.
The rest of the commission is a little less of a sure bet on the merger. In particular new Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell may have to recuse himself because he used to lobby on behalf of the smaller competing telcos. That would mean Martin would need at least one of the FCC’s Dems to get on board, which I would assume would require a boatload of concessions — especially on net neutrality — if it would happen at all.
And don’t expect any public hearings on this issue, which is probably as important as the media ownership proceeding with regard to maintaining a diverse media and free internet.
SavetheInternet details actions in 25 cities where folks hit up their Senators to urge support for network neutrality. Apparently there was success in New York, with Sen. Charles Schumer announcing support for net neutrality, and Iowa, where Sen. Tom Harkin did likewise.
Now, both those guys are Democrats, which in the Senate, at least, have been very supportive to begin with. It would have been a much bigger coup to get some Republican senators to line up behind net neutrality.
Frankly, at the moment the best thing to hope for is that the Senate telco bill creating the national cable franchise dies on the vine because Sen. Ted Stevens can’t line up 60 sure votes to support it against a filibuster or hold. But keeping the issue of net neutrality in the news during the Congressional break is still a good idea, since the Critters up for reelection are busy fundraising and stumping for votes.
Common Cause has been keeping tabs on the faux-grassroots Astroturf groups like Hands off the Internet and TV4US.org which have been lobbying on behalf of the big telcos with the smokescreen that there’s enormous public support for a national cable franchise and against network neutrality.
Now Common Cause has released a new report compiling dossiers on five of these Astroturfers, revealing who’s paying their bills and funding their hundreds of thousands of dollars in television ad buys. Here’s a sample of the intelligence:
If there were an award for Astroturf lobby campaigns, Hands Off the Internet (HOTI) would win hands down.
With its pithy name, viral web cartoons, high profile spokesman (former White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry) and barrage of print and television advertising, HOTI has been effectively injecting the telephone industry’s arguments on net neutrality into the public debate in recent months.
And they manage to do it while hiding their relationship with
their corporate backers.
You can read the full report in PDF, and also check out Common Cause’s first Astroturf report released back in March.
From the Aug. 4, 2006 edition of the mediageek radioshow:
The Senate Telecomm bill which would create a national cable franchise is no closer to a vote than it has been all Summer. One factor holding up the bill are Democrat threats of a hold or filibuster. Majority leader Bill Frist won’t let the bill come up for a vote unless the bill’s chief sponsor, Commerce Committee Chair Ted Stevens can rustle up the 60 votes necessary to force a vote.
But another factor has turned out to be members of Republican party who are up for re-election this November who are reluctant to sign on, fearing voter reprisals.
The key controversy over the bill is the fact that while it is a massive giveaway to the nation’s largest telephone companies, by easing their entry into the cable TV market, it contains no provisions to ensure the telcos don’t use their growing power to limit, filter or slow down access to multimedia content they don’t have a hand in.
While the big telcos have been spending millions this summer trying to give the appearance that a grassroots coalition of their customers is joining them in opposition to network neutrality, vulnerable senators, like Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum, know the truth that the real grassroots voting power supports guaranteed free speech on the internet.
Other Republican senators who reportedly have cold feet include Lincoln Chafee, R.I., Mike DeWine, Ohio, Ben Nelson, Neb., and Jim Talent, Mo.
As a result of Senate Republicans’ reticence to rally behind the telecomm bill, it remains in limbo until the Senate reconvenes after Labor Day. But there’s still no indication that the legislation is any more likely to see a vote before election day.
Read more »
Techdirt properly points the finger at liar Mike McCurry, current mouthpiece for the big telcos, for his farcical Op-Ed attacking network neutrality in the Baltimore Sun:
Among the whoppers in the editorial: “The “neutral” proposal that companies like Google are touting will ensure that they never have to pay a dime no matter how much bandwidth they use, and consumers who may only use their computers to send e-mail and play Solitaire get to foot the bill.” That’s a flat out lie. Google pays tremendously large bandwidth bills, and the more they use the more they pay. However, if McCurry is going to pretend Google “never [has] to pay a dime no matter how much bandwidth they use,” let’s see him put up or shut up. If McCurry really believes that, will he agree to pay Google’s bandwidth bills for the rest of this year?
On today’s radioshow we listened to excerpts from a debate on Net Neutrality between two founders of the internet, Vint Cerf, in defense of net neutrality, and Dave Farber, speaking against it. The debate was sponsored by the Center for American Progress, and you can find an mp3 of the whole debate at the Public Knowledge Policy Blog.
We also listened to some excerpts from two Daily Show segments also on Net Neutrality, and you can watch them both at YouTube:
One of the most wonderful things about the Senate Commerce Committee is that it is chaired by a doddering old man from Alaska who rarely demonstrates a clear understanding of the technologies his committee oversees. Not that we should be surprised about relative tech ignorance on Capitol Hill, where enough Congresscritters were willingly bamboozled by a CD full of static that the NAB claimed represented the interference caused by a 100 watt station to a multi-thousand watt station.
Wired’s 27B Stroke 6 blog highlights a stupefying portion of Alaska’s Ted Steven’s comments on network neutrality and the internet from last week:
I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.
So you want to talk about the consumer? Let’s talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren’t using it for commercial purposes.
We aren’t earning anything by going on that internet. Now I’m not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people [...]
They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.
It’s a series of tubes.
For a round-up of some less confused, more disingenuous interpretations of net neutrality from members of the House, listen to the June 9 edition of Media Minutes [direct link to MP3 - 4.8 MB].
In addition to the votes for LPFM and against net neutrality, the Senate Commerce Committee voted in favor of an amendment creating the broadcast flag for both radio/audio and TV/video. If you haven’t heard already, the broadcast flag would allow all content producers to effectively disable the record button on any digital device you own. The flag regime would force electronics manufacturers to give control over your recorder to the entertainment cartel, even preventing you from recording material that you otherwise have every legal right to record.
This big telecom saugsage keeps getting packed tighter with fat and pork, I’m really hoping it bursts. While I’d like to see net neutrality become law, especially if the big telcos are going to get the big national franchise bone thrown their way, on the whole I’d like to see this so-called telecom reform bill die an ugly death.
net neutrality / free the internet!, networks | Paul | 
November 6, 2007 1:18 am | 
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