New Democratic Party PM Candidate Praises P2P

PM candidate Jack Layton notes importance of net neutrality and how social networking and BitTorrent sites are "fundamental to making a democracy work" and for "helping human intelligence to be shared and exchanged."

I sadly know very little about Canadian politics other than conservative Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister. So it was certainly interesting to watch a message that New Democratic Party candidate Jack Layton gave to P2PNet readers recently that emphasized the importance of P2P.

"People to people, that's the way we want to use the Internet," he says of P2P.

Layton notes the importance of net neutrality and the danger of big corporations threatening the ability of Canadian citizens to freely use the Internet. Throttling of applications and services like BitTorrent, as happened here in the US with Comcast, "Can, in a sense, create a two-tiered Internet."

From the video:

There’s the politics behind the net, for example. We’ve got these big corporations that are moving in to threaten net neutrality.

Now I think this is very, very dangerous and we have put the whole issue of net neutrality right into the heart of our campaign platform and I’d urge you to visit ndp.ca to see what we’re saying about it.

We’ve been speaking up in the House of Commons about it. I’m not sure the government has any clue about what we’re talking about but the lobbyists that these big firms sure do. They know all about net throttling and and the fact it can create in a sense two-tiered Internet.

Just like we don’t favour two-tiered healthcare, we don’t favour two-tiered Internet either.

What we want to see is the Internet used as a public tool — a public tool for exchanging ideas and I particularly want to say that if we don’t fight to preserve it, we could lose it

If net neutrality is not safeguarded then Canadian citizens risk allowing corporations to control HOW people share ideas and information and therefore essentially WHAT is shared as well.

The most enlightened observation Layton makes is how social networking and BitTorrent sites are "fundamental to making a democracy work" and for "helping human intelligence to be shared and exchanged."

Many think BitTorrent users are nothing but a bunch of pirates too cheap to buy an album or movie ticket. What they don't realize, however, is that music and movies are vital elements of human culture and that the entertainment industry's long, sordid history of thievery and penchant for restricting their use has been the real crime. It always says it that it works in the artist's best interest, but when it lobbies to have copyright protections extended from 50 to 95 years in some countries you really have to wonder who it's really looking out for.

BitTorrent also empowers artists by giving them unheard of distribution power and control. It's this empowerment that really scares entertainment industry cartels because they are afraid of what it means for their future. Just ask the music industry.

"The Internet belongs to [all] Canadians," Layton continues. "That's a fundamental. We need to build the kind of Internet that's available and accessible to all Canadians."

I may not be a Canadian citizen, but Jack Layton's message is one I, as many of you should also, agree with.