ZeroPaid.com » network neutrality http://www.zeropaid.com Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:50:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Canada’s Usage Based Billing Hearings Kicks Off http://www.zeropaid.com/news/94269/canadas-usage-based-billing-hearings-kicks-off/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/94269/canadas-usage-based-billing-hearings-kicks-off/#comments Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:41:34 +0000 Drew Wilson http://www.zeropaid.com/?p=94269 canada-flag_crop

In a way, it's surprising that Canada is still talking about Usage Based Billing. Yet, here we are today with the CRTC (Canada's regulator for industries like this) holding hearings on ISPs pushing to make sure Usage Based Billing is permitted in the marketplace.

Usage Based Billing, as far as Canadians are concerned, is effectively a method to make consumers pay twice for the same service. First, there's the connection fee which everyone is all too familiar with. Then, what is being proposed, is that consumers pay again based on how much traffic they generate. In short, it's ISPs trying to double dip while taking advantage of the fact that competition is pretty much non-existent in Canada given that there really is only three main ISPs available. The debate itself over whether or not ISPs should be allowed to put this in place has been around a long time in Canada. In fact, there was a surge in interest for network neutrality clear back in 2008 when Bell Canada wanted to throttle Canadian internet connection speeds. Canadian ISPs were borrowing a lot from the debate in the US at the time which included the most famous myths - the data "exaflood" This term was used to describe how data use would exponentially increase because more and more users were using sites like YouTube. Record labels even jumped in to say that it's almost exclusively piracy that is causing this congestion. In their theory, the flood of internet use would tie up the internet and cause traffic to slow to a grinding halt, destroying the internet forever should nothing happen to stop it. Heroically, ISPs would come to the rescue and ask for simple permission to throttle all these so-called "bandwidth hogs" and save the internet from complete destruction. Unfortunately, for ISPs, that was about the peak of the credibility of their arguments. Canadians were very familiar with the debate going on in the US and how supporters of ISPs were going about selling their message. There were two very famous examples that really led to further doubt of the ISPs position of this exaflood of traffic. The first was the ever famous speech by Ted Stevens talking about how the internet is a "series of tubes" which can be found on YouTube: Suffice to say, the description did nothing to further the case that traffic needs to be throttled to deal with the impending "exaflood" In addition to the speech, there was also a well-known video floating around at the time. It was apparently a TV advertisement that said how bad network neutrality was. The argument was that anything people said to support network neutrality was just "mumbo jumbo" The ad probably did little more than point to the extreme absurdities the debate climbed to - particularly for the anti-net neutrality position. Suffice to say, it did prompt many Canadians to ask interesting questions for Canadian ISPs like, if there was going to be an impending exaflood of data, and ISPs are unable to cope, then why not invest more in infrastructure to handle such an amount? Canadian ISPs simply had no real answer to this. This prompted farm more skepticism towards the so-called plight of Canadian ISPs, so the ISPs simply focused on trying to convince regulators to go along with their plan anyway. At some point, the CRTC requested the data to back up the suggestion that networks were, in fact, congested. Really, it was a simple request, and, if ISPs were telling the truth this whole time, then there wouldn't really be a problem sharing this data in the first place. Naturally, ISPs were very hesitant, trying to throw every rule in the book at the CRTC to avoid revealing such data. While there was citations of competition reasons, the real reasons were to be revealed - that the crises was, in fact, a manufactured one. We here at ZeroPaid, were also more than just a little interested in what was revealed. What was revealed was that ISPs were not really that congested after all. In fact, Bell Canada revealed at the time that they were at a mere 33% capacity at peak hours. To put it briefly, everything blew up in their faces. Two months later, Bell Canada was still trying to salvage the situation on the PR font by insisting that 8% congestion in two cases were sufficient data to point to a crises, but few really bought in to the argument at that stage. The whole network congestion argument simply unraveled from there. While throttling happened anyway in Canada, the greatest weapon to push for ending net neutrality became a dud. Today Now, here we are, three years later and a network neutrality issue is before Canadians. It almost seems strange in a way that Canada is still having this discussion. The reason why it might seem strange is because the Canadian government decided back in February that the CRTC was wrong in allowing metered bandwidth. Ultimately, the government reversed the CRTC decision and blocked metered bandwidth. So, even though the government made a decision, the CRTC did go ahead on holding hearings on this issue. Michael Geist is following the hearings and has made notes on what was discussed. At issue was the reason why exactly was metered bandwidth even needed in the first place. It seems that it's not a question of congestion, but rather, competition. Geist noted that once questioning began, the link between congestion and usage based billing unraveled:
CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein asked why - if Bell was facing network congestion - sister company Bell Aliant has not implemented UBB. Bell argued that Bell Aliant "supported" UBB, but acknowledged that competitive forces and marketplace conditions in Atlantic Canada were such that UBB is currently not needed. Of course, von Finckenstein didn't need to look at Bell Aliant as his example - Bell itself employs different caps in Ontario and Quebec given the different competition from Videotron and Rogers. Their approach isn't a function of congestion, but rather competition. In fact, when Bell was asked whether it planned to keep data caps for its retail customers, it responded that it did, subject to "competitive dynamics." The effects of competition was further confirmed when Telus appeared as it noted that it doesn't use UBB, it isn't a pressing issue, and that competition with Shaw has led to far more generous plans than those found in other parts of the country. Discussion on the lack of a link between congestion and UBB continued as Commissioners Molnar and Denton asked why Bell was promoting a plan that involves aggregate usage rather than peak usage. Molnar noted that aggregate usage is not linked to congestion and that it appeared to simply create incentives to reduce Internet use more generally. Bell agreed, leaving Molnar to respond that this was a problem since it reduced Internet use with no benefit to addressing congestion. Denton continued on the same theme, asking why the CRTC would want to try to reduce Internet use other than in an effort to address congestion. Add Bell's acknowledgement that its pricing is not a function of actual costs but rather the market and the conclusion is that all elements of UBB - use of caps, pricing, and size of caps - are a function of the regional marketplace dynamics, not congestion concerns. Moreover, the Commissioners seemed to understand why this issue is so troubling, with Molnar emphasizing the dangers of a policy that discourages Internet use and Denton linking UBB to cloud computing and the fears that caps would harm that emerging industry.
There is the question about where small ISPs stand in all of this. It appears that they are very much against this. The Toronto Star reported that the smaller ISPs feel that this push for usage based billing is little more than attempt to drive the competition out of business:
The smaller ISPs have argued they would be driven out of business if they have to use the same pricing model employed by the large players, who charge extra if the retail customers exceed monthly usage limits. CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told the hearing Monday that the commission is only looking at the wholesale prices that independent Internet providers pay for network use and not retail rates that are charged to their consumers. Bell withdrew its usage-based billing tariff earlier this year and is proposing wholesale pricing for ISPs that reflects a flat-rate access fee on speed and charges 29 cents per gigabyte for any extra gigabytes needed to accommodate overall usage in a month. Bell also said that its recently launched Internet-Protocol television service doesn’t contribute to its network congestion because it operates over a separate network.
Personally, I think the best part in all of this is that somehow, the services by the large ISPs being sold to consumers in no way shape or form contribute to network congestion, but somehow, these smaller ISPs do. This would most certainly support the idea that usage based billing is merely a competition maneuver, and not really a solution for any alleged congestion.]]> canada-flag_crop

In a way, it's surprising that Canada is still talking about Usage Based Billing. Yet, here we are today with the CRTC (Canada's regulator for industries like this) holding hearings on ISPs pushing to make sure Usage Based Billing is permitted in the marketplace.

Usage Based Billing, as far as Canadians are concerned, is effectively a method to make consumers pay twice for the same service. First, there's the connection fee which everyone is all too familiar with. Then, what is being proposed, is that consumers pay again based on how much traffic they generate. In short, it's ISPs trying to double dip while taking advantage of the fact that competition is pretty much non-existent in Canada given that there really is only three main ISPs available. The debate itself over whether or not ISPs should be allowed to put this in place has been around a long time in Canada. In fact, there was a surge in interest for network neutrality clear back in 2008 when Bell Canada wanted to throttle Canadian internet connection speeds. Canadian ISPs were borrowing a lot from the debate in the US at the time which included the most famous myths - the data "exaflood" This term was used to describe how data use would exponentially increase because more and more users were using sites like YouTube. Record labels even jumped in to say that it's almost exclusively piracy that is causing this congestion. In their theory, the flood of internet use would tie up the internet and cause traffic to slow to a grinding halt, destroying the internet forever should nothing happen to stop it. Heroically, ISPs would come to the rescue and ask for simple permission to throttle all these so-called "bandwidth hogs" and save the internet from complete destruction. Unfortunately, for ISPs, that was about the peak of the credibility of their arguments. Canadians were very familiar with the debate going on in the US and how supporters of ISPs were going about selling their message. There were two very famous examples that really led to further doubt of the ISPs position of this exaflood of traffic. The first was the ever famous speech by Ted Stevens talking about how the internet is a "series of tubes" which can be found on YouTube: Suffice to say, the description did nothing to further the case that traffic needs to be throttled to deal with the impending "exaflood" In addition to the speech, there was also a well-known video floating around at the time. It was apparently a TV advertisement that said how bad network neutrality was. The argument was that anything people said to support network neutrality was just "mumbo jumbo" The ad probably did little more than point to the extreme absurdities the debate climbed to - particularly for the anti-net neutrality position. Suffice to say, it did prompt many Canadians to ask interesting questions for Canadian ISPs like, if there was going to be an impending exaflood of data, and ISPs are unable to cope, then why not invest more in infrastructure to handle such an amount? Canadian ISPs simply had no real answer to this. This prompted farm more skepticism towards the so-called plight of Canadian ISPs, so the ISPs simply focused on trying to convince regulators to go along with their plan anyway. At some point, the CRTC requested the data to back up the suggestion that networks were, in fact, congested. Really, it was a simple request, and, if ISPs were telling the truth this whole time, then there wouldn't really be a problem sharing this data in the first place. Naturally, ISPs were very hesitant, trying to throw every rule in the book at the CRTC to avoid revealing such data. While there was citations of competition reasons, the real reasons were to be revealed - that the crises was, in fact, a manufactured one. We here at ZeroPaid, were also more than just a little interested in what was revealed. What was revealed was that ISPs were not really that congested after all. In fact, Bell Canada revealed at the time that they were at a mere 33% capacity at peak hours. To put it briefly, everything blew up in their faces. Two months later, Bell Canada was still trying to salvage the situation on the PR font by insisting that 8% congestion in two cases were sufficient data to point to a crises, but few really bought in to the argument at that stage. The whole network congestion argument simply unraveled from there. While throttling happened anyway in Canada, the greatest weapon to push for ending net neutrality became a dud. Today Now, here we are, three years later and a network neutrality issue is before Canadians. It almost seems strange in a way that Canada is still having this discussion. The reason why it might seem strange is because the Canadian government decided back in February that the CRTC was wrong in allowing metered bandwidth. Ultimately, the government reversed the CRTC decision and blocked metered bandwidth. So, even though the government made a decision, the CRTC did go ahead on holding hearings on this issue. Michael Geist is following the hearings and has made notes on what was discussed. At issue was the reason why exactly was metered bandwidth even needed in the first place. It seems that it's not a question of congestion, but rather, competition. Geist noted that once questioning began, the link between congestion and usage based billing unraveled:
CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein asked why - if Bell was facing network congestion - sister company Bell Aliant has not implemented UBB. Bell argued that Bell Aliant "supported" UBB, but acknowledged that competitive forces and marketplace conditions in Atlantic Canada were such that UBB is currently not needed. Of course, von Finckenstein didn't need to look at Bell Aliant as his example - Bell itself employs different caps in Ontario and Quebec given the different competition from Videotron and Rogers. Their approach isn't a function of congestion, but rather competition. In fact, when Bell was asked whether it planned to keep data caps for its retail customers, it responded that it did, subject to "competitive dynamics." The effects of competition was further confirmed when Telus appeared as it noted that it doesn't use UBB, it isn't a pressing issue, and that competition with Shaw has led to far more generous plans than those found in other parts of the country. Discussion on the lack of a link between congestion and UBB continued as Commissioners Molnar and Denton asked why Bell was promoting a plan that involves aggregate usage rather than peak usage. Molnar noted that aggregate usage is not linked to congestion and that it appeared to simply create incentives to reduce Internet use more generally. Bell agreed, leaving Molnar to respond that this was a problem since it reduced Internet use with no benefit to addressing congestion. Denton continued on the same theme, asking why the CRTC would want to try to reduce Internet use other than in an effort to address congestion. Add Bell's acknowledgement that its pricing is not a function of actual costs but rather the market and the conclusion is that all elements of UBB - use of caps, pricing, and size of caps - are a function of the regional marketplace dynamics, not congestion concerns. Moreover, the Commissioners seemed to understand why this issue is so troubling, with Molnar emphasizing the dangers of a policy that discourages Internet use and Denton linking UBB to cloud computing and the fears that caps would harm that emerging industry.
There is the question about where small ISPs stand in all of this. It appears that they are very much against this. The Toronto Star reported that the smaller ISPs feel that this push for usage based billing is little more than attempt to drive the competition out of business:
The smaller ISPs have argued they would be driven out of business if they have to use the same pricing model employed by the large players, who charge extra if the retail customers exceed monthly usage limits. CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein told the hearing Monday that the commission is only looking at the wholesale prices that independent Internet providers pay for network use and not retail rates that are charged to their consumers. Bell withdrew its usage-based billing tariff earlier this year and is proposing wholesale pricing for ISPs that reflects a flat-rate access fee on speed and charges 29 cents per gigabyte for any extra gigabytes needed to accommodate overall usage in a month. Bell also said that its recently launched Internet-Protocol television service doesn’t contribute to its network congestion because it operates over a separate network.
Personally, I think the best part in all of this is that somehow, the services by the large ISPs being sold to consumers in no way shape or form contribute to network congestion, but somehow, these smaller ISPs do. This would most certainly support the idea that usage based billing is merely a competition maneuver, and not really a solution for any alleged congestion.]]> http://www.zeropaid.com/news/94269/canadas-usage-based-billing-hearings-kicks-off/feed/ 2 Bell Canada to Acquire CTV, the Seed for Canada’s Next Net Neutrality Debate? http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90618/bell-canada-to-acquire-ctv-the-seed-for-canadas-next-net-neutrality-debate/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90618/bell-canada-to-acquire-ctv-the-seed-for-canadas-next-net-neutrality-debate/#comments Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:26:31 +0000 Drew Wilson http://www.zeropaid.com/?p=90618 bell-canada Building Logo_crop

There was recent news of one of Canada's biggest ISP, Bell Canada (or BCE) acquiring CTV Globemedia, one of Canada's largest broadcasting network. With service delivery corporations being one with content a content production industry, does this put network neutrality at risk?

The network neutrality debate might have been stalled for now in the US, but for now, the network neutrality debate has been a sleeping issue in Canada for quite some time. That may change in the near future on news of Bell Canada, one of Canada's big three ISPs, is planning on acquiring CTV Globemedia, one of Canada's largest broadcasters and television producers. While investors were grinning ear to ear in the pictures, does this potentially plant the seed for Canada's next great network neutrality debate should the deal go through? I'd argue that while it doesn't do so immediately, the potential is certainly there for this to happen in the future some time. Basic facts about both entities in a general context certainly point to this. An ISP has a business model that revolves around selling access to the internet. What makes access to the internet such a sellable service? Content. When we say content, we mean anything digital. We're talking about video, audio, entertainment, communications and everything else you can imagine that exists online. As much as rights holders want people to believe that ISPs make money solely on infringing material, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that it's exclusively that. We're talking everything from CC licensed material to top 40 music. From independently produced YouTube content to the latest Hollywood movies being streamed to you. Programs from the latest Adobe software to the latest Linux distribution. eMail fits nicely into this category as well since it is produced by one person and sent to another. Now, take away that content. What happens to the internet? No one would want to even consider buying access to the internet if content couldn't be published and messages being communicated. The internet would simply cease to exist and so would the ISPs as well. It's one reason why entire business empires are made over access to mankinds biggest repository of knowledge - the internet. Now, look at the other side. Content producers - particularly the larger content producing industry's - has one purpose - to get people to access their specific content. If they produce it, they want you to "consume" it (though the term "consume" is actually a concept up for debate in the digital environment context). If people consume other people's content like independently produced content, that is a detriment to their business model. You can't produce a sustainable TV show with no one watching it because advertisers would walk away - the traditional revenue stream for TV shows. Now, what happens when you combine these business models? We have an industry built on access to content. On the other hand, we have an industry built on getting people to "consume" their content in particular. A hybrid of those two is simply a business of selling people access to their specific content. That, alone, is everything network neutrality is not and a concept that could put access to the internet and what made it as great as it is at risk. It financially motivates an industry to remove any competing content that is accessible to people. Now, one might argue that simply starting to discriminate content for one ISP would simply cripple that particular ISP's revenue stream because the quality of service would be reduced. Unfortunately, that would only assume that the market is highly competitive and all competitors in the market are evenly distributed out in terms of market power. That is, by far, not the case in Canada having only three big ISPs. If Canada was more like, say, China where there are numerous ISPs all being cut throat in that market, even considering discriminatory practices would potentially spell disaster for that ISP. In a comfortable oligopoly, though, such kind of activity is possible. In the US, media organizations and ISPs have been merging for a while now and now, AT&T is arguing that network neutrality rules must allow for discriminating packets for certain services. Going back to the initial logic I provided, such things happening after these types of acquisitions is not surprising. Unfortunately, like the US, the idea of regulators in Canada holding the industry at bay from abusive practices is a joke. Calls to have the CRTC - Canada's regulator that will oversee this latest acquisition - disbanded is not uncommon with regular accusations that the CRTC is run by the very people they are suppose to regulate. Still, at this point, the deal hasn't been given regulatory approval and a debate over network neutrality in Canada being sparked as a result of this would be a long way off. Still, this situation a concoction for some serious fireworks in the future if things move ahead. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> bell-canada Building Logo_crop

There was recent news of one of Canada's biggest ISP, Bell Canada (or BCE) acquiring CTV Globemedia, one of Canada's largest broadcasting network. With service delivery corporations being one with content a content production industry, does this put network neutrality at risk?

The network neutrality debate might have been stalled for now in the US, but for now, the network neutrality debate has been a sleeping issue in Canada for quite some time. That may change in the near future on news of Bell Canada, one of Canada's big three ISPs, is planning on acquiring CTV Globemedia, one of Canada's largest broadcasters and television producers. While investors were grinning ear to ear in the pictures, does this potentially plant the seed for Canada's next great network neutrality debate should the deal go through? I'd argue that while it doesn't do so immediately, the potential is certainly there for this to happen in the future some time. Basic facts about both entities in a general context certainly point to this. An ISP has a business model that revolves around selling access to the internet. What makes access to the internet such a sellable service? Content. When we say content, we mean anything digital. We're talking about video, audio, entertainment, communications and everything else you can imagine that exists online. As much as rights holders want people to believe that ISPs make money solely on infringing material, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that it's exclusively that. We're talking everything from CC licensed material to top 40 music. From independently produced YouTube content to the latest Hollywood movies being streamed to you. Programs from the latest Adobe software to the latest Linux distribution. eMail fits nicely into this category as well since it is produced by one person and sent to another. Now, take away that content. What happens to the internet? No one would want to even consider buying access to the internet if content couldn't be published and messages being communicated. The internet would simply cease to exist and so would the ISPs as well. It's one reason why entire business empires are made over access to mankinds biggest repository of knowledge - the internet. Now, look at the other side. Content producers - particularly the larger content producing industry's - has one purpose - to get people to access their specific content. If they produce it, they want you to "consume" it (though the term "consume" is actually a concept up for debate in the digital environment context). If people consume other people's content like independently produced content, that is a detriment to their business model. You can't produce a sustainable TV show with no one watching it because advertisers would walk away - the traditional revenue stream for TV shows. Now, what happens when you combine these business models? We have an industry built on access to content. On the other hand, we have an industry built on getting people to "consume" their content in particular. A hybrid of those two is simply a business of selling people access to their specific content. That, alone, is everything network neutrality is not and a concept that could put access to the internet and what made it as great as it is at risk. It financially motivates an industry to remove any competing content that is accessible to people. Now, one might argue that simply starting to discriminate content for one ISP would simply cripple that particular ISP's revenue stream because the quality of service would be reduced. Unfortunately, that would only assume that the market is highly competitive and all competitors in the market are evenly distributed out in terms of market power. That is, by far, not the case in Canada having only three big ISPs. If Canada was more like, say, China where there are numerous ISPs all being cut throat in that market, even considering discriminatory practices would potentially spell disaster for that ISP. In a comfortable oligopoly, though, such kind of activity is possible. In the US, media organizations and ISPs have been merging for a while now and now, AT&T is arguing that network neutrality rules must allow for discriminating packets for certain services. Going back to the initial logic I provided, such things happening after these types of acquisitions is not surprising. Unfortunately, like the US, the idea of regulators in Canada holding the industry at bay from abusive practices is a joke. Calls to have the CRTC - Canada's regulator that will oversee this latest acquisition - disbanded is not uncommon with regular accusations that the CRTC is run by the very people they are suppose to regulate. Still, at this point, the deal hasn't been given regulatory approval and a debate over network neutrality in Canada being sparked as a result of this would be a long way off. Still, this situation a concoction for some serious fireworks in the future if things move ahead. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90618/bell-canada-to-acquire-ctv-the-seed-for-canadas-next-net-neutrality-debate/feed/ 4 US Net Neutrality Supporters Get New Ally – Democrats http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90285/us-net-neutrality-supporters-get-new-ally-democrats/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90285/us-net-neutrality-supporters-get-new-ally-democrats/#comments Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:47:26 +0000 Drew Wilson http://www.zeropaid.com/?p=90285 donkey-democrat-logo_crop

The network neutrality debate has been getting very heated in the US. A Verizon-Google agreement drew heavy criticism from proponents of network neutrality. Now, it seems, that four Democrats from the US government is stepping in and disagreeing with the Google-Verizon pact.

The network neutrality debate quieted down for a while, but it seems to be roaring back in to the headlines as of late in the US. That all changed when Verizon and Google announced an agreement that some say was a compromise between the two sides. The press release starts off with this that sounds like it's siding with proponents of network neutrality:
In providing broadband Internet access service, a provider would be prohibited from engaging in undue discrimination against any lawful Internet content, application, or service in a manner that causes meaningful harm to competition or to users. Prioritization of Internet traffic would be presumed inconsistent with the non-discrimination standard, but the presumption could be rebutted.
Things then seemingly took a turn later on down in the press release that sided with those opposed to network neutrality:
Additional Online Services: A provider that offers a broadband Internet access service complying with the above principles could offer any other additional or differentiated services. Such other services would have to be distinguishable in scope and purpose from broadband Internet access service, but could make use of or access Internet content, applications or services and could include traffic prioritization. The FCC would publish an annual report on the effect of these additional services, and immediately report if it finds at any time that these services threaten the meaningful availability of broadband Internet access services or have been devised or promoted in a manner designed to evade these consumer protections.
It was a distinction between a public internet and additional online services that sparked huge criticism from proponents of network neutrality. "The companies seem to want to divide the Internet yet further—not just between wired and wireless," said John Bergmayer of Public Knowledge, "but between “the public Internet” and “additional online services.” Thus, “third party paid prioritization” is allowed—a particular online service might pay Verizon so that its services and content reach customers sooner. According to the proposal, these “additional online services” may “make use of or access Internet content, applications or services and could include traffic prioritization.” According to Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon, these can even include entertainment content—he gave examples including a local opera house paying so that its operas are given prioritization, and 3D video." Protesters also showed up at the Googleplex to voice their anger at the news that Google is caving. A blogger from CNET responded to the news by calling some supporters of network neutrality "zealots" and offering the following opinion:
What Free Press and Public Knowledge don't seem to realize is that AT&T and Verizon already offer differentiated services today with enhanced quality of service to business customers. Verizon's Fios TV and AT&T's U-verse TV services are also examples of managed Internet services that are delivered to consumers. And the last time I checked, no one, other than their cable competitors, has complained about AT&T and Verizon offering competition in the TV market. The truth is that if Verizon and AT&T wanted to cannibalize their broadband business with premium broadband services, they'd already be doing it. But they aren't, because there hasn't been a market for it.
At the very least though, Comcast is trying to cannibalize their network and has been trying for years. Things were starting to not look good for supporters of network neutrality, but a new development saw support for network neutrality supporters from high places - the US government. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) penned a joint letter expressing concern with what is happening between Google and Verizon. The letter writes, "The recent proposal by Google and Verizon of an industry-centered net neutrality policy framework reinforces the need for resolution of the current open proceedings at the Commission to ensure the maintenance of an open Internet. Rather than expansion upon a proposal by two large communications companies with a vested financial interest in the outcome, formal FCC action is needed. The public interest is served by a free and open Internet that continues to be an indispensable platform for innovation, investment, entrepreneurship, and free speech." They said that the FCC should be guided by the following principles for broadband proceedings: 1. The FCC must have oversight authority for broadband access services. 2. Paid prioritization would close the open Internet. 3. Wired and wireless services should have a common regulatory framework and rules. 4. Broad “managed services” exceptions would swallow open Internet rules. One thing is for sure, if the network neutrality debate in the US wasn't interesting before, it sure is now. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> donkey-democrat-logo_crop

The network neutrality debate has been getting very heated in the US. A Verizon-Google agreement drew heavy criticism from proponents of network neutrality. Now, it seems, that four Democrats from the US government is stepping in and disagreeing with the Google-Verizon pact.

The network neutrality debate quieted down for a while, but it seems to be roaring back in to the headlines as of late in the US. That all changed when Verizon and Google announced an agreement that some say was a compromise between the two sides. The press release starts off with this that sounds like it's siding with proponents of network neutrality:
In providing broadband Internet access service, a provider would be prohibited from engaging in undue discrimination against any lawful Internet content, application, or service in a manner that causes meaningful harm to competition or to users. Prioritization of Internet traffic would be presumed inconsistent with the non-discrimination standard, but the presumption could be rebutted.
Things then seemingly took a turn later on down in the press release that sided with those opposed to network neutrality:
Additional Online Services: A provider that offers a broadband Internet access service complying with the above principles could offer any other additional or differentiated services. Such other services would have to be distinguishable in scope and purpose from broadband Internet access service, but could make use of or access Internet content, applications or services and could include traffic prioritization. The FCC would publish an annual report on the effect of these additional services, and immediately report if it finds at any time that these services threaten the meaningful availability of broadband Internet access services or have been devised or promoted in a manner designed to evade these consumer protections.
It was a distinction between a public internet and additional online services that sparked huge criticism from proponents of network neutrality. "The companies seem to want to divide the Internet yet further—not just between wired and wireless," said John Bergmayer of Public Knowledge, "but between “the public Internet” and “additional online services.” Thus, “third party paid prioritization” is allowed—a particular online service might pay Verizon so that its services and content reach customers sooner. According to the proposal, these “additional online services” may “make use of or access Internet content, applications or services and could include traffic prioritization.” According to Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon, these can even include entertainment content—he gave examples including a local opera house paying so that its operas are given prioritization, and 3D video." Protesters also showed up at the Googleplex to voice their anger at the news that Google is caving. A blogger from CNET responded to the news by calling some supporters of network neutrality "zealots" and offering the following opinion:
What Free Press and Public Knowledge don't seem to realize is that AT&T and Verizon already offer differentiated services today with enhanced quality of service to business customers. Verizon's Fios TV and AT&T's U-verse TV services are also examples of managed Internet services that are delivered to consumers. And the last time I checked, no one, other than their cable competitors, has complained about AT&T and Verizon offering competition in the TV market. The truth is that if Verizon and AT&T wanted to cannibalize their broadband business with premium broadband services, they'd already be doing it. But they aren't, because there hasn't been a market for it.
At the very least though, Comcast is trying to cannibalize their network and has been trying for years. Things were starting to not look good for supporters of network neutrality, but a new development saw support for network neutrality supporters from high places - the US government. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) penned a joint letter expressing concern with what is happening between Google and Verizon. The letter writes, "The recent proposal by Google and Verizon of an industry-centered net neutrality policy framework reinforces the need for resolution of the current open proceedings at the Commission to ensure the maintenance of an open Internet. Rather than expansion upon a proposal by two large communications companies with a vested financial interest in the outcome, formal FCC action is needed. The public interest is served by a free and open Internet that continues to be an indispensable platform for innovation, investment, entrepreneurship, and free speech." They said that the FCC should be guided by the following principles for broadband proceedings: 1. The FCC must have oversight authority for broadband access services. 2. Paid prioritization would close the open Internet. 3. Wired and wireless services should have a common regulatory framework and rules. 4. Broad “managed services” exceptions would swallow open Internet rules. One thing is for sure, if the network neutrality debate in the US wasn't interesting before, it sure is now. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90285/us-net-neutrality-supporters-get-new-ally-democrats/feed/ 0 A Detailed Look at Bill C-32 – Canada’s Copyright Reform Bill (Part 4) http://www.zeropaid.com/news/89478/a-detailed-look-at-bill-c-32-%e2%80%93-canada%e2%80%99s-copyright-reform-bill-part-4/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/89478/a-detailed-look-at-bill-c-32-%e2%80%93-canada%e2%80%99s-copyright-reform-bill-part-4/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:10:04 +0000 Drew Wilson http://www.zeropaid.com/?p=89478 canada-flag_crop

We are now over half way through reading through and analyzing Canada's latest copyright reform bill. While there have been many interesting ideas (many of which are, unsurprisingly, controversial), we haven't gotten through all of the bill yet. We continue with the second half of the legislation.

Introduction We have already done a detailed citizens analysis of half of the copyright reform bill facing Canadians. There's already been plenty of material that was covered including educational provisions that seem to require students to destroy their homework 30 days after the end of the course as well as provisions that say that exceptions are being granted only to have those exceptions removed at the presence of a digital lock (legally speaking of course). We continue our analysis on page 3 of the legislation, but before we continue, we have to stress that this is not a legal opinion and we are not, in any way, shape or form, offering legal advise. This is merely a Canadian citizen reading through the legislation and picking out various interesting topics from within the legislation and discussing them. If you want legal advise, seek that through legal firms or organizations like CIPPIC. Section 31 Continued - Encryption Research On the heals of the interoperability exception, we have this:
30.62 It is not an infringement of copyright for a person to reproduce a work or other subject-matter for the purposes of encryption research if (a) it would not be practical to carry out the research without making the copy; (b) the person has lawfully obtained the work or other subject-matter; and (c) the person has informed the owner of the copyright in the work or other subject-matter.
This is particularly interesting given that this paragraph is what follows:
30.63 It is not an infringement of copyright for a person to reproduce a work or other subject-matter for the sole purpose, with the consent of the owner or administrator of a computer, computer system or computer network, of assessing the vulnerability of the computer, system or network or of correcting any security flaws.
It's interesting that encryption research requires researchers to inform rightsholders that encryption research is taking place. The question that comes to mind is, what if rights holders forbid the use of their work in this manner? This may be a matter that would have to be settled in court for clarification. While it sounds like something that might be a bit of a stretch, just remember that malware creators such as spyware developers might make something that they don't want researchers looking in to from an encryption standpoint. It's a possibility from our standpoint. Section 35 – Safe Harbor If anyone says that this piece of legislation has nothing to do with and shares no resemblance to the US DMCA would be mistaken because the DMCA in the US, as with the current copyright reform legislation, both appear to contain safe harbor provisions.
31.1 (1) A person who, in providing serv- ices related to the operation of the Internet or another digital network, provides any means for the telecommunication or the reproduction of a work or other subject-matter through the Internet or that other network does not, solely by reason of providing those means, infringe copyright in that work or other subject-matter. (2) Subsection (1) does not apply in respect of a service provided by the person if the provision of that service constitutes an infringement of copyright under subsection 27(2.3). (3) Subject to subsection (4), a person referred to in subsection (1) who caches the work or other subject-matter, or does any similar act in relation to it, to make the telecommunication more efficient does not, by virtue of that act alone, infringe copyright in the work or other subject-matter.
In other words, just because you provide the service doesn't mean you infringe copyright in and of itself. If you provide a service that is designed to infringe copyright, that's a whole different story. This follows closely with what the US DMCA and subsequent court decisions have suggested for years. It seems that Canada is simply following suit in this respect through this copyright reform legislation. Section 31 Continued – Network Neutrality Preserved? The part that immediately followed the above portion of the legislation was very interesting:
(4) Subsection (3) does not apply unless the person, in respect of the work or other subject-matter, (a) does not modify it, other than for technical reasons; (b) ensures that any directions related to its caching or the doing of any similar act, as the case may be, that are established by whoever made it available for telecommunication through the Internet or another digital network, and that lend themselves to automated reading and execution, are read and executed; and (c) does not interfere with the lawful use of technology to obtain data on its use.
What was specifically interesting was section (c) here because it says that lawful uses of a network cannot be interfered with. So, let's say one uses BitTorrent to obtain the latest version of Open Office. Then, let's presume that Bell decided to throttle BitTorrent that would affect caching. Technically, they have interfered with the lawful use of their networks. If they chose to interfere with that traffic with respect to caching, that must also mean that they can stop absolutely every potentially copyright infringing activity that could occur thanks to caching and would no longer fall under subsection 3. If you can dabble in control a little, you must be able to control all of it. No half measures, it's all or nothing. What's disappointing in this is that this affects such a narrow part of network management and not all of it. Section 46 – Statutory Damages This was particularly interesting because it sends the message that a government finally got the message that there is a difference between commercial and non-commercial infringement:
38.1 (1) Subject to this section, a copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of damages and profits referred to in subsection 35(1), an award of statutory damages for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, (a) in a sum of not less than $500 and not more than $20,000 that the court considers just, with respect to all infringements involved in the proceedings for each work or other subject-matter, if the infringements are for commercial purposes; and (b) in a sum of not less than $100 and not more than $5,000 that the court considers just, with respect to all infringements involved in the proceedings for all works or other subject-matter, if the infringements are for non-commercial purposes.
Now, contrast this with US copyright law for an even more interesting look at this:
* Statutory damages range from $750 per work to $150,000 per work * In case of “innocent infringement”, the range is $200 to $150,000 per work. "Innocent" is a technical term. In particular, if the work carries a copyright notice, the infringer cannot claim innocence.[50] * In case of “willful infringement” (again, “willful” is a technical term), the range is $750 to $300,000 per work.
In other words, the floor and ceiling for infringement is significantly lower when it comes to statutory damages. Bill C-32, in this light, is far more progressive in actually saying, “Hey, there is a difference between commercial and non-commercial infringement here.” Comparatively speaking, it's also nice to know that infringement doesn't mean that rights holders effectively win a lottery worth of money from random people (Just look at the Thomas case or the Tenenbaum case to get what we're talking about here) Things get more interesting further down:
(3) In awarding statutory damages under paragraph (1)(a) or subsection (2), the court may award, with respect to each work or other subject-matter, a lower amount than $500 or $200, as the case may be, that the court considers just, if (a) there is more than one work or other subject-matter in a single medium; and (b) the awarding of even the minimum amount referred to in that paragraph or that subsection would result in a total award that, in the court’s opinion, is grossly out of proportion to the infringement.
So if someone was hauled in to court over an album that person uploaded to another persons iPod, then a court can be convinced to not hand down the minimum sentence and hand down something lower than the minimum sentence. This is great news because it makes it significantly harder for questionable law firms to implement supposedly new business models that is solely based on suing individuals (most would agree that it is based on abusing the legal system set in place) as seen in the US more recently. In other words, good luck extracting a multi-million dollar settlement from a teenager who barely even knows how copyright works. Section 46 – Proportional Punishment The idea that there is a difference between commercial and non-commercial infringement was not only further cemented after that, but there was also an interesting concept thrown in about the need for proportional punishment for infringement:
(2) Subsection 38.1(5) of the Act is amended by striking out “and” at the end of paragraph (b), by adding “and” at the end of paragraph (c) and by adding the following after paragraph (c): (d) in the case of infringements for non-commercial purposes, the need for an award to be proportionate to the infringements, in consideration of the hardship the award may cause to the defendant, whether the infringement was for private purposes or not, and the impact of the infringements on the plaintiff.
This is a very progressive and positive concept being added. There is a difference between being a multi-millionaire and being sued for a few hundred thousands of dollars and being on the poverty line and being sued for a few hundred thousand dollars. I personally do not believe there is a one size that fits all when it comes to awards for damages because everyone's personal situation is different. If a multi-national company is sued for a few million when they make that much in three days in revenue, that's OK because they can spare the pocket change. If a burger flipper get's hit with the same award, they are financially ruined for the rest of their life. What message does that send? That corporations – particularly large corporations - are above the law and they can break copyright all they want because there's no consequence that will hurt them. I'm glad that there's at least a concept put down that tries to not allow that to be the main message of the legislation. Conclusion We haven't gotten through page 3 yet, but we did cover two big issues and touched on a third – damages, safe harbor and touched on network neutrality. The thing I don't understand is why it took so long to understand the basic concept of there being a difference between commercial and non-commercial infringement. It astounds me that such a simple solution, or rather, the starting point of a simple solution to a number of issues surrounding the social aspect of copyright, was something that was lost on so many politicians up to this point. For years, file-sharers were furious at bootleggers selling pirate copies on the street because it, whether justified or not, gives file-sharers a bad name. I think that whenever there is a bunch of people busted for selling pirate copies of movies, many file-sharers are very happy because they know that selling bootleg copies of copyrighted material is wrong. Additionally, they are just as frustrated when non-commercial infringement is legally deemed just as bad. Credit where credit is due, at least those behind this copyright reform bill figured this out. Previously: A Detailed Look at Bill C-32 – Canada’s Copyright Reform Bill (Part 1) A Detailed Look at Bill C-32 – Canada’s Copyright Reform Bill (Part 2) A Detailed Look at Bill C-32 – Canada’s Copyright Reform Bill (Part 3) See also: Bill C-32 – Canada’s latest copyright reform bill Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> canada-flag_crop

We are now over half way through reading through and analyzing Canada's latest copyright reform bill. While there have been many interesting ideas (many of which are, unsurprisingly, controversial), we haven't gotten through all of the bill yet. We continue with the second half of the legislation.

Introduction We have already done a detailed citizens analysis of half of the copyright reform bill facing Canadians. There's already been plenty of material that was covered including educational provisions that seem to require students to destroy their homework 30 days after the end of the course as well as provisions that say that exceptions are being granted only to have those exceptions removed at the presence of a digital lock (legally speaking of course). We continue our analysis on page 3 of the legislation, but before we continue, we have to stress that this is not a legal opinion and we are not, in any way, shape or form, offering legal advise. This is merely a Canadian citizen reading through the legislation and picking out various interesting topics from within the legislation and discussing them. If you want legal advise, seek that through legal firms or organizations like CIPPIC. Section 31 Continued - Encryption Research On the heals of the interoperability exception, we have this:
30.62 It is not an infringement of copyright for a person to reproduce a work or other subject-matter for the purposes of encryption research if (a) it would not be practical to carry out the research without making the copy; (b) the person has lawfully obtained the work or other subject-matter; and (c) the person has informed the owner of the copyright in the work or other subject-matter.
This is particularly interesting given that this paragraph is what follows:
30.63 It is not an infringement of copyright for a person to reproduce a work or other subject-matter for the sole purpose, with the consent of the owner or administrator of a computer, computer system or computer network, of assessing the vulnerability of the computer, system or network or of correcting any security flaws.
It's interesting that encryption research requires researchers to inform rightsholders that encryption research is taking place. The question that comes to mind is, what if rights holders forbid the use of their work in this manner? This may be a matter that would have to be settled in court for clarification. While it sounds like something that might be a bit of a stretch, just remember that malware creators such as spyware developers might make something that they don't want researchers looking in to from an encryption standpoint. It's a possibility from our standpoint. Section 35 – Safe Harbor If anyone says that this piece of legislation has nothing to do with and shares no resemblance to the US DMCA would be mistaken because the DMCA in the US, as with the current copyright reform legislation, both appear to contain safe harbor provisions.
31.1 (1) A person who, in providing serv- ices related to the operation of the Internet or another digital network, provides any means for the telecommunication or the reproduction of a work or other subject-matter through the Internet or that other network does not, solely by reason of providing those means, infringe copyright in that work or other subject-matter. (2) Subsection (1) does not apply in respect of a service provided by the person if the provision of that service constitutes an infringement of copyright under subsection 27(2.3). (3) Subject to subsection (4), a person referred to in subsection (1) who caches the work or other subject-matter, or does any similar act in relation to it, to make the telecommunication more efficient does not, by virtue of that act alone, infringe copyright in the work or other subject-matter.
In other words, just because you provide the service doesn't mean you infringe copyright in and of itself. If you provide a service that is designed to infringe copyright, that's a whole different story. This follows closely with what the US DMCA and subsequent court decisions have suggested for years. It seems that Canada is simply following suit in this respect through this copyright reform legislation. Section 31 Continued – Network Neutrality Preserved? The part that immediately followed the above portion of the legislation was very interesting:
(4) Subsection (3) does not apply unless the person, in respect of the work or other subject-matter, (a) does not modify it, other than for technical reasons; (b) ensures that any directions related to its caching or the doing of any similar act, as the case may be, that are established by whoever made it available for telecommunication through the Internet or another digital network, and that lend themselves to automated reading and execution, are read and executed; and (c) does not interfere with the lawful use of technology to obtain data on its use.
What was specifically interesting was section (c) here because it says that lawful uses of a network cannot be interfered with. So, let's say one uses BitTorrent to obtain the latest version of Open Office. Then, let's presume that Bell decided to throttle BitTorrent that would affect caching. Technically, they have interfered with the lawful use of their networks. If they chose to interfere with that traffic with respect to caching, that must also mean that they can stop absolutely every potentially copyright infringing activity that could occur thanks to caching and would no longer fall under subsection 3. If you can dabble in control a little, you must be able to control all of it. No half measures, it's all or nothing. What's disappointing in this is that this affects such a narrow part of network management and not all of it. Section 46 – Statutory Damages This was particularly interesting because it sends the message that a government finally got the message that there is a difference between commercial and non-commercial infringement:
38.1 (1) Subject to this section, a copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of damages and profits referred to in subsection 35(1), an award of statutory damages for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, (a) in a sum of not less than $500 and not more than $20,000 that the court considers just, with respect to all infringements involved in the proceedings for each work or other subject-matter, if the infringements are for commercial purposes; and (b) in a sum of not less than $100 and not more than $5,000 that the court considers just, with respect to all infringements involved in the proceedings for all works or other subject-matter, if the infringements are for non-commercial purposes.
Now, contrast this with US copyright law for an even more interesting look at this:
* Statutory damages range from $750 per work to $150,000 per work * In case of “innocent infringement”, the range is $200 to $150,000 per work. "Innocent" is a technical term. In particular, if the work carries a copyright notice, the infringer cannot claim innocence.[50] * In case of “willful infringement” (again, “willful” is a technical term), the range is $750 to $300,000 per work.
In other words, the floor and ceiling for infringement is significantly lower when it comes to statutory damages. Bill C-32, in this light, is far more progressive in actually saying, “Hey, there is a difference between commercial and non-commercial infringement here.” Comparatively speaking, it's also nice to know that infringement doesn't mean that rights holders effectively win a lottery worth of money from random people (Just look at the Thomas case or the Tenenbaum case to get what we're talking about here) Things get more interesting further down:
(3) In awarding statutory damages under paragraph (1)(a) or subsection (2), the court may award, with respect to each work or other subject-matter, a lower amount than $500 or $200, as the case may be, that the court considers just, if (a) there is more than one work or other subject-matter in a single medium; and (b) the awarding of even the minimum amount referred to in that paragraph or that subsection would result in a total award that, in the court’s opinion, is grossly out of proportion to the infringement.
So if someone was hauled in to court over an album that person uploaded to another persons iPod, then a court can be convinced to not hand down the minimum sentence and hand down something lower than the minimum sentence. This is great news because it makes it significantly harder for questionable law firms to implement supposedly new business models that is solely based on suing individuals (most would agree that it is based on abusing the legal system set in place) as seen in the US more recently. In other words, good luck extracting a multi-million dollar settlement from a teenager who barely even knows how copyright works. Section 46 – Proportional Punishment The idea that there is a difference between commercial and non-commercial infringement was not only further cemented after that, but there was also an interesting concept thrown in about the need for proportional punishment for infringement:
(2) Subsection 38.1(5) of the Act is amended by striking out “and” at the end of paragraph (b), by adding “and” at the end of paragraph (c) and by adding the following after paragraph (c): (d) in the case of infringements for non-commercial purposes, the need for an award to be proportionate to the infringements, in consideration of the hardship the award may cause to the defendant, whether the infringement was for private purposes or not, and the impact of the infringements on the plaintiff.
This is a very progressive and positive concept being added. There is a difference between being a multi-millionaire and being sued for a few hundred thousands of dollars and being on the poverty line and being sued for a few hundred thousand dollars. I personally do not believe there is a one size that fits all when it comes to awards for damages because everyone's personal situation is different. If a multi-national company is sued for a few million when they make that much in three days in revenue, that's OK because they can spare the pocket change. If a burger flipper get's hit with the same award, they are financially ruined for the rest of their life. What message does that send? That corporations – particularly large corporations - are above the law and they can break copyright all they want because there's no consequence that will hurt them. I'm glad that there's at least a concept put down that tries to not allow that to be the main message of the legislation. Conclusion We haven't gotten through page 3 yet, but we did cover two big issues and touched on a third – damages, safe harbor and touched on network neutrality. The thing I don't understand is why it took so long to understand the basic concept of there being a difference between commercial and non-commercial infringement. It astounds me that such a simple solution, or rather, the starting point of a simple solution to a number of issues surrounding the social aspect of copyright, was something that was lost on so many politicians up to this point. For years, file-sharers were furious at bootleggers selling pirate copies on the street because it, whether justified or not, gives file-sharers a bad name. I think that whenever there is a bunch of people busted for selling pirate copies of movies, many file-sharers are very happy because they know that selling bootleg copies of copyrighted material is wrong. Additionally, they are just as frustrated when non-commercial infringement is legally deemed just as bad. Credit where credit is due, at least those behind this copyright reform bill figured this out. Previously: A Detailed Look at Bill C-32 – Canada’s Copyright Reform Bill (Part 1) A Detailed Look at Bill C-32 – Canada’s Copyright Reform Bill (Part 2) A Detailed Look at Bill C-32 – Canada’s Copyright Reform Bill (Part 3) See also: Bill C-32 – Canada’s latest copyright reform bill Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> http://www.zeropaid.com/news/89478/a-detailed-look-at-bill-c-32-%e2%80%93-canada%e2%80%99s-copyright-reform-bill-part-4/feed/ 1 Scrutiny Over 1.5 Million US Job Losses Due to Net Neutrality Mounts http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88950/scrutiny-over-1-5-million-us-job-losses-due-to-net-neutrality-mounts/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88950/scrutiny-over-1-5-million-us-job-losses-due-to-net-neutrality-mounts/#comments Sat, 01 May 2010 05:01:47 +0000 Drew Wilson http://www.zeropaid.com/?p=88950 United_States Flag_crop

While the European Union is dealing with a filtering debate that appears to be a threat to the internet as we know it, the internet as we know it isn't exactly safe in the US either with the heated network neutrality debate at the FCC.

While Comcast was able to win its case over throttling practises in the US earlier this month, that didn't mean that the debate was over. Far from it and the battle rages on at the FCC. Just a few days ago, we highlighted a suspicious report that claims that network neutrality would negatively impact 1.5 million jobs. We looked deeper in to the report and were able to find quite a few flaws in the report that puts in to question the validity of the claims. Unfortunately, I don't have the benefit of being a US citizen to know how everything works to the fine detail, but others, it seems, have looked at the report and found similar flaws and were able to flush out some more details on why the findings were flawed. Robert X Cringely of info world is also aware of the report and he had a few similar concerns about the validity of the report. "Who paid for this report?" Cringely asked, "A telecom lobbying firm called Mobile Future, which sports a weird hodgepodge of member organizations, including Alligator Planet, Climate Cartoons, Goomzee, and the League of United Latin American Citizens. But the most recognizable name on the list is AT&T. Color me surprised." So there was a definite connection to the telecom industry after all. So while on first glance, it appears more neutral, apparently deeper in to the origins report reveals what some would consider a conflict of interest. Cringely did, however, come to a few conclusions we were able to come to. For instance, the calculated losses didn't really appear to have very strong basis to draw such conclusions. Another similar conclusion was that one cannot base the market experience of DSL vs. cable of the early to mid 2000s and use that as a lesson on regulation. We only needed to look at reported price points of both years to debunk it. Cringely took a different approach by noting the quality of service instead:
Delivering DSL over copper lines involves more variables and more barriers -- including a customer's proximity to a central office, the quality of their phone service, the amount of non-DSL-compatible fiber in the ground, and the Baby Bells' own bureaucratic intransigence. This process was widely known as "DSL hell," and it's why the DSL Reports site was created and continues to flourish.
We were aware of the potential issue of quality of service, but chose to use a simpler method because the amount of time it took to go through the paper (3 days). Cringely did note something else that was interesting that originally came from Brett Glass which comments, "Net neutrality rules as currently written are not actually neutral. They benefit Google in particular because it owns its own backbone and, thus, can prioritize and manage its own traffic at will, free from any government constraint." This clearly shows, ultimately, that the report was fatally flawed when drawing up these numbers and there are other observers who will agree. Like Cringely, we were running in to the problem of how thorough should we go in finding holes in the report? I would argue you could fill an encyclopedia of all the ways you can find flaws in the report. The question is, what angle do you look at this paper and what information is immediately available in your memory do you use against this paper? Bottom line is that you can't trust the findings of this report because there is too many pieces of evidence that would argue against some of its assumptions that pretty much kills the validity of the core argument. In short, the paper should be junked when considering network neutrality. We do know one thing though, its a high stakes fight and there has already been sparring matches over what roll the FCC plays in the network neutrality debate. The internet is changing, the question is, will it serve the same people as it once did? Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> United_States Flag_crop

While the European Union is dealing with a filtering debate that appears to be a threat to the internet as we know it, the internet as we know it isn't exactly safe in the US either with the heated network neutrality debate at the FCC.

While Comcast was able to win its case over throttling practises in the US earlier this month, that didn't mean that the debate was over. Far from it and the battle rages on at the FCC. Just a few days ago, we highlighted a suspicious report that claims that network neutrality would negatively impact 1.5 million jobs. We looked deeper in to the report and were able to find quite a few flaws in the report that puts in to question the validity of the claims. Unfortunately, I don't have the benefit of being a US citizen to know how everything works to the fine detail, but others, it seems, have looked at the report and found similar flaws and were able to flush out some more details on why the findings were flawed. Robert X Cringely of info world is also aware of the report and he had a few similar concerns about the validity of the report. "Who paid for this report?" Cringely asked, "A telecom lobbying firm called Mobile Future, which sports a weird hodgepodge of member organizations, including Alligator Planet, Climate Cartoons, Goomzee, and the League of United Latin American Citizens. But the most recognizable name on the list is AT&T. Color me surprised." So there was a definite connection to the telecom industry after all. So while on first glance, it appears more neutral, apparently deeper in to the origins report reveals what some would consider a conflict of interest. Cringely did, however, come to a few conclusions we were able to come to. For instance, the calculated losses didn't really appear to have very strong basis to draw such conclusions. Another similar conclusion was that one cannot base the market experience of DSL vs. cable of the early to mid 2000s and use that as a lesson on regulation. We only needed to look at reported price points of both years to debunk it. Cringely took a different approach by noting the quality of service instead:
Delivering DSL over copper lines involves more variables and more barriers -- including a customer's proximity to a central office, the quality of their phone service, the amount of non-DSL-compatible fiber in the ground, and the Baby Bells' own bureaucratic intransigence. This process was widely known as "DSL hell," and it's why the DSL Reports site was created and continues to flourish.
We were aware of the potential issue of quality of service, but chose to use a simpler method because the amount of time it took to go through the paper (3 days). Cringely did note something else that was interesting that originally came from Brett Glass which comments, "Net neutrality rules as currently written are not actually neutral. They benefit Google in particular because it owns its own backbone and, thus, can prioritize and manage its own traffic at will, free from any government constraint." This clearly shows, ultimately, that the report was fatally flawed when drawing up these numbers and there are other observers who will agree. Like Cringely, we were running in to the problem of how thorough should we go in finding holes in the report? I would argue you could fill an encyclopedia of all the ways you can find flaws in the report. The question is, what angle do you look at this paper and what information is immediately available in your memory do you use against this paper? Bottom line is that you can't trust the findings of this report because there is too many pieces of evidence that would argue against some of its assumptions that pretty much kills the validity of the core argument. In short, the paper should be junked when considering network neutrality. We do know one thing though, its a high stakes fight and there has already been sparring matches over what roll the FCC plays in the network neutrality debate. The internet is changing, the question is, will it serve the same people as it once did? Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88950/scrutiny-over-1-5-million-us-job-losses-due-to-net-neutrality-mounts/feed/ 0 US Study Claims Network Neutrality Would Negatively Impact 1.5 Million Jobs http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88742/us-study-claims-network-neutrality-would-negatively-impact-1-5-million-jobs/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88742/us-study-claims-network-neutrality-would-negatively-impact-1-5-million-jobs/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:15:45 +0000 Drew Wilson http://www.zeropaid.com/?p=88742 NetNeutralPaperDebunked_crop

Another day, another doom and gloom study. This time, Coleman Bazelon of The Brattle Group claims that if network neutrality were put in place, nearly 1.5 Million jobs would be in jeopardy by the year 2020.

First portion of the paper

There's been quite a lot of wild studies being published lately. Today, theres a study (PDF) that appears to be against network neutrality in the US saying that close to 1.5 million jobs would be impacted thanks to network neutrality by the year 2020. It's an interesting finding, so we looked at the paper to find exactly how the jobs would be lost. As we went through the paper, there were even more stranger claims such as this:
The employment losses associated with those reductions is found to be significant—14,217 direct broadband sector jobs lost in 2011 growing to 342,065 jobs lost by 2020; and economy-wide, affecting 65,404 jobs in 2011 growing to 1,452,943 by 2020. These additional jobs include both employment in sectors that feed into the broadband sector, such as equipment manufacturers, as well as employment created from the increased broadband sector income—everything from jobs in dry cleaners to retail and manufacturing.
It seemed a bit of a stretch to say that network neutrality would cost a local dry cleaner their jobs, but nevertheless, we continue on through the paper. We did, in section two, get to the point about money which states, "End-user service revenues for 2008 were almost $52 billion." It's an interesting note because it's not like there isn't revenue going to the ISPs in the first place. So where exactly does these job losses come from? The paper says, "The 2008 revenues are projected out to 2020. The point of this projection is not to predict exactly where the broadband market will be in 10 years, but rather to estimate the economic impact of network neutrality regulations on that market development." While it is always a pain to have guesswork, nevertheless, in this case, we are looking in to the crystal ball here, so, of course, guesstimation is much more forgivable because no one truly knows exactly what the future holds. The paper then says, "Overall, broadband sector revenue is projected to have grown at a 23% annual rate in 2009, with that growth rate decreasing to 10% per year in 2016 and staying at that level through 2020."

The network neutrality issue

The paper then says, "Proponents of network neutrality regulation are concerned that broadband providers will increase the share of revenue they extract from this sector by imposing variable pricing and other discriminatory practises on content providers. Although revenues from sales to content providers would be expected to increase in any event with the growth of the content sector, the sustained high growth rates compared to end-user service revenues reflected in the baseline incorporates the assumption that the broadband providers will likely find new ways to charge content providers." This is accompanied by the footnote: "Sales to content providers have experienced higher growth rates in recent years compared with sales to end-users." That's the part that is puzzling. The content sector will be making money and will be growing anyway, so who cares if their content is discriminated against because the sales would be made anyway? If users can't stream legal content because the ISP provider is discriminating against their traffic, then the end user can't use that given commercial service to begin with - thus a loss in revenue for the content provider. Users will more likely go to services that are faster, thus making ISPs gate keepers of which business survives and which does not. Why can't the free market work itself out? I'd call that argument a bit ambiguous to say the least. The fourth section had this interesting point, "The academic literature on possible effects of network neutrality regulation does not provide a consensus view on whether such regulations should be expected to help or harm the broadband sector, although several economists have concluded that such regulation would be harmful." It's a bit strange to say in passing that academics have debated this and move on to say that there are economists who don't like network neutrality. Isn't that like watching a basketball game and the teams are tied, then asking someone in the audience who do they think should win and declaring a winner based on the answer given? The paper provided examples of why network neutrality is bad and offers this odd example as one of a number of examples:
In Europe, several studies have attempted to examine the impact of open access regulation on investment in broadband. Typically such studies focus on service penetration, assessing the impact of open access regulations on measures such as broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. These studies find that facilities-based competition based on competing networks, as opposed to access-based competition based on regulatory opening of private networks, drives broadband penetration.
Maybe this is a little beyond us, but how is acknowledging the positives of competition in Europe's ISP sector relevant to network neutrality in the US when a US customer is more then likely to experience either a monopoly in a given area or a comfortable duopoly in a given area? Isn't talking about ISP competition in Europe in general a bit of a leap from network neutrality in the US?

Core argument: DSL vs. Cable argument

So, as a more direct comparison, the author used the difference of DSL connections and cable modem connections (as one was regulated and the other wasn't and used projections based on that. The description:
A study by Thomas Hazlett and Anil Caliskan of George Mason University estimates the effect of deregulation on DSL service. At the end of 2002, unregulated cable modem subscriptions outnumbered regulated DSL subscriptions by two-to-one. By 2006, 4 years after deregulation began, DSL lagged behind cable modem service by less than 15%.
Can one blame regulations on the situation exclusively? We looked at an article on prices of both and the closest we found was in 2003 which had the following:
DirecTV Broadband had a reputation for providing fast, reliable service at a bargain price. The company charged $50 per month for DSL, slightly below the industry average of $51.36, according to research firm ARS.
The monthly price for cable modem service averaged $45.31 per month as of June 2002
The price of DSL at the time? $51.36 on average. The price of cable at the time? $45.31 on average. Stunningly, price point was not mentioned in the report even though it was a far simpler explanation on why subscriptions were the way they were. It's strange that the paper doesn't talk about price point at all to say the least since that is a huge factor for consumer purchasing habits. Surely there are a number of factors related to cost that doesn't have anything to do with regulation. We looked at prices in 2005 and found this on CNET:
Verizon gives the monthly customers the $29.95 rate only if they subscribe to the company's unlimited local and long-distance phone plan--$44.95 to $59.95 per month, depending on the state--or the unlimited local package, ranging from $21.95 to $32.95.
Like its other Baby Bell cousins--SBC Communications, Qwest Communications International and BellSouth--Verizon has been offering low-priced broadband to catch up to cable's dominance in the business. Many of these deals are priced under $30 for more than 1mbps of speed.
So, these examples show the following in direct pricing: Cost for DSL: $32.95 Cost for cable: Under $30 While one example, it shows that there are cases where cable, again in 2005 which would account for what was seen when 2006 rolled around (because the paper explicitly said "by 2006") Isn't that an easier explanation as to why Cable modems were outselling DSL? Regardless of any actual reasons, the paper then concludes the reasoning with this:
The DSL experience should not be taken as determinative of what will happen under the proposed network neutrality regulations. Rather, it is suggestive of the general size of the impact such regulations can have.
The paper then takes the difference in sales and takes 15% away from total revenue of the ISPs projected revenue. The argument, in short, is DSL performed poorly compared to cable, DSL was regulated and cable was not, therefore regulation is bad for the industry. Since the author blames regulation exclusively for the differential in revenue, rather then other possible factors like price points as I have demonstrated as but one other possibility, then one can't really make a projection like this, so the argument fails. Since the projection in revenue is flawed, the argument about subsequent job losses cannot really be made as what the paper then proceeds to do concluding that, "In [2020], the $100 billion in reduced broadband sector revenues would have generated 342,065 broadband sector jobs and the $292 billion economy-wide impact would have supported 1,452,943 jobs."

Content sector argument

The paper discusses job growth in the content sector with the following:
Some proponents of more comprehensive network neutrality regulation proposals have suggested that job losses in the broadband sector might be offset by increased employment in the Internet content sector.
It then proceeds with the first part of the argument:
The Internet content sector comprises all of the websites and Internet based services that broadband end-users access over broadband connections. For the content sector, the effect of potential discrimination in pricing and services is ambiguous. Simply put, a regime of network neutrality regulation will likely have different content winners than a regime without network neutrality regulation
This is certainly an agreeable. If network neutrality were in place, the big players online would be different then if ISPs could control what packets have priority. There is, however, a very significant difference between the two outcomes. With network neutrality, the online marketplace can effectively sort itself out through competing services. It network neutrality were not imposed, then ISPs can decide which services are the winners and losers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a free market as seen in a neutral network how the automotive sector formed to what it is today in the first place?

Quantity of content argument

The paper then says this:
Larger commercial sites have the potential of doing better or worse under network neutrality regulations. On the one hand, potentially lower costs of access should benefit them; on the other hand, potentially less developed broadband infrastructure could harm their businesses. With some content winning and some content losing, there is no reason to believe that the total amount of content will be more or less (or more or less valued by Internet users) under one regime or the other. Some business models will do well under one regime, others under the other regime.
While it is difficult to gauge how much content is available in either a neutral or non-neutral scenario, it misses the point about network neutrality and that is which is the winner and which is the loser. If a company and not an overall marketplace decides what content is the winner and loser, then quality could very well be affected. Either way, this part of the argument has little to do with how the online content sector would perform and how it would impact jobs, so it is really simply off topic.

The dollar on the job argument

It's a very strange argument and this is how it is described (note: this part contains no footnotes):
This offsetting growth would require more than simply the content sector capturing the broadband sector’s losses—it would take almost $300 billion in content sector revenues to offset the employment impacts of a $100 billion loss in the broadband sector—because each dollar spent on content supports less employment than a dollar spent on broadband.
So by this own paper, the amount of revenue created by the content revenue is expected to be triple the amount projected to supposedly be lost by the ISPs (a flawed number as argued already) Yet, the author still argues that 3 times the revenue means fewer supportable jobs. What? When one looks at a commercial website that sells physical goods, there needs to be, at the very least, a network to process orders, companies to manufacture those goods, companies that store and redistribute those goods and subsequent people to ship those goods in the first place. Even if a content provider only sells digital content like movies, they need lawyers to negotiate rights (if they were to deal with organizations like the MPAA for instance), they need staff for server maintenance, they need staff to maintain the site itself, they need staff for troubleshooting and customer service and who knows what jobs like that would indirectly support in both digital and physical jobs. Why are jobs fewer in the content industry? The paper fails to explain that other then two tables with numbers based on flawed reasoning (as we discussed already). With a lack of further reasoning or explanation, the argument fails due to lack of sound evidence.

The jobs quantity argument

Section C is a little more vague and chooses to rely on predictions on how money would be spent on both sectors saying, "any transfers of wealth induced by network neutrality regulations—of a flow of revenue from broadband providers to content providers—would be expected to have a negative impact on employment" Still, this is basing predictions on a developing industry - the online content industry. In a non-neutral internet in the US, the jobs would effectively be moved out of the country to other countries that have a neutral network. There is the potential for innovation online to this day and who knows where the internet will go, but impeding traffic through ISP level interference as a non-neutral network would mean that the jobs in the online sector would vanish in the US. While the paper relies heavily on the idea that infrastructure investment is leading to job creation, it also has admitted that market saturation is also a possibility. If big ISPs choose not to lay down more lines (as there have been cases where ISPs refused to roll out things like FiOS in the past in the US), then those jobs that laying down new lines would require would never have been created in the first place. A non neutral network can lead to less use of the internet in the first place if fewer services are possible, thus relieving ISPs of obligations to upgrade their infrastructure, thus leading to fewer jobs anyway. Ultimately, the argument suggests that its best to put money in a market that is currently being saturated and possibly slowing then it is to put money in to a sector thats in a state of major growth with many areas that could be expanded. It's ultimately a bit senseless, really.

Conclusion of the paper

One thing that sticks out in the conclusion is the following, "If implemented, network neutrality rules could lead to a broadband sector that is almost 18% smaller than it would otherwise be by the end of the decade." Yet, earlier on page 11, the report states, "An increase of 18% translates into roughly 15% when measured as a decline in the growth rate." Since these are the only two places 18% is even mentioned in the paper, why not stick to the conservative value used to make so many calculations in the first place? Would this lead some to speculate that the number could be somewhat inflated to make a harder hitting conclusion? The report concludes, "Consequently, network neutrality regulations would be counterproductive to reaching the FCC’s goals of increased broadband connectivity and the associated economic benefits that connectivity would bring."

ZeroPaid's conclusion of this paper

I will give the author some credit over the fact that of all the papers I have gone over with a fine toothed comb, this isn't the worst out there that I've ever seen. A lot of papers I've read which tries to make really wild claims end up in the category of papers that are so full of errors, ambiguity and not thoroughly researched points, that one may as well just discuss the most glaring holes. This paper doesn't necessarily fall in to that category. Another positive thing to say about the paper was that researching the group and the author doesn't immediately turn up conflicts of interest where a number of papers in the past requires minimal research to determine whether there was a conflict of interest. An example of this would be a paper that argues that tougher copyright is needed and that the paper in question was done independently and in an unbiased manner, but the author in question is a registered lobbyist for the major record labels for instance. All that being said, going through the paper, going through the arguments and figuring out where the evidence is to back up the claims, I have to say, in critical parts of the paper, the evidence was either too weak or non-existent outside of identifying a given model to make a few general projections that don't have anything to do with what potential losses there could be in the industry with network neutrality. Almost all of the arguments used to support that 1.5 million jobs would be affected by network neutrality didn't have enough evidence to back itself up. One particular argument only required a few minutes of Googling to debunk. So, overall, the paper definitely fell short of proving its claims. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> NetNeutralPaperDebunked_crop

Another day, another doom and gloom study. This time, Coleman Bazelon of The Brattle Group claims that if network neutrality were put in place, nearly 1.5 Million jobs would be in jeopardy by the year 2020.

First portion of the paper

There's been quite a lot of wild studies being published lately. Today, theres a study (PDF) that appears to be against network neutrality in the US saying that close to 1.5 million jobs would be impacted thanks to network neutrality by the year 2020. It's an interesting finding, so we looked at the paper to find exactly how the jobs would be lost. As we went through the paper, there were even more stranger claims such as this:
The employment losses associated with those reductions is found to be significant—14,217 direct broadband sector jobs lost in 2011 growing to 342,065 jobs lost by 2020; and economy-wide, affecting 65,404 jobs in 2011 growing to 1,452,943 by 2020. These additional jobs include both employment in sectors that feed into the broadband sector, such as equipment manufacturers, as well as employment created from the increased broadband sector income—everything from jobs in dry cleaners to retail and manufacturing.
It seemed a bit of a stretch to say that network neutrality would cost a local dry cleaner their jobs, but nevertheless, we continue on through the paper. We did, in section two, get to the point about money which states, "End-user service revenues for 2008 were almost $52 billion." It's an interesting note because it's not like there isn't revenue going to the ISPs in the first place. So where exactly does these job losses come from? The paper says, "The 2008 revenues are projected out to 2020. The point of this projection is not to predict exactly where the broadband market will be in 10 years, but rather to estimate the economic impact of network neutrality regulations on that market development." While it is always a pain to have guesswork, nevertheless, in this case, we are looking in to the crystal ball here, so, of course, guesstimation is much more forgivable because no one truly knows exactly what the future holds. The paper then says, "Overall, broadband sector revenue is projected to have grown at a 23% annual rate in 2009, with that growth rate decreasing to 10% per year in 2016 and staying at that level through 2020."

The network neutrality issue

The paper then says, "Proponents of network neutrality regulation are concerned that broadband providers will increase the share of revenue they extract from this sector by imposing variable pricing and other discriminatory practises on content providers. Although revenues from sales to content providers would be expected to increase in any event with the growth of the content sector, the sustained high growth rates compared to end-user service revenues reflected in the baseline incorporates the assumption that the broadband providers will likely find new ways to charge content providers." This is accompanied by the footnote: "Sales to content providers have experienced higher growth rates in recent years compared with sales to end-users." That's the part that is puzzling. The content sector will be making money and will be growing anyway, so who cares if their content is discriminated against because the sales would be made anyway? If users can't stream legal content because the ISP provider is discriminating against their traffic, then the end user can't use that given commercial service to begin with - thus a loss in revenue for the content provider. Users will more likely go to services that are faster, thus making ISPs gate keepers of which business survives and which does not. Why can't the free market work itself out? I'd call that argument a bit ambiguous to say the least. The fourth section had this interesting point, "The academic literature on possible effects of network neutrality regulation does not provide a consensus view on whether such regulations should be expected to help or harm the broadband sector, although several economists have concluded that such regulation would be harmful." It's a bit strange to say in passing that academics have debated this and move on to say that there are economists who don't like network neutrality. Isn't that like watching a basketball game and the teams are tied, then asking someone in the audience who do they think should win and declaring a winner based on the answer given? The paper provided examples of why network neutrality is bad and offers this odd example as one of a number of examples:
In Europe, several studies have attempted to examine the impact of open access regulation on investment in broadband. Typically such studies focus on service penetration, assessing the impact of open access regulations on measures such as broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. These studies find that facilities-based competition based on competing networks, as opposed to access-based competition based on regulatory opening of private networks, drives broadband penetration.
Maybe this is a little beyond us, but how is acknowledging the positives of competition in Europe's ISP sector relevant to network neutrality in the US when a US customer is more then likely to experience either a monopoly in a given area or a comfortable duopoly in a given area? Isn't talking about ISP competition in Europe in general a bit of a leap from network neutrality in the US?

Core argument: DSL vs. Cable argument

So, as a more direct comparison, the author used the difference of DSL connections and cable modem connections (as one was regulated and the other wasn't and used projections based on that. The description:
A study by Thomas Hazlett and Anil Caliskan of George Mason University estimates the effect of deregulation on DSL service. At the end of 2002, unregulated cable modem subscriptions outnumbered regulated DSL subscriptions by two-to-one. By 2006, 4 years after deregulation began, DSL lagged behind cable modem service by less than 15%.
Can one blame regulations on the situation exclusively? We looked at an article on prices of both and the closest we found was in 2003 which had the following:
DirecTV Broadband had a reputation for providing fast, reliable service at a bargain price. The company charged $50 per month for DSL, slightly below the industry average of $51.36, according to research firm ARS.
The monthly price for cable modem service averaged $45.31 per month as of June 2002
The price of DSL at the time? $51.36 on average. The price of cable at the time? $45.31 on average. Stunningly, price point was not mentioned in the report even though it was a far simpler explanation on why subscriptions were the way they were. It's strange that the paper doesn't talk about price point at all to say the least since that is a huge factor for consumer purchasing habits. Surely there are a number of factors related to cost that doesn't have anything to do with regulation. We looked at prices in 2005 and found this on CNET:
Verizon gives the monthly customers the $29.95 rate only if they subscribe to the company's unlimited local and long-distance phone plan--$44.95 to $59.95 per month, depending on the state--or the unlimited local package, ranging from $21.95 to $32.95.
Like its other Baby Bell cousins--SBC Communications, Qwest Communications International and BellSouth--Verizon has been offering low-priced broadband to catch up to cable's dominance in the business. Many of these deals are priced under $30 for more than 1mbps of speed.
So, these examples show the following in direct pricing: Cost for DSL: $32.95 Cost for cable: Under $30 While one example, it shows that there are cases where cable, again in 2005 which would account for what was seen when 2006 rolled around (because the paper explicitly said "by 2006") Isn't that an easier explanation as to why Cable modems were outselling DSL? Regardless of any actual reasons, the paper then concludes the reasoning with this:
The DSL experience should not be taken as determinative of what will happen under the proposed network neutrality regulations. Rather, it is suggestive of the general size of the impact such regulations can have.
The paper then takes the difference in sales and takes 15% away from total revenue of the ISPs projected revenue. The argument, in short, is DSL performed poorly compared to cable, DSL was regulated and cable was not, therefore regulation is bad for the industry. Since the author blames regulation exclusively for the differential in revenue, rather then other possible factors like price points as I have demonstrated as but one other possibility, then one can't really make a projection like this, so the argument fails. Since the projection in revenue is flawed, the argument about subsequent job losses cannot really be made as what the paper then proceeds to do concluding that, "In [2020], the $100 billion in reduced broadband sector revenues would have generated 342,065 broadband sector jobs and the $292 billion economy-wide impact would have supported 1,452,943 jobs."

Content sector argument

The paper discusses job growth in the content sector with the following:
Some proponents of more comprehensive network neutrality regulation proposals have suggested that job losses in the broadband sector might be offset by increased employment in the Internet content sector.
It then proceeds with the first part of the argument:
The Internet content sector comprises all of the websites and Internet based services that broadband end-users access over broadband connections. For the content sector, the effect of potential discrimination in pricing and services is ambiguous. Simply put, a regime of network neutrality regulation will likely have different content winners than a regime without network neutrality regulation
This is certainly an agreeable. If network neutrality were in place, the big players online would be different then if ISPs could control what packets have priority. There is, however, a very significant difference between the two outcomes. With network neutrality, the online marketplace can effectively sort itself out through competing services. It network neutrality were not imposed, then ISPs can decide which services are the winners and losers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a free market as seen in a neutral network how the automotive sector formed to what it is today in the first place?

Quantity of content argument

The paper then says this:
Larger commercial sites have the potential of doing better or worse under network neutrality regulations. On the one hand, potentially lower costs of access should benefit them; on the other hand, potentially less developed broadband infrastructure could harm their businesses. With some content winning and some content losing, there is no reason to believe that the total amount of content will be more or less (or more or less valued by Internet users) under one regime or the other. Some business models will do well under one regime, others under the other regime.
While it is difficult to gauge how much content is available in either a neutral or non-neutral scenario, it misses the point about network neutrality and that is which is the winner and which is the loser. If a company and not an overall marketplace decides what content is the winner and loser, then quality could very well be affected. Either way, this part of the argument has little to do with how the online content sector would perform and how it would impact jobs, so it is really simply off topic.

The dollar on the job argument

It's a very strange argument and this is how it is described (note: this part contains no footnotes):
This offsetting growth would require more than simply the content sector capturing the broadband sector’s losses—it would take almost $300 billion in content sector revenues to offset the employment impacts of a $100 billion loss in the broadband sector—because each dollar spent on content supports less employment than a dollar spent on broadband.
So by this own paper, the amount of revenue created by the content revenue is expected to be triple the amount projected to supposedly be lost by the ISPs (a flawed number as argued already) Yet, the author still argues that 3 times the revenue means fewer supportable jobs. What? When one looks at a commercial website that sells physical goods, there needs to be, at the very least, a network to process orders, companies to manufacture those goods, companies that store and redistribute those goods and subsequent people to ship those goods in the first place. Even if a content provider only sells digital content like movies, they need lawyers to negotiate rights (if they were to deal with organizations like the MPAA for instance), they need staff for server maintenance, they need staff to maintain the site itself, they need staff for troubleshooting and customer service and who knows what jobs like that would indirectly support in both digital and physical jobs. Why are jobs fewer in the content industry? The paper fails to explain that other then two tables with numbers based on flawed reasoning (as we discussed already). With a lack of further reasoning or explanation, the argument fails due to lack of sound evidence.

The jobs quantity argument

Section C is a little more vague and chooses to rely on predictions on how money would be spent on both sectors saying, "any transfers of wealth induced by network neutrality regulations—of a flow of revenue from broadband providers to content providers—would be expected to have a negative impact on employment" Still, this is basing predictions on a developing industry - the online content industry. In a non-neutral internet in the US, the jobs would effectively be moved out of the country to other countries that have a neutral network. There is the potential for innovation online to this day and who knows where the internet will go, but impeding traffic through ISP level interference as a non-neutral network would mean that the jobs in the online sector would vanish in the US. While the paper relies heavily on the idea that infrastructure investment is leading to job creation, it also has admitted that market saturation is also a possibility. If big ISPs choose not to lay down more lines (as there have been cases where ISPs refused to roll out things like FiOS in the past in the US), then those jobs that laying down new lines would require would never have been created in the first place. A non neutral network can lead to less use of the internet in the first place if fewer services are possible, thus relieving ISPs of obligations to upgrade their infrastructure, thus leading to fewer jobs anyway. Ultimately, the argument suggests that its best to put money in a market that is currently being saturated and possibly slowing then it is to put money in to a sector thats in a state of major growth with many areas that could be expanded. It's ultimately a bit senseless, really.

Conclusion of the paper

One thing that sticks out in the conclusion is the following, "If implemented, network neutrality rules could lead to a broadband sector that is almost 18% smaller than it would otherwise be by the end of the decade." Yet, earlier on page 11, the report states, "An increase of 18% translates into roughly 15% when measured as a decline in the growth rate." Since these are the only two places 18% is even mentioned in the paper, why not stick to the conservative value used to make so many calculations in the first place? Would this lead some to speculate that the number could be somewhat inflated to make a harder hitting conclusion? The report concludes, "Consequently, network neutrality regulations would be counterproductive to reaching the FCC’s goals of increased broadband connectivity and the associated economic benefits that connectivity would bring."

ZeroPaid's conclusion of this paper

I will give the author some credit over the fact that of all the papers I have gone over with a fine toothed comb, this isn't the worst out there that I've ever seen. A lot of papers I've read which tries to make really wild claims end up in the category of papers that are so full of errors, ambiguity and not thoroughly researched points, that one may as well just discuss the most glaring holes. This paper doesn't necessarily fall in to that category. Another positive thing to say about the paper was that researching the group and the author doesn't immediately turn up conflicts of interest where a number of papers in the past requires minimal research to determine whether there was a conflict of interest. An example of this would be a paper that argues that tougher copyright is needed and that the paper in question was done independently and in an unbiased manner, but the author in question is a registered lobbyist for the major record labels for instance. All that being said, going through the paper, going through the arguments and figuring out where the evidence is to back up the claims, I have to say, in critical parts of the paper, the evidence was either too weak or non-existent outside of identifying a given model to make a few general projections that don't have anything to do with what potential losses there could be in the industry with network neutrality. Almost all of the arguments used to support that 1.5 million jobs would be affected by network neutrality didn't have enough evidence to back itself up. One particular argument only required a few minutes of Googling to debunk. So, overall, the paper definitely fell short of proving its claims. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88742/us-study-claims-network-neutrality-would-negatively-impact-1-5-million-jobs/feed/ 2 2009 – A ZeroPaid Year in Review – Part 2 of 3 http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87489/2009-a-zeropaid-year-in-review-part-2-of-3/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87489/2009-a-zeropaid-year-in-review-part-2-of-3/#comments Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:42:36 +0000 Drew Wilson http://www.zeropaid.com/?p=87489 2009-01-19-RSobamacover

We continue with our 2009 year in review with part two of our three part review. Part one of three.

May May started off with several stories pretty much happening at the exact same time. One of those stories was the increase in support for municipal broadband by major tech companies. Project Greenlight, the municipal broadband company that could in the US scored an uprising that caused more opposition toward the movement that would kill municipal broadband. The so-called "level the playing field" bills that would kill municipal broadband was ultimately sent to committee - that included the Senate version. Another story was the story about how Canada's presence on the priority watch listttttt started to lead many into believing that <a href="http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86148/is-putting-canada-on-a-priority-watchlist-going-to-backfire/" target="_blank"watch listhlist for many countries held no water. Losing more and more support on the international stage as well as within Canada, the IFPI appeared to be going as far as to obstruct free trade in Canada in a bid to tighten copyright laws - a plan that never really panned out for the IFPI. Later on that month, the Conference Board of Canada suffered a major embarrassment when it was caught pirating a report to call for tough actions against piracy. If that wasn't bad enough, revelations quickly emerged that the Digital Economic Report by the Conference Board of Canada ignored independent research as well. Ultimately, the Conference Board of Canada withdrew the report. The constant drum beat of the so-called three strikes law continued throughout the month of May. The European Union re-opened a graduated response meaning the three strikes law was once again on the table. Later on, the three strikes law in Europe was once again killed - this time, for good. It dashed hopes for the major entertainment industry to have a three-strikes-and-your-out system in place for an entire continent. Meanwhile in France, in what seemed to be a very big point in the timeline of the Three Strikes Law in the country was one man voicing opposition to the three strikes law - an opinion that cost him his job, but gripped a nation with an interest in tech and political related issues. In spite of the political outcry, the French Three Strikes law was passed anyway. Then in Britain, a UK copyright group demanded that alleged file-sharers be disconnected from the internet, but the British ISPs stood firm and rejected the calls. Later back in France, there were revelations that the French Three Strikes law would see 1000 disconnections per day. The MPAA's overall success continued in May with the major success of Wolverine at the box office showing that movie leaks, once again, has no impact on cinema ticket sales. The CEO of LimeWire was caught up in Congress trying to convince regulators that the program is safe for consumption. This happened while congress was debating a law that would prevent inadvertent file-sharing. The RIAA, a few months in to an era they promised would be litigation free, filed even more lawsuits they promised they would never file. While they were making more enemies in that respect, they were also making enemies with an old ally - public radio. One of the RIAA's members higher ups also made the comment that nothing good ever comes out of the internet - a comment that drew anger from many places around the internet. The major political fallout of ThePirateBay guilty verdict continued to prove that there was political ramifications as The Pirate Party'sssss support continued to grow and was projected to win two seats in the EU Parliament. Meanwhile, a Swedish bank decided, in spite of an unsettled court case, decided to freeze the bank account of the admins of the BitTorrent site. The demands for a fair trial grew particularly when the admins demanded one. With a political backlash looming, the Swedish government did the unthinkable, push for more draconian laws affecting the internet - in this case, demand mandatory data retention for 6 months. After facing a major fine, prosecutors that miraculously managed to convict ThePirateBay admins demanded further fines and a gag order on the admins. They reiterated their demands saying a $3.6 Million fine was not enough. Supporting the conviction of ThePirateBay admins grew more challenging when news later broke about how the BSA admitted that losses due to piracy were entirely hypothetical - while obvious to most, a reaffirming admission nevertheless. Ultimately, ThePirateBay admins finally made things happen when it was decided that a three judge panel would decide whether or not the original judge that convicted the admins was biased. This happened at roughly the same time when polls continued to show that The Pirate Party was set to win at least one seat in the EU Parliament. Things continued to appear to be going in ThePirateBay admins favour when the courts rejected the demands for an additional fine and gag order. Things grew increasingly hairy when a Swedish minister was caught applauding the outcome of ThePirateBay trial. Meanwhile, The Pirate Party support gained a major supporter when a famousdish writer explained why he is voting for the party. While the year is filled with studies, one study in particular seemed to reaffirm many observers of the copyright debate's belief - a flat rate is, indeed, the way to go. The RealDVD trial kept making occasional appearances in the headlines as Real accused the MPAA of anti-trust violations. Privacy was also an issue that made headlines throughout the year. At one point, after France decided to push for three strikes law, the government took things a step further and pushed for legalizing the use of malware by police among other things. It was a law so draconian, few believed what they read when the story broke. The Joel Tenenbaum case re-emerged in the headlines as the Harvard Professor defending an alleged file-sharer suggested that file-sharing is "fair use". The Harvard Law professor later said that the RIAAs lawsuit campaign was an unconstitutional abuse of the law. Spain made it into the headlines when the record industry took P2P developer Pablo Soto to court over unfair competition. The Australian web filtering debate grew when confusing language emerged that the filtering would be voluntary mandatory. That didn't stop the Australian Christian Group from reiterating calls for a porn filter though. June June started off with Spanish citizens demanding internet civil rights. Probably facing huge pressure from the public, Spanish counterparts for the copyright industry later backed down from demanding a three strikes law for the country. With questions swirling about the future of the RIAAs filesharing lawsuit campaign, the RIAA went public to say that file-sharing lawsuits are not about the money but a "fair and reasonable" campaign. Things grew more tense around ThePirateBay trial's outcome. One artist even put one of his albums on the site to protest his art being used against the admins during the trial. Later on, time was up and the admins for The Pirate Bay urged European citizens to get out and vote - though they didn't exactly say for who, just get out and vote. Things seemed to just play in to Swedish The Pirate Party'sssss favour as the party then went on to win two seats in the EU Parliament. Meanwhile, things quickly went sideways for the admins of ThePirateBay when the three panel judge ruled that the original judge was not biased in making his guilty conviction. The Pirate Party's success didn't stop at the EU Election. The party proved to be growing in strength both nationally and internationally - many point out that the victory in Sweden inspired many others around the world to start their own national Pirate Parties. While the Pirate Party movement was growing stronger and stronger, the Swedish government decided to divert 15 police officials to investigating copyright infringement. Interestingly enough, shortly after that announcement, ThePirateBay formally launched its VPN service. Scrambling for some way to stop the overwhelming success of The Pirate Party, a Swedish politician made the unfortunate decision to equate Pirate Party Supporters with rapists. Bad news later emerged for ThePirateBay admins in the midst of all this when a court ruled that the original judge was not biased. By that point, many rumours circulated about the three judge panel being biased as well. Oddly enough, right after the ruling, the admins were issued a court summons via Twitter by Dutch anti-p2p organization BREIN. Also towards the end of the month, many in Sweden questioning the entire judicial system of Sweden. Things were going along smoothly PR-wise for ThePirateBay until news emerged that the website was sold. Many users then flocked to alternatives as a result, outraged and calling the admins "sellouts". This was, perhaps, the first time the admins experienced negative publicity from the public. Not to be forgotten, the Jammie Thomas trial took an interesting turn when lawyers moved to bar evidence provided by Media Sentry in the trial. The retrial of Jammie Thomas started later on that month. Unfortunately, in the same month, Jamie Thomas was also fined $1.92 Million for sharing a mere 24 songs. The MPAA's trial against RealDVD took a critical turn when the MPAA said that even making one DVD was illegal. Meanwhile, the MPAA found themselves admitting to losing the PR war to "the enemies of copyright". One might observe that the language further signalled a sort of more mean spirited language that later seems to be part of a later PR war. Controversy in Canada continued over the Conference Board of Canada's report when the CEO spoke out to do some damage control only to have an ex-employee counter the CEO's claims. Meanwhile, uncertainty about the Canadian government's ability to handle internet related issues grew when the governing party introduced mandatory ISP level surveillance legislation. Sadlypears for many that the governing party let Canadians down upon review of both surveillance bills. The response was swift as many Canadian newspapers responded by making mast-head editorials denouncing the surveillance legislation. Things started to look dicey on the political landscape in Canada when the Liberal party announced that they would combat piracy and ratify WIPO. The reason this was dicey because with the governing party and the Liberal party, there is enough votes to pass anything. Things looked dicey until the Liberal party, no doubt facing internal controversy, backtracked on calls to ratify WIPO and merely saying that their calls to ratify WIPO was merely to mark interest on the subject... honestly! While the copyright debate grew in Canada, news surfaced that BNN, a Canadian broadcaster, was accused of censoring the copyright debate by taking down several videos on the subject from YouTube. A report out of Russia suggested that the Russian government wanted internet anonymity abolished. A UK Minister, after the government faced even more pressure to change their minds on the three strikes law position, continued to defy the industry's calls for a three strikes law saying that such a law was "too draconian". One of the ways that the copyright industry exerted pressure onto the government was through a study that was cast in to doubt when reviewed. A UK ISP also said that the idea that one can stop file-sharing is "very naive". Another study in the UK suggested that losses due to piracy were fictitious and that if losses occurred, it wasn't due to file-sharing and piracy, but rather, gaming and DVDs. Undeterred by a botched PR campaign and growing scepticism about the anti-file-sharing movement, a copyright industry entity argued that a three strikes law was the way to go and that throttling was a waste of time. Frances LOPPSI 2 law that would allow police to upload malware received an expert review which had further insights and confirmation in the law. Meanwhile, fresh from passing the three strikes law, France went on to use military intelligence to shut down a private BitTorrent website. Later on that month, the French president was dealt with another embarrassing blow to his plans for a French Three Strikes Law when France's Constitutional Court ruled that the three strikes law was unconstitutional. Fresh from the PR loss of having the three strikes law ruled unconstitutional, French authorities reiterated that they would be going after Snowtiger donators and uploaders. It was that point in time that a new face of the three strikes law would emerge - a judge had to order the third strike and consequential disconnection. This new version seemed to catch on in other countries later on - at least, that's what other countries were pressured to adopt by the international copyright industry conglomerates. Interestingly enough, like the Swedish Pirate Party, the French Pirate Party was called a "hacker group". The party refuted being called a "hacker group". In New Zealand, after being forced to back peddle on implementing a three strikes law partly due to the major blackout protests, New Zealand gave signals that it would re-introduce the three strikes law in that country. Let's not forget that during this month was also the tenth anniversary of Napster. On the anniversary, KFPA Radio interviewed both Jared Moya and myself to discuss the implications of Napster's original release. Michael Geist marked the anniversary by debunking several file-sharing myths. CRIA, while still in possession of some PR credibility still at that point, freaked out about Michael Geist debunking the file-sharing myths and argued that the file-sharing problem was a "fact". Germany also made headlines when critics picked apart the mandatory DNS blacklist proposal. Civil unrest against the government, as a result of this, grew in the country. RapidShare, a German based company later in the month, was fined $33 Million for copyright violations. As a result, many started looking for alternatives to the one-click hoster though it never ultimately affected the services dominance in the one-click hosting industry. Germany wasn't the only country having political troubles trying to make ISP blacklists. Political tensions in Finland mounted when a Finnish transparency website was placed on the mandatory blacklist. With many internet related issues facing Germans and a government appearing to ignore their citizens, it might not be a surprise that after the success of the Pirate Party in the EU that the German counterpart managed to snag national seat from a defecting party member of another party. In spite of this, Germany passed surveillance legislation anyway. The United States made headlines in other ways as well. One of those headlines was ASCAP demanding an additional performance tax for ringtones. Curiously, Argentina made headlines for the first time this year here on ZeroPaid when the countries newspapers demanded to use data retention to go after alleged copyright infringers. Banking on the success of the previous victory by the copyright industry getting one Irish ISP to bring in a three strikes law, Irish counterparts of the copyright industry moved to try and pressure more ISPs in Ireland to put in place a three strikes policy. Australia continued to remain in the headlines with the governments plan to filter online video games as well. This was in the face of severe questions of how much of the internet the government was going to filter. If there was one issue all countries had reason to worry, it was the continued negotiations of ACTA. During June, consumer groups demanded that ACTA negotiations be halted. One of the concerns of ACTA was a complete lack of transparency. While artists supporting file-sharing is nothing new, another artist joined the ranks of many other artists who said that there were positives to file-sharing. Later on, Moby said that suing music fans is not a sustainable business model. July July saw what may be one of the biggest copyright related loss for the UseNet community. UseNet.com suffered a copyright infringement case loss. In the US, controversy kept rolling over ASCAPs decision to demand performance royalties on ringtones, but the EFF slammed ASCAP for the demands saying that ringtones are like music being heard on a car stereo system with the car windows rolled down. Towards the end of the month, the hearings on allowing exceptions to the DMCA made headlines when one lawyer argued that a user cannot access legal content forever and it's an over the top demand to say otherwise. July also reconfirmed that ThePirateBay had changed. The site made headlines when ThePirateBay announced that it would pay seeders money - all part of a new business model apparently. The acquisition seemed to go as smoothly as one could hope, but just days after the acquisition, things started to fall apart for the deal. The buyer of ThePirateBay was accused of insider trading. Still, The Pirate Party on the other hand was still enjoying the euphoria of their major victories on the national and international stage. In the process, they wrote an op-ed saying that copyright laws endanger people's digital freedom. The deal between ThePirateBay and Global Gaming Factory looked increasingly bleak as more questions were raised about the acquisition of the site - GGF refuted the questions, saying that the deal was going along smoothly. While the deal was going on, the MPAA echoed previous calls by other arms of the copyright industry to shutter ThePirateBay. Things in Canada got interesting when The Pirate Party of Canada landed on Canadian shores and began to establish themselves. Meanwhile, as BNN took heat for censoring the copyright debate, BNN responded to criticism saying that the videos were part of a broader round of takedowns and wasn't targeting the copyright debate in particular. A little bit of a political turf war was seen in Canada on the news that the Pirate Party were entering the political stage. The Green Party said that there was no need for a Pirate Party given that there was already a Green Party willing to take the issues to task. The Pirate Party responded to those comments. It was then that things really turned around in Canada when the governing party held a copyright consultation. Some were sceptical, but most embraced the government initiative (how often does that happen on issues like this?) with open arms - the consultation wound up being the most successful consultation ever in terms of number of responses. During the month though, the consultation seemed to be the talk of the town with many talking about copyright in and outside the consultation. Access Copyright hit the panic button and said that the entire copyright debate will rob creators of their livelihoods. The infamous Dream Pinball lawsuits in the UK took an interesting turn when wrongfully accused victims caught up in the lawsuit began to step forward. Meanwhile, the UK government started to show signs that they were weakening on their stance on copyright. The government said that they'll need time to start reducing P2P activity. While it seemed that UK ISPs stood firm against a three strikes law, one ISP, Karoo, suddenly implemented a three strikes policy on their own. Critics called the decision a "KangKaroo court". Interestingly enough, in the mean time, the UK music industry's own economist, as if an echo to the major success the MPAA begrudginglyy admitted, said that UKs music revenues were up by 4.7%, a different take considering a while back, there was suggestions that the UK music industry was suffering thanks to competition by the movie and gaming industry. Frances defiance of letting the three strikes law get away became more apparent this month upon word that judges would be given 5 minutes to rule on each disconnection - 5 minutes of work that required far more time to go through on a case-by-case basis. The PR war kept rolling on though when the French broadcaster that fired the employee for voicing his opposition to the three strikes law was sued over the incident. Meanwhile, the three strikes law was then delayed a few months. The Jammie Thomas case roared back into the headlines proving that the case wasn't over. After dealing with the blow of being fined millions, Jammie Thomas' legal council announced that they would be appealing the court decision - one of the reasons would be based on constitutional grounds of the fine in question. The back and forth action continued in the courtroom when the RIAA demanded that Jammie Thomas be barred from P2P. Jammie Thomas' legal council later confirmed that one of the reasons for appealing was because of constitutional questions being raised by the fine. The Joel Tenenbaum case made headlines when the RIAA cried fowl over the idea that the Media Sentry evidence should be suppressed on the basis of the company violating wiretapping and private investigation laws. When everyone thought that the EU-wide three strikes law was finished, there was word that one EU parliamentarian suggested that download regulations needed to be overhauled. Things got dramatic on the EU stage when one European anti-piracy group called The Pirate Party's message "criminal". New Zealand made headlines in July again when the government revealed a newer gentler three strikes law. In fact, one MP suggested that there should be a blank tax for P2P so as to legalize it. On a positive note, a Spanish judge in the same month ruled that not-for-profit P2P was legal. On a more sad note, July saw South Korea's three strike law go into force. Things grew somewhat scary when Finland mulled banning the activity of talking about DRM circumvention. It wasn't always bad news throughout the year for Australia. The government suggested that maybe there was a more appropriate way to deal with P2P - possibly warming up to the P2P movement in a way. In an odd turn of events, Australian ISPs suggested that the controversial filtering plan by the Australian government would not slow down internet speeds - one of the major criticisms of the Australian internet filtering plan. Creators continued to question the big copyright companies tactics with UK legend Stephen Fry comparing the RIAA to big tobacco companies. Lawrence Lessig weighed in himself on P2P saying that P2P is the new prohibition. As if to show one more sign that the file-sharing movement was pretty much unstoppable, one small developer was developing one method of putting a song into a picture that would be readable and played back into audio. What was particularly fascinating was seeing how one could manipulate sound via Photoshop - not exactly a conventional software for modifying sound, but video demonstrations proved that it was possible. August News about Joel Tenenbaum rolled right from July to August when word came out that Tenenbaum was fined $675,000 for sharing 30 works. After the ruling, Tenenbaum set up a website that accepted donations that would go towards fighting the RIAA in court. The Jammie Thomas case too made headlines when a revelation emerged that the US government was stepping in to demand that the judge throw out claims of unconstitutionality. It seemed as though BREIN made some inroads in a Dutch court when a judge ruled that ThePirateBay was legally obliged to block users from the Netherlands. Amidst the commotion surrounding ThePirateBay, Brokep, an admin of the BitTorrent site, announced that he was leaving the website. Undeterred by repeated bad news about the deal between GGF and ThePirateBay, rumours surfaced that the company planned to acquire even more BitTorrent sites once the current deal was wrapping up. Along side that were rumours that a major record label was about to make a deal with ThePirateBay. Of course, The IFPI wanted GGF to pay for ThePirateBay fine if the deal were to go through. Not liking the earlier ruling in a Dutch court, ThePirateBay then said that it would challenge the Dutch courts decision to force the website to block Netherlands traffic. It was then that GGF made another bold move by announcing that it was negotiating a licensing agreement with a performing rights organization. Unfortunately, shortly after the announcement, GGFs stock was halted until the company produced the cash it promised to buy ThePirateBay. Trying to salvage the acquisition of ThePirateBay, GGF publicly disclosed their grand plan to legitimize ThePirateBay. Unfortunately for GGF, police began to suspect insider trading. Legal troubles for ThePirateBay continued when a Swedish court ordered a Swedish ISP to block ThePirateBay. Towards the end of the month, GGF investors abandoned ThePirateBay acquisition. The escapade wasn't over though as GGF then said that GGF investors approved of the plan to acquire ThePirateBay. Things went south again when tax collectors seized GGF CEOs assets that would go to paying back taxes. In France, steamed by the slow progress of the French Three Strikes Law, a special session was set aside to deal with the law as quickly as possible. Stunningly, there was movement again to neuter provisions in the EU telecoms package that would once again revive the EU-wide three strikes law. Meanwhile, in Canada, the copyright consultation continued to prove to be a hit amongst Canadians with more and more submissions continuing to pile up. Remarkably, while all this was happening, the copyright industry had the audacity to call for a Canadian three strikes law. It would prove to be one of the last calls to do so in the year as well. Coincidently, the Canadian Manitoba Music industry, during a round table, shunned CRIAs stance as if to re-highlight the rift between Canadian record labels and CRIA. Things continued to remain interesting in Canada's copyright consultation when DOC supported the expansion of "fair dealings". More calls to expand Canada's fair dealings continued to roll in to the consultation. Adding fuel for the demands for a more liberal approach to copyright, the ESA pointed out that the Canadian gaming industry grew without the need of a Technical Protection Measure or anti-circumvention law in place. No doubt freaking out about the whole consultation process and where it turned, the copyright industry was probably scrambling for a plan. It got one, but stacking the town hall meeting in their favour didn't exactly go over very well for Canadians. In an almost symbolic move, an American music group called the idea of a fair copyright law in Canada "disgusting". The NDP, the political group that sparked that comment responded, saying that they make no apology for their stance on copyright. With other countries having suggested that they would filter the internet, Malaysia suggested that it, too, plans to filter the internet. Germany saw one MP renew calls to legalize file-sharing, saying that a neutral stance of a blank tariff was the way to go. At the end of the month, the German Pirate Party even won several government seats. Things started to grow dark in Australia when ISPs essentially asked via proposed legislation to become copyright cops. In the UK, the criticism about "KangKaroo Courts" gained momentum when UK ISP Karoo backed down from plans to implement a three strikes policy and, instead, require a court order. With all this uncertainty about the digital future of the UK, it was probably no surprise when news emerged that the UK managed to get their own Pirate Party. The timing of this couldn't be better since it was just a short while later that the UK government turned around on its initial stance of not legislating in a three strikes law and seriously planned on a p2p crackdown. The British Pirate Party quickly built a name for themselves, writing a provocative piece on why the cost to fight file-sharing was "too high". It was then that the UK government pretty much made it official that it would disconnect file-sharers after all. A British ISP was dismayed at the governments change of heart on the issue of disconnecting file-sharers and said that the war on file-sharing was futile. This caused the British government to be on the defencive with their plan to disconnect alleged file-sharers. Things grew bleak for Mininova in August when a court ordered the site to remove all copyrighted content. Things seemed to start to turn around in Finland upon news that a Finnish Pirate Party was officially registered in the country. One Irish ISP went along with the idea of blocking ThePirateBay, but it turns out that it was the only ISP willing to do so at that time. The Irish Pirate Party announced its opposition to the ISP decision. The MPAA's war on RealDVD seemed to draw to a close in August when a judge barred the sale of RealDVD. One artist in August said that P2P was a global word of mouth, becoming yet another creative that said that there were positive attributes for file-sharing. Stay tuned for the final part of the review. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> 2009-01-19-RSobamacover

We continue with our 2009 year in review with part two of our three part review. Part one of three.

May May started off with several stories pretty much happening at the exact same time. One of those stories was the increase in support for municipal broadband by major tech companies. Project Greenlight, the municipal broadband company that could in the US scored an uprising that caused more opposition toward the movement that would kill municipal broadband. The so-called "level the playing field" bills that would kill municipal broadband was ultimately sent to committee - that included the Senate version. Another story was the story about how Canada's presence on the priority watch listttttt started to lead many into believing that <a href="http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86148/is-putting-canada-on-a-priority-watchlist-going-to-backfire/" target="_blank"watch listhlist for many countries held no water. Losing more and more support on the international stage as well as within Canada, the IFPI appeared to be going as far as to obstruct free trade in Canada in a bid to tighten copyright laws - a plan that never really panned out for the IFPI. Later on that month, the Conference Board of Canada suffered a major embarrassment when it was caught pirating a report to call for tough actions against piracy. If that wasn't bad enough, revelations quickly emerged that the Digital Economic Report by the Conference Board of Canada ignored independent research as well. Ultimately, the Conference Board of Canada withdrew the report. The constant drum beat of the so-called three strikes law continued throughout the month of May. The European Union re-opened a graduated response meaning the three strikes law was once again on the table. Later on, the three strikes law in Europe was once again killed - this time, for good. It dashed hopes for the major entertainment industry to have a three-strikes-and-your-out system in place for an entire continent. Meanwhile in France, in what seemed to be a very big point in the timeline of the Three Strikes Law in the country was one man voicing opposition to the three strikes law - an opinion that cost him his job, but gripped a nation with an interest in tech and political related issues. In spite of the political outcry, the French Three Strikes law was passed anyway. Then in Britain, a UK copyright group demanded that alleged file-sharers be disconnected from the internet, but the British ISPs stood firm and rejected the calls. Later back in France, there were revelations that the French Three Strikes law would see 1000 disconnections per day. The MPAA's overall success continued in May with the major success of Wolverine at the box office showing that movie leaks, once again, has no impact on cinema ticket sales. The CEO of LimeWire was caught up in Congress trying to convince regulators that the program is safe for consumption. This happened while congress was debating a law that would prevent inadvertent file-sharing. The RIAA, a few months in to an era they promised would be litigation free, filed even more lawsuits they promised they would never file. While they were making more enemies in that respect, they were also making enemies with an old ally - public radio. One of the RIAA's members higher ups also made the comment that nothing good ever comes out of the internet - a comment that drew anger from many places around the internet. The major political fallout of ThePirateBay guilty verdict continued to prove that there was political ramifications as The Pirate Party'sssss support continued to grow and was projected to win two seats in the EU Parliament. Meanwhile, a Swedish bank decided, in spite of an unsettled court case, decided to freeze the bank account of the admins of the BitTorrent site. The demands for a fair trial grew particularly when the admins demanded one. With a political backlash looming, the Swedish government did the unthinkable, push for more draconian laws affecting the internet - in this case, demand mandatory data retention for 6 months. After facing a major fine, prosecutors that miraculously managed to convict ThePirateBay admins demanded further fines and a gag order on the admins. They reiterated their demands saying a $3.6 Million fine was not enough. Supporting the conviction of ThePirateBay admins grew more challenging when news later broke about how the BSA admitted that losses due to piracy were entirely hypothetical - while obvious to most, a reaffirming admission nevertheless. Ultimately, ThePirateBay admins finally made things happen when it was decided that a three judge panel would decide whether or not the original judge that convicted the admins was biased. This happened at roughly the same time when polls continued to show that The Pirate Party was set to win at least one seat in the EU Parliament. Things continued to appear to be going in ThePirateBay admins favour when the courts rejected the demands for an additional fine and gag order. Things grew increasingly hairy when a Swedish minister was caught applauding the outcome of ThePirateBay trial. Meanwhile, The Pirate Party support gained a major supporter when a famousdish writer explained why he is voting for the party. While the year is filled with studies, one study in particular seemed to reaffirm many observers of the copyright debate's belief - a flat rate is, indeed, the way to go. The RealDVD trial kept making occasional appearances in the headlines as Real accused the MPAA of anti-trust violations. Privacy was also an issue that made headlines throughout the year. At one point, after France decided to push for three strikes law, the government took things a step further and pushed for legalizing the use of malware by police among other things. It was a law so draconian, few believed what they read when the story broke. The Joel Tenenbaum case re-emerged in the headlines as the Harvard Professor defending an alleged file-sharer suggested that file-sharing is "fair use". The Harvard Law professor later said that the RIAAs lawsuit campaign was an unconstitutional abuse of the law. Spain made it into the headlines when the record industry took P2P developer Pablo Soto to court over unfair competition. The Australian web filtering debate grew when confusing language emerged that the filtering would be voluntary mandatory. That didn't stop the Australian Christian Group from reiterating calls for a porn filter though. June June started off with Spanish citizens demanding internet civil rights. Probably facing huge pressure from the public, Spanish counterparts for the copyright industry later backed down from demanding a three strikes law for the country. With questions swirling about the future of the RIAAs filesharing lawsuit campaign, the RIAA went public to say that file-sharing lawsuits are not about the money but a "fair and reasonable" campaign. Things grew more tense around ThePirateBay trial's outcome. One artist even put one of his albums on the site to protest his art being used against the admins during the trial. Later on, time was up and the admins for The Pirate Bay urged European citizens to get out and vote - though they didn't exactly say for who, just get out and vote. Things seemed to just play in to Swedish The Pirate Party'sssss favour as the party then went on to win two seats in the EU Parliament. Meanwhile, things quickly went sideways for the admins of ThePirateBay when the three panel judge ruled that the original judge was not biased in making his guilty conviction. The Pirate Party's success didn't stop at the EU Election. The party proved to be growing in strength both nationally and internationally - many point out that the victory in Sweden inspired many others around the world to start their own national Pirate Parties. While the Pirate Party movement was growing stronger and stronger, the Swedish government decided to divert 15 police officials to investigating copyright infringement. Interestingly enough, shortly after that announcement, ThePirateBay formally launched its VPN service. Scrambling for some way to stop the overwhelming success of The Pirate Party, a Swedish politician made the unfortunate decision to equate Pirate Party Supporters with rapists. Bad news later emerged for ThePirateBay admins in the midst of all this when a court ruled that the original judge was not biased. By that point, many rumours circulated about the three judge panel being biased as well. Oddly enough, right after the ruling, the admins were issued a court summons via Twitter by Dutch anti-p2p organization BREIN. Also towards the end of the month, many in Sweden questioning the entire judicial system of Sweden. Things were going along smoothly PR-wise for ThePirateBay until news emerged that the website was sold. Many users then flocked to alternatives as a result, outraged and calling the admins "sellouts". This was, perhaps, the first time the admins experienced negative publicity from the public. Not to be forgotten, the Jammie Thomas trial took an interesting turn when lawyers moved to bar evidence provided by Media Sentry in the trial. The retrial of Jammie Thomas started later on that month. Unfortunately, in the same month, Jamie Thomas was also fined $1.92 Million for sharing a mere 24 songs. The MPAA's trial against RealDVD took a critical turn when the MPAA said that even making one DVD was illegal. Meanwhile, the MPAA found themselves admitting to losing the PR war to "the enemies of copyright". One might observe that the language further signalled a sort of more mean spirited language that later seems to be part of a later PR war. Controversy in Canada continued over the Conference Board of Canada's report when the CEO spoke out to do some damage control only to have an ex-employee counter the CEO's claims. Meanwhile, uncertainty about the Canadian government's ability to handle internet related issues grew when the governing party introduced mandatory ISP level surveillance legislation. Sadlypears for many that the governing party let Canadians down upon review of both surveillance bills. The response was swift as many Canadian newspapers responded by making mast-head editorials denouncing the surveillance legislation. Things started to look dicey on the political landscape in Canada when the Liberal party announced that they would combat piracy and ratify WIPO. The reason this was dicey because with the governing party and the Liberal party, there is enough votes to pass anything. Things looked dicey until the Liberal party, no doubt facing internal controversy, backtracked on calls to ratify WIPO and merely saying that their calls to ratify WIPO was merely to mark interest on the subject... honestly! While the copyright debate grew in Canada, news surfaced that BNN, a Canadian broadcaster, was accused of censoring the copyright debate by taking down several videos on the subject from YouTube. A report out of Russia suggested that the Russian government wanted internet anonymity abolished. A UK Minister, after the government faced even more pressure to change their minds on the three strikes law position, continued to defy the industry's calls for a three strikes law saying that such a law was "too draconian". One of the ways that the copyright industry exerted pressure onto the government was through a study that was cast in to doubt when reviewed. A UK ISP also said that the idea that one can stop file-sharing is "very naive". Another study in the UK suggested that losses due to piracy were fictitious and that if losses occurred, it wasn't due to file-sharing and piracy, but rather, gaming and DVDs. Undeterred by a botched PR campaign and growing scepticism about the anti-file-sharing movement, a copyright industry entity argued that a three strikes law was the way to go and that throttling was a waste of time. Frances LOPPSI 2 law that would allow police to upload malware received an expert review which had further insights and confirmation in the law. Meanwhile, fresh from passing the three strikes law, France went on to use military intelligence to shut down a private BitTorrent website. Later on that month, the French president was dealt with another embarrassing blow to his plans for a French Three Strikes Law when France's Constitutional Court ruled that the three strikes law was unconstitutional. Fresh from the PR loss of having the three strikes law ruled unconstitutional, French authorities reiterated that they would be going after Snowtiger donators and uploaders. It was that point in time that a new face of the three strikes law would emerge - a judge had to order the third strike and consequential disconnection. This new version seemed to catch on in other countries later on - at least, that's what other countries were pressured to adopt by the international copyright industry conglomerates. Interestingly enough, like the Swedish Pirate Party, the French Pirate Party was called a "hacker group". The party refuted being called a "hacker group". In New Zealand, after being forced to back peddle on implementing a three strikes law partly due to the major blackout protests, New Zealand gave signals that it would re-introduce the three strikes law in that country. Let's not forget that during this month was also the tenth anniversary of Napster. On the anniversary, KFPA Radio interviewed both Jared Moya and myself to discuss the implications of Napster's original release. Michael Geist marked the anniversary by debunking several file-sharing myths. CRIA, while still in possession of some PR credibility still at that point, freaked out about Michael Geist debunking the file-sharing myths and argued that the file-sharing problem was a "fact". Germany also made headlines when critics picked apart the mandatory DNS blacklist proposal. Civil unrest against the government, as a result of this, grew in the country. RapidShare, a German based company later in the month, was fined $33 Million for copyright violations. As a result, many started looking for alternatives to the one-click hoster though it never ultimately affected the services dominance in the one-click hosting industry. Germany wasn't the only country having political troubles trying to make ISP blacklists. Political tensions in Finland mounted when a Finnish transparency website was placed on the mandatory blacklist. With many internet related issues facing Germans and a government appearing to ignore their citizens, it might not be a surprise that after the success of the Pirate Party in the EU that the German counterpart managed to snag national seat from a defecting party member of another party. In spite of this, Germany passed surveillance legislation anyway. The United States made headlines in other ways as well. One of those headlines was ASCAP demanding an additional performance tax for ringtones. Curiously, Argentina made headlines for the first time this year here on ZeroPaid when the countries newspapers demanded to use data retention to go after alleged copyright infringers. Banking on the success of the previous victory by the copyright industry getting one Irish ISP to bring in a three strikes law, Irish counterparts of the copyright industry moved to try and pressure more ISPs in Ireland to put in place a three strikes policy. Australia continued to remain in the headlines with the governments plan to filter online video games as well. This was in the face of severe questions of how much of the internet the government was going to filter. If there was one issue all countries had reason to worry, it was the continued negotiations of ACTA. During June, consumer groups demanded that ACTA negotiations be halted. One of the concerns of ACTA was a complete lack of transparency. While artists supporting file-sharing is nothing new, another artist joined the ranks of many other artists who said that there were positives to file-sharing. Later on, Moby said that suing music fans is not a sustainable business model. July July saw what may be one of the biggest copyright related loss for the UseNet community. UseNet.com suffered a copyright infringement case loss. In the US, controversy kept rolling over ASCAPs decision to demand performance royalties on ringtones, but the EFF slammed ASCAP for the demands saying that ringtones are like music being heard on a car stereo system with the car windows rolled down. Towards the end of the month, the hearings on allowing exceptions to the DMCA made headlines when one lawyer argued that a user cannot access legal content forever and it's an over the top demand to say otherwise. July also reconfirmed that ThePirateBay had changed. The site made headlines when ThePirateBay announced that it would pay seeders money - all part of a new business model apparently. The acquisition seemed to go as smoothly as one could hope, but just days after the acquisition, things started to fall apart for the deal. The buyer of ThePirateBay was accused of insider trading. Still, The Pirate Party on the other hand was still enjoying the euphoria of their major victories on the national and international stage. In the process, they wrote an op-ed saying that copyright laws endanger people's digital freedom. The deal between ThePirateBay and Global Gaming Factory looked increasingly bleak as more questions were raised about the acquisition of the site - GGF refuted the questions, saying that the deal was going along smoothly. While the deal was going on, the MPAA echoed previous calls by other arms of the copyright industry to shutter ThePirateBay. Things in Canada got interesting when The Pirate Party of Canada landed on Canadian shores and began to establish themselves. Meanwhile, as BNN took heat for censoring the copyright debate, BNN responded to criticism saying that the videos were part of a broader round of takedowns and wasn't targeting the copyright debate in particular. A little bit of a political turf war was seen in Canada on the news that the Pirate Party were entering the political stage. The Green Party said that there was no need for a Pirate Party given that there was already a Green Party willing to take the issues to task. The Pirate Party responded to those comments. It was then that things really turned around in Canada when the governing party held a copyright consultation. Some were sceptical, but most embraced the government initiative (how often does that happen on issues like this?) with open arms - the consultation wound up being the most successful consultation ever in terms of number of responses. During the month though, the consultation seemed to be the talk of the town with many talking about copyright in and outside the consultation. Access Copyright hit the panic button and said that the entire copyright debate will rob creators of their livelihoods. The infamous Dream Pinball lawsuits in the UK took an interesting turn when wrongfully accused victims caught up in the lawsuit began to step forward. Meanwhile, the UK government started to show signs that they were weakening on their stance on copyright. The government said that they'll need time to start reducing P2P activity. While it seemed that UK ISPs stood firm against a three strikes law, one ISP, Karoo, suddenly implemented a three strikes policy on their own. Critics called the decision a "KangKaroo court". Interestingly enough, in the mean time, the UK music industry's own economist, as if an echo to the major success the MPAA begrudginglyy admitted, said that UKs music revenues were up by 4.7%, a different take considering a while back, there was suggestions that the UK music industry was suffering thanks to competition by the movie and gaming industry. Frances defiance of letting the three strikes law get away became more apparent this month upon word that judges would be given 5 minutes to rule on each disconnection - 5 minutes of work that required far more time to go through on a case-by-case basis. The PR war kept rolling on though when the French broadcaster that fired the employee for voicing his opposition to the three strikes law was sued over the incident. Meanwhile, the three strikes law was then delayed a few months. The Jammie Thomas case roared back into the headlines proving that the case wasn't over. After dealing with the blow of being fined millions, Jammie Thomas' legal council announced that they would be appealing the court decision - one of the reasons would be based on constitutional grounds of the fine in question. The back and forth action continued in the courtroom when the RIAA demanded that Jammie Thomas be barred from P2P. Jammie Thomas' legal council later confirmed that one of the reasons for appealing was because of constitutional questions being raised by the fine. The Joel Tenenbaum case made headlines when the RIAA cried fowl over the idea that the Media Sentry evidence should be suppressed on the basis of the company violating wiretapping and private investigation laws. When everyone thought that the EU-wide three strikes law was finished, there was word that one EU parliamentarian suggested that download regulations needed to be overhauled. Things got dramatic on the EU stage when one European anti-piracy group called The Pirate Party's message "criminal". New Zealand made headlines in July again when the government revealed a newer gentler three strikes law. In fact, one MP suggested that there should be a blank tax for P2P so as to legalize it. On a positive note, a Spanish judge in the same month ruled that not-for-profit P2P was legal. On a more sad note, July saw South Korea's three strike law go into force. Things grew somewhat scary when Finland mulled banning the activity of talking about DRM circumvention. It wasn't always bad news throughout the year for Australia. The government suggested that maybe there was a more appropriate way to deal with P2P - possibly warming up to the P2P movement in a way. In an odd turn of events, Australian ISPs suggested that the controversial filtering plan by the Australian government would not slow down internet speeds - one of the major criticisms of the Australian internet filtering plan. Creators continued to question the big copyright companies tactics with UK legend Stephen Fry comparing the RIAA to big tobacco companies. Lawrence Lessig weighed in himself on P2P saying that P2P is the new prohibition. As if to show one more sign that the file-sharing movement was pretty much unstoppable, one small developer was developing one method of putting a song into a picture that would be readable and played back into audio. What was particularly fascinating was seeing how one could manipulate sound via Photoshop - not exactly a conventional software for modifying sound, but video demonstrations proved that it was possible. August News about Joel Tenenbaum rolled right from July to August when word came out that Tenenbaum was fined $675,000 for sharing 30 works. After the ruling, Tenenbaum set up a website that accepted donations that would go towards fighting the RIAA in court. The Jammie Thomas case too made headlines when a revelation emerged that the US government was stepping in to demand that the judge throw out claims of unconstitutionality. It seemed as though BREIN made some inroads in a Dutch court when a judge ruled that ThePirateBay was legally obliged to block users from the Netherlands. Amidst the commotion surrounding ThePirateBay, Brokep, an admin of the BitTorrent site, announced that he was leaving the website. Undeterred by repeated bad news about the deal between GGF and ThePirateBay, rumours surfaced that the company planned to acquire even more BitTorrent sites once the current deal was wrapping up. Along side that were rumours that a major record label was about to make a deal with ThePirateBay. Of course, The IFPI wanted GGF to pay for ThePirateBay fine if the deal were to go through. Not liking the earlier ruling in a Dutch court, ThePirateBay then said that it would challenge the Dutch courts decision to force the website to block Netherlands traffic. It was then that GGF made another bold move by announcing that it was negotiating a licensing agreement with a performing rights organization. Unfortunately, shortly after the announcement, GGFs stock was halted until the company produced the cash it promised to buy ThePirateBay. Trying to salvage the acquisition of ThePirateBay, GGF publicly disclosed their grand plan to legitimize ThePirateBay. Unfortunately for GGF, police began to suspect insider trading. Legal troubles for ThePirateBay continued when a Swedish court ordered a Swedish ISP to block ThePirateBay. Towards the end of the month, GGF investors abandoned ThePirateBay acquisition. The escapade wasn't over though as GGF then said that GGF investors approved of the plan to acquire ThePirateBay. Things went south again when tax collectors seized GGF CEOs assets that would go to paying back taxes. In France, steamed by the slow progress of the French Three Strikes Law, a special session was set aside to deal with the law as quickly as possible. Stunningly, there was movement again to neuter provisions in the EU telecoms package that would once again revive the EU-wide three strikes law. Meanwhile, in Canada, the copyright consultation continued to prove to be a hit amongst Canadians with more and more submissions continuing to pile up. Remarkably, while all this was happening, the copyright industry had the audacity to call for a Canadian three strikes law. It would prove to be one of the last calls to do so in the year as well. Coincidently, the Canadian Manitoba Music industry, during a round table, shunned CRIAs stance as if to re-highlight the rift between Canadian record labels and CRIA. Things continued to remain interesting in Canada's copyright consultation when DOC supported the expansion of "fair dealings". More calls to expand Canada's fair dealings continued to roll in to the consultation. Adding fuel for the demands for a more liberal approach to copyright, the ESA pointed out that the Canadian gaming industry grew without the need of a Technical Protection Measure or anti-circumvention law in place. No doubt freaking out about the whole consultation process and where it turned, the copyright industry was probably scrambling for a plan. It got one, but stacking the town hall meeting in their favour didn't exactly go over very well for Canadians. In an almost symbolic move, an American music group called the idea of a fair copyright law in Canada "disgusting". The NDP, the political group that sparked that comment responded, saying that they make no apology for their stance on copyright. With other countries having suggested that they would filter the internet, Malaysia suggested that it, too, plans to filter the internet. Germany saw one MP renew calls to legalize file-sharing, saying that a neutral stance of a blank tariff was the way to go. At the end of the month, the German Pirate Party even won several government seats. Things started to grow dark in Australia when ISPs essentially asked via proposed legislation to become copyright cops. In the UK, the criticism about "KangKaroo Courts" gained momentum when UK ISP Karoo backed down from plans to implement a three strikes policy and, instead, require a court order. With all this uncertainty about the digital future of the UK, it was probably no surprise when news emerged that the UK managed to get their own Pirate Party. The timing of this couldn't be better since it was just a short while later that the UK government turned around on its initial stance of not legislating in a three strikes law and seriously planned on a p2p crackdown. The British Pirate Party quickly built a name for themselves, writing a provocative piece on why the cost to fight file-sharing was "too high". It was then that the UK government pretty much made it official that it would disconnect file-sharers after all. A British ISP was dismayed at the governments change of heart on the issue of disconnecting file-sharers and said that the war on file-sharing was futile. This caused the British government to be on the defencive with their plan to disconnect alleged file-sharers. Things grew bleak for Mininova in August when a court ordered the site to remove all copyrighted content. Things seemed to start to turn around in Finland upon news that a Finnish Pirate Party was officially registered in the country. One Irish ISP went along with the idea of blocking ThePirateBay, but it turns out that it was the only ISP willing to do so at that time. The Irish Pirate Party announced its opposition to the ISP decision. The MPAA's war on RealDVD seemed to draw to a close in August when a judge barred the sale of RealDVD. One artist in August said that P2P was a global word of mouth, becoming yet another creative that said that there were positive attributes for file-sharing. Stay tuned for the final part of the review. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87489/2009-a-zeropaid-year-in-review-part-2-of-3/feed/ 2 2009 – A ZeroPaid Year in Review – Part 1 of 3 http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87487/2009-a-zeropaid-year-in-review-part-1-of-3/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87487/2009-a-zeropaid-year-in-review-part-1-of-3/#comments Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:15:59 +0000 Drew Wilson http://www.zeropaid.com/?p=87487 2009-01-19-RSobamacover

2008 was an interesting year in file-sharing and 2009 didn't necessarily disappoint. There was plenty of ways to look at it, but there is one way one can look at the year - eventful. ZeroPaid reviews 2009.

January 2009 kicked things off with a bang with the ever ongoing Australian plan to filter the internet. The news at that time came with the revelation that the internet filtering plan would be mandatory for everyone with no opt out. Opposition parties of the government called the Australian plan to filter the internet offencive to parents. The German government announced similar plans to filter the internet. In the United States, it wasn't a plan that went quite as far as to filter the whole internet, but one of the US ISPs did begin to throttle FTP, UseNet and P2P traffic. There was also the news that seemed to be a repeating theme these days as well. News surfaced that Hollywood was breaking profit records. At that time, it was in overseas profits. Meanwhile, there was big news about the RIAA when they fired MediaSentry, an anti-filesharing organization that observers say botched several investigations on alleged file-sharers. It seems to be interesting for that to happen while the RIAA was getting heavy in to a legal fight with a Harvard Law professor in what would become one of the more dramatic file-sharing cases the year had seen. The story continued to make headlines with the RIAA blaming the professor for dragging out the case. After attempting to block the broadcast of the case in question, a judge permitted the broadcast of the file-sharing case. It would seem ironic that the RIAA would refuse the broadcast of the case given that they advocate so heavily on educating the public about these issues. The irony and controversy was amplified when the RIAA later attempted to block the broadcast of the trial claiming that it would unfairly benefit the defendant. The judge, in an interesting turn of events, granted a review on broadcasting the trial. RIAA was also busy trying to get US ISPs to disconnect alleged file-sharers. Unfortunately for the RIAA, the ISPs fought back, hesitant on, among other things, losing customers. Later on in January, it was discovered that after promising that it would finally stop their lawsuit campaign, the RIAA filed even more file-sharing lawsuits. The year also started with a major news story about what many might call the moment DRM was in serious trouble as a viable business model for selling music. iTunes announced that they would finally begin selling DRM-free music. January's eventfulness continued with the beginning developments of the MPAA vs what would probably be the legalities of selling a DVD back-up utility in the United States. Another noteworthy development was WebSheriff bringing down one-click hosting blog RLSLog, though it didn't take long before the website was brought back up. The so-called "three strikes law" was a major story all year long and beyond and the year started off with the British government saying that it won't consider a three strikes law. It was that story that triggered massive pressure from major copyright companies aimed directly at the UK government to change their mind. Meanwhile, it seemed that an Irish ISP was more willing to cave to pressure and agreed to start going along with a three strikes law. February News spilled over into February with Vuze calling on the FCC to look in to Cox throttling p2p traffic. While questions were swirling about blocking BitTorrent, Irish ISPs also agreed to block BitTorrent tracker sites. The Harvard Law professors trial continued to be in the headlines in February with news organizations calling for the file-sharing trial to be broadcasted because the case was in the publics interest. The British government seemed to still not be giving in to pressure to mandate a three strikes policy when the Digital Britain report was issued. Meanwhile, TorrentSpy appealed a ruling won by the MPAA because the owners believed that it shouldn't be mandated to violate users privacy. After releasing their album online for free, the a case study was done on the Nine Inch Nails method of releasing music to the public that concluded that this was the future of the music industry. It continued to show that not all artists believe in suing music fans and many other tactics deployed by the major record labels. More news surfaced that trials would begin on the Australian governments internet filtering plan. Things would later heat up with one professor infamously remarking that an unfiltered internet has no place in a democracy. Electronic Frontier Australia was quick to fire back saying that the professor was misrepresenting the issue. By the end of the month, more politicians in the Australian government saw that the plans to censor the internet wasn't that great of an idea. The ever famous Pirate Bay Trial started in February and it cemented the name "spectrial" given that a victory seemed to be pretty much a guarantee given the case built up against it. On day two, when news came that half the charges were dropped, many observers found the trial to not only be a shoe-in victory for ThePirateBay, but the copyright industry's case was becoming more like a farce. Day 3 of the trial revolved around the fact that users, not the site admins, were responsible for what is placed on the site. On day 4, ThePirateBay was accused of purposeful crime on a grand scale, ignoring how the website actually worked in the first place. On day 5, Peter Sunde took the stand to answer some pointed questions by the prosecutor. On day 7, prosecutors began altering their charges on ThePirateBay admins. On day 8, a record executive took the stand saying that ThePirateBay was responsible for their supposed woes and refuted arguments that file-sharing has had a net positive effect on the music industry. On Day 9, a professor argued that there was no link between filesharing and music sale losses. February also saw a relentless campaign by the copyright industry to tarnish Canada's reputation. One of those entities was the IIPA which claimed that Canada should be placed on a priority 301 watch list because of movie piracy. While the effort would prove ultimately successful, it led many experts to realize that the watch lists could not be trusted given the anecdotal decision to put Canada on the watch list in the first place. It would seem like an interesting point of view given that there were revelations surfacing that Canadian ISP bandwidth growth fell by 45%. The three strikes law theme continued with wide-spread protest in New Zealand where websites were blacked out because of the censorship potential of the legislation because the legislation is easily dubbed "three accusations and your out". Meanwhile France finalized plans for a government three strikes agency. Another story of note was that after Wikileaks published an extortion letter issued by Davenport Lyons, the organization responsible for sending out thousands of P2P lawsuits, the company then threatened to sue Wikileaks claiming that the letter was protected by copyright law. There was also another sign for Swedish citizens that foreign entities were encroaching on to their countries political landscape when the government approved an expansion on police powers to target filesharing. February ended with a bang when the French governing political party (UMP), the party who was leading the charge for implementing a three strikes law in France, was sued for copyright infringement. Their plan to offer a "symbolic" 1 Euro payment didn't exactly go over very well. March The beginning of March saw the end of the prosecutions closing arguments for ThePirateBay on day 11. After watching the whole trial, pretty much every observer thought the admins of the BitTorrent site had a guarantee to winning in the trial due to how badly botched the prosecutions arguments were. Meanwhile, outside the court, there was major pressure for ISPs to block the site including countries like Norway which refused to block the website. Back in the court on day 11, the defence made their closing arguments for the defence was being made. March saw the continuation of the theme that the MPAA was enjoying ever increasing profits as well. Then, in spite of claims that the RIAA would stop suing music fans, the RIAA continued filing lawsuits against alleged copyright infringers. The three strikes law theme of 2009 continued with revelations that the French three strikes law would cost $40 million annually. Meanwhile in New Zealand, many users were relieved to find out that after weeks of widespread protests, the government backed down from plans to implement a three strikes law. Still, that didn't stop South Korea from implementing a three strikes law. There was also news in the scene where Swedish police raided a Sunnydale server. Prosecutors said that the server was the source of all the material in spite of the large userbase that actually uploaded to the site in the first place. With the UK under pressure and starting to show signs of caving in to big industry demands, British artists became vocal and compared prosecuting file-sharers to putting toothpaste back in the tube. In the US, legislation was introduced to prevent accidental file-sharing. Australia's filtering plan got way more heated when ISPs started to refuse to take part of the ridiculous plan to filter the internet once they discovered that the filters broadened to include things outside of child pornography. There were also many developments that showed the legitimacy of filesharing including a record label distributing content via Mininova. April April began with more news that the MPAA continued to break record profits though insanely claims that it's nothing to apologize for and it needed stronger copyright protection to protect the industry anyway. April also say a change in music consumption habits as they downloaded both legitimately and illegitimately less and are resorting to streaming music more. The three strikes laws made headlines again with France passing their controversial three strikes law. The law garnered the support of U2s band manager. When all seemed lost, there was a surprising defeat for the French three strikes law when French MPs went on vacation, allowing the defeat of the legislation. Meanwhile in the European Union, the EU-wide three strikes law hit a major roadblock for a second time with the law simply being voted down. It seemed to be much easier, though, for Taiwan to pass the three strikes law though. Towards the end of the month, France saw the three strikes law make it back to parliament with an embarrassed president vowing that the legislation would pass this time. Meanwhile in the UK, Britishhhhh prime minister signalled that a three strikes law was still not going to happen. Opposition towards the three strikes law continued to mount in France as the French arts community revolted against the three strikes law. VPN's popularity grew particularly with ThePirateBay's VPN service hitting 113,000 users. Some point out that anti-filesharing laws are still futile because technology will always be a step ahead of authorities and lawmakers. The Pirate Bays result of the trial was greatly anticipated. Almost everyone was betting on an innocent ruling, but virtually everyone was shocked to find out that in spite of such an error filled prosecution, the judge ruled that ThePirateBay admins were guilty anyway. Outrage ensued. ThePirateBay then went on record to say that the site would live on. Still, the guilty verdict was so stunning and outrageous, there were signs emerging that the verdict would have a major impact on the European Elections. In the mean time, UK ISPs ended up blocking ThePirateBay because, they say, the site had adult content on it. While some ISPs caved to pressure, others like the Swedish ISPs refused to block ThePirateBay. Back at the trial, after the guilty verdict, lawyers for the defence smelled something funny and discovered that the presiding judge was a member of a pro-copyright organization. This led to further outrage over the BitTorrent sites trial. Protests went so far as to create a website called ThePirateGoogle. The website was quickly blocked by Google, but the site was more about proving a point rather than create a functional tool for users to find torrents on ThePirateBay. Google was not amused and eventually asked people to stop comparing them to ThePirateBay. Whether or not there was a stigma that Google didn't want, lawyers pointed out that ThePirateBay's legal demise could endanger the search giant. Artists came out to support ThePirateBay on the grounds that the ruling against the admins was questionable. Meanwhile, US representatives called the guilty verdict "significant positive progress", further proving to many that the US was heavily involved in the trial in spite of not really having much legal jurisdiction in the country. The political fallout was severe as The Swedish Pirate Party's popularity soared to the point of people predicting the party winning seats in the EU parliament. Mininova, in the mean time, would make their last major milestone of 8 Billion downloads as their court date loomed. In the US, the court case revolving around the MPAA and RealDVD was heard by a judge, commencing an interesting court case surrounding the legitimacy of selling a DVD backup utility in the US. Yes, this is still 2009. Web filtering fever spread around the world with German government commencing their web filtering plan - a plan that saw the exponential growth of a movement to stop web filtering in Germany. The filtering debate went so far as to have German book publishers demanding to block Rapidshare. Meanwhile in Australia, the country that seemed to have started the movement for governments to try and seize control of the internet, a public forum was started that allowed Australian citizens to have their say on the matter of internet filtering. April also saw one of ZeroPaid's most popular articles on the site. In the United States, the major ISPs rolled out push polling to try and block a cheaper alternative for internet connectivity via municipal broadband. The story gained the attention of so many, that the legislation to stop the ISP was eventually shelved. The debate around it saw an interesting debate between people who believe that the government should stay out of the market and those that believe that ISPs have abused a oligopoly to continually raise prices of broadband while still having the quality of service to continue to degrade. Stay tuned for part 2. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> 2009-01-19-RSobamacover

2008 was an interesting year in file-sharing and 2009 didn't necessarily disappoint. There was plenty of ways to look at it, but there is one way one can look at the year - eventful. ZeroPaid reviews 2009.

January 2009 kicked things off with a bang with the ever ongoing Australian plan to filter the internet. The news at that time came with the revelation that the internet filtering plan would be mandatory for everyone with no opt out. Opposition parties of the government called the Australian plan to filter the internet offencive to parents. The German government announced similar plans to filter the internet. In the United States, it wasn't a plan that went quite as far as to filter the whole internet, but one of the US ISPs did begin to throttle FTP, UseNet and P2P traffic. There was also the news that seemed to be a repeating theme these days as well. News surfaced that Hollywood was breaking profit records. At that time, it was in overseas profits. Meanwhile, there was big news about the RIAA when they fired MediaSentry, an anti-filesharing organization that observers say botched several investigations on alleged file-sharers. It seems to be interesting for that to happen while the RIAA was getting heavy in to a legal fight with a Harvard Law professor in what would become one of the more dramatic file-sharing cases the year had seen. The story continued to make headlines with the RIAA blaming the professor for dragging out the case. After attempting to block the broadcast of the case in question, a judge permitted the broadcast of the file-sharing case. It would seem ironic that the RIAA would refuse the broadcast of the case given that they advocate so heavily on educating the public about these issues. The irony and controversy was amplified when the RIAA later attempted to block the broadcast of the trial claiming that it would unfairly benefit the defendant. The judge, in an interesting turn of events, granted a review on broadcasting the trial. RIAA was also busy trying to get US ISPs to disconnect alleged file-sharers. Unfortunately for the RIAA, the ISPs fought back, hesitant on, among other things, losing customers. Later on in January, it was discovered that after promising that it would finally stop their lawsuit campaign, the RIAA filed even more file-sharing lawsuits. The year also started with a major news story about what many might call the moment DRM was in serious trouble as a viable business model for selling music. iTunes announced that they would finally begin selling DRM-free music. January's eventfulness continued with the beginning developments of the MPAA vs what would probably be the legalities of selling a DVD back-up utility in the United States. Another noteworthy development was WebSheriff bringing down one-click hosting blog RLSLog, though it didn't take long before the website was brought back up. The so-called "three strikes law" was a major story all year long and beyond and the year started off with the British government saying that it won't consider a three strikes law. It was that story that triggered massive pressure from major copyright companies aimed directly at the UK government to change their mind. Meanwhile, it seemed that an Irish ISP was more willing to cave to pressure and agreed to start going along with a three strikes law. February News spilled over into February with Vuze calling on the FCC to look in to Cox throttling p2p traffic. While questions were swirling about blocking BitTorrent, Irish ISPs also agreed to block BitTorrent tracker sites. The Harvard Law professors trial continued to be in the headlines in February with news organizations calling for the file-sharing trial to be broadcasted because the case was in the publics interest. The British government seemed to still not be giving in to pressure to mandate a three strikes policy when the Digital Britain report was issued. Meanwhile, TorrentSpy appealed a ruling won by the MPAA because the owners believed that it shouldn't be mandated to violate users privacy. After releasing their album online for free, the a case study was done on the Nine Inch Nails method of releasing music to the public that concluded that this was the future of the music industry. It continued to show that not all artists believe in suing music fans and many other tactics deployed by the major record labels. More news surfaced that trials would begin on the Australian governments internet filtering plan. Things would later heat up with one professor infamously remarking that an unfiltered internet has no place in a democracy. Electronic Frontier Australia was quick to fire back saying that the professor was misrepresenting the issue. By the end of the month, more politicians in the Australian government saw that the plans to censor the internet wasn't that great of an idea. The ever famous Pirate Bay Trial started in February and it cemented the name "spectrial" given that a victory seemed to be pretty much a guarantee given the case built up against it. On day two, when news came that half the charges were dropped, many observers found the trial to not only be a shoe-in victory for ThePirateBay, but the copyright industry's case was becoming more like a farce. Day 3 of the trial revolved around the fact that users, not the site admins, were responsible for what is placed on the site. On day 4, ThePirateBay was accused of purposeful crime on a grand scale, ignoring how the website actually worked in the first place. On day 5, Peter Sunde took the stand to answer some pointed questions by the prosecutor. On day 7, prosecutors began altering their charges on ThePirateBay admins. On day 8, a record executive took the stand saying that ThePirateBay was responsible for their supposed woes and refuted arguments that file-sharing has had a net positive effect on the music industry. On Day 9, a professor argued that there was no link between filesharing and music sale losses. February also saw a relentless campaign by the copyright industry to tarnish Canada's reputation. One of those entities was the IIPA which claimed that Canada should be placed on a priority 301 watch list because of movie piracy. While the effort would prove ultimately successful, it led many experts to realize that the watch lists could not be trusted given the anecdotal decision to put Canada on the watch list in the first place. It would seem like an interesting point of view given that there were revelations surfacing that Canadian ISP bandwidth growth fell by 45%. The three strikes law theme continued with wide-spread protest in New Zealand where websites were blacked out because of the censorship potential of the legislation because the legislation is easily dubbed "three accusations and your out". Meanwhile France finalized plans for a government three strikes agency. Another story of note was that after Wikileaks published an extortion letter issued by Davenport Lyons, the organization responsible for sending out thousands of P2P lawsuits, the company then threatened to sue Wikileaks claiming that the letter was protected by copyright law. There was also another sign for Swedish citizens that foreign entities were encroaching on to their countries political landscape when the government approved an expansion on police powers to target filesharing. February ended with a bang when the French governing political party (UMP), the party who was leading the charge for implementing a three strikes law in France, was sued for copyright infringement. Their plan to offer a "symbolic" 1 Euro payment didn't exactly go over very well. March The beginning of March saw the end of the prosecutions closing arguments for ThePirateBay on day 11. After watching the whole trial, pretty much every observer thought the admins of the BitTorrent site had a guarantee to winning in the trial due to how badly botched the prosecutions arguments were. Meanwhile, outside the court, there was major pressure for ISPs to block the site including countries like Norway which refused to block the website. Back in the court on day 11, the defence made their closing arguments for the defence was being made. March saw the continuation of the theme that the MPAA was enjoying ever increasing profits as well. Then, in spite of claims that the RIAA would stop suing music fans, the RIAA continued filing lawsuits against alleged copyright infringers. The three strikes law theme of 2009 continued with revelations that the French three strikes law would cost $40 million annually. Meanwhile in New Zealand, many users were relieved to find out that after weeks of widespread protests, the government backed down from plans to implement a three strikes law. Still, that didn't stop South Korea from implementing a three strikes law. There was also news in the scene where Swedish police raided a Sunnydale server. Prosecutors said that the server was the source of all the material in spite of the large userbase that actually uploaded to the site in the first place. With the UK under pressure and starting to show signs of caving in to big industry demands, British artists became vocal and compared prosecuting file-sharers to putting toothpaste back in the tube. In the US, legislation was introduced to prevent accidental file-sharing. Australia's filtering plan got way more heated when ISPs started to refuse to take part of the ridiculous plan to filter the internet once they discovered that the filters broadened to include things outside of child pornography. There were also many developments that showed the legitimacy of filesharing including a record label distributing content via Mininova. April April began with more news that the MPAA continued to break record profits though insanely claims that it's nothing to apologize for and it needed stronger copyright protection to protect the industry anyway. April also say a change in music consumption habits as they downloaded both legitimately and illegitimately less and are resorting to streaming music more. The three strikes laws made headlines again with France passing their controversial three strikes law. The law garnered the support of U2s band manager. When all seemed lost, there was a surprising defeat for the French three strikes law when French MPs went on vacation, allowing the defeat of the legislation. Meanwhile in the European Union, the EU-wide three strikes law hit a major roadblock for a second time with the law simply being voted down. It seemed to be much easier, though, for Taiwan to pass the three strikes law though. Towards the end of the month, France saw the three strikes law make it back to parliament with an embarrassed president vowing that the legislation would pass this time. Meanwhile in the UK, Britishhhhh prime minister signalled that a three strikes law was still not going to happen. Opposition towards the three strikes law continued to mount in France as the French arts community revolted against the three strikes law. VPN's popularity grew particularly with ThePirateBay's VPN service hitting 113,000 users. Some point out that anti-filesharing laws are still futile because technology will always be a step ahead of authorities and lawmakers. The Pirate Bays result of the trial was greatly anticipated. Almost everyone was betting on an innocent ruling, but virtually everyone was shocked to find out that in spite of such an error filled prosecution, the judge ruled that ThePirateBay admins were guilty anyway. Outrage ensued. ThePirateBay then went on record to say that the site would live on. Still, the guilty verdict was so stunning and outrageous, there were signs emerging that the verdict would have a major impact on the European Elections. In the mean time, UK ISPs ended up blocking ThePirateBay because, they say, the site had adult content on it. While some ISPs caved to pressure, others like the Swedish ISPs refused to block ThePirateBay. Back at the trial, after the guilty verdict, lawyers for the defence smelled something funny and discovered that the presiding judge was a member of a pro-copyright organization. This led to further outrage over the BitTorrent sites trial. Protests went so far as to create a website called ThePirateGoogle. The website was quickly blocked by Google, but the site was more about proving a point rather than create a functional tool for users to find torrents on ThePirateBay. Google was not amused and eventually asked people to stop comparing them to ThePirateBay. Whether or not there was a stigma that Google didn't want, lawyers pointed out that ThePirateBay's legal demise could endanger the search giant. Artists came out to support ThePirateBay on the grounds that the ruling against the admins was questionable. Meanwhile, US representatives called the guilty verdict "significant positive progress", further proving to many that the US was heavily involved in the trial in spite of not really having much legal jurisdiction in the country. The political fallout was severe as The Swedish Pirate Party's popularity soared to the point of people predicting the party winning seats in the EU parliament. Mininova, in the mean time, would make their last major milestone of 8 Billion downloads as their court date loomed. In the US, the court case revolving around the MPAA and RealDVD was heard by a judge, commencing an interesting court case surrounding the legitimacy of selling a DVD backup utility in the US. Yes, this is still 2009. Web filtering fever spread around the world with German government commencing their web filtering plan - a plan that saw the exponential growth of a movement to stop web filtering in Germany. The filtering debate went so far as to have German book publishers demanding to block Rapidshare. Meanwhile in Australia, the country that seemed to have started the movement for governments to try and seize control of the internet, a public forum was started that allowed Australian citizens to have their say on the matter of internet filtering. April also saw one of ZeroPaid's most popular articles on the site. In the United States, the major ISPs rolled out push polling to try and block a cheaper alternative for internet connectivity via municipal broadband. The story gained the attention of so many, that the legislation to stop the ISP was eventually shelved. The debate around it saw an interesting debate between people who believe that the government should stay out of the market and those that believe that ISPs have abused a oligopoly to continually raise prices of broadband while still having the quality of service to continue to degrade. Stay tuned for part 2. Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.]]> http://www.zeropaid.com/news/87487/2009-a-zeropaid-year-in-review-part-1-of-3/feed/ 1 Google and Lessig Vs. The Wall Street Journal – The Network Neutrality Story http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9899/google_and_lessig_vs_the_wall_street_journal__the_network_neutrality_story/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9899/google_and_lessig_vs_the_wall_street_journal__the_network_neutrality_story/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:53:58 +0000 Jorge Gonzalez The network neutrality debate just got a little hotter recently over a story published on the Wall Street Journal.

A report from The Wall Street Journal has gotten numerous people talking recently. The article says that network neutrality is losing major supporters. One of the prominent figures that the WSJ says is losing support for network neutrality is Google because, allegedly, they are negotiating with internet service providers for preferential treatment. Other claims include Microsoft and Yahoo withdrawing from a coalition to keep the network neutral, that Lawrence Lessig is also “shifting gears” on the subject and that advisers to President Elect Barack Obama who support network neutrality are now changing their views on the subject. Quite a news story and certainly news to many including some of the figures that were mentioned in the story.

Epicenter points to a Google blog posting which didn’t exactly fill the posting with praise for the Wall Street Journal. Richard Whitt called the news article “confused” and denied making comments about Obama advisers, suggesting that the Obama teams stance really hasn’t changed. Whitt also said that the company is currently setting up caches for ISPs to help speed up web page loading times, improving the network by delivering content closer to the user – not interfering with competing traffic.

BoingBoing points to Lawrence Lessig’s blog posting. Lessig said that the story was a “made-up drama” and that his views on network neutrality isn’t new. His view is that internet service providers have a right to charge different rates for different services.

BoingBoing updated the posting to include a blog posting explaining in depth why the Wall Street Journals article is “bogus”.

What makes this story so scandalous is the fact that the Wall Street Journal has been around for years and, as such, collected so much credibility that pretty much everything printed in the Journal is perceived as fact. These people go from casual readers all the way up to University scholars which have used articles from the Journal to write scholarly articles (which works its way down to essay pieces written by College and University students) No doubt that the accuracy of the Journal is currently being brought into question by some, though it’s also possible that the Journal is written by human beings who will eventually screw up sooner or later.

]]> http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9899/google_and_lessig_vs_the_wall_street_journal__the_network_neutrality_story/feed/ 0 Net Neutrality Debate Comes to Europe http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9286/net_neutrality_debate_comes_to_europe/ http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9286/net_neutrality_debate_comes_to_europe/#comments Sun, 24 Feb 2008 08:16:56 +0000 Jorge Gonzalez NewTeeVee is reporting that the network neutrality debate has come to Europe. It all started when the BBC started broadcasting their shows for the iPlayer.

It may seem like a bit of nostalgia for some. In 2006 in the US, there was a bill that could have changed the internet to have so-called ‘fast-lanes’ and ‘slow-lanes’. The questions lawmakers were tackling was whether telecommunication companies had the right to prioritize traffic. Google, at the time, was called a “freeloader” and some Internet Service Provider companies wanted to charge websites a fee to have their traffic prioritized. The claim was that as traffic on the internet increased, so would the stress on the general network.

File-sharing wasn’t spared from the debate either. Networks, namely BitTorrent, were blamed for a large amount of stress on ISP networks. BitTorrent tried to implement the Cache Discovery Protocol which would allow popular kinds of traffic to be cached, thus reducing network stress.

More predominantly, many ISPs chose to simply block or shape the traffic instead. This sparked outrage by content creators, among many others and intensified the network neutrality debate.

Apparently, the BBC liked the idea of caching traffic and proposed a caching system to reduce the network load for ISPs for their iPlayer. Some have suggested that the BBC pay for the additional traffic load.

There was a further suggestion that fiber optics be laid in through existing infrastructure like sewers. Some say it’s an interesting possible solution.

Via NewTeeVee.

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