Companies Join Together to Maintain Open Internet

idontneedanickname writes "SiliconValley.com is carrying an article from The Mercury News about the lobbying efforts of companies such as Amazon.com, Microsoft and Walt Disney (yes, you read that right) to stop the FCC from "fundamentally altering the Internet. If that happens, they say, the Internet could evolve into a cable-TV-like system, where providers of high-speed Internet access could steer subscribers toward affiliated Internet sites. The network owners could also limit the types of devices that could be connected to their network, potentially stifling innovation." Printer friendly version of the article is online as well."

Comments

Re:Mascots

[OpenYourEyes]

Strangely enough, Disney has been an open source supporter for a while.

The squeak dialect of smalltalk was created at Apple, but run by Alan Kay and his team while they were Disney imagineers. (I never did get an answer if the squeaking mouse was an homage to Apple's mouse or Mickey.)

Their internet group created a set of open source tools used on their webpages called Tea, released it themselves, and now make it available through sourceforge.

Exactly....

[bubbha]

...it's called increasing shareholder value. That and obeying the law are the only responsibility corporations have. Corporations only take the public good as a secondary objective - if they believe in some instance that it will increase shareholder value they will say thay are doing something in the public good.

There is nothing wrong with this. We just have to remember that corporations are not people. They don't love your children and they are not obligated to "do the right thing." That's why we have markets - and when they fail or will take too long to take effect - government regulation.

Re:Misunderstanding of Principles

[Merlin_Z]

> That's just not true though. The track record of
> RIAA and MPAA should show that, sometimes, they
> take action against things that clearly help their
> bottom-line.

The RIAA and MPAA don't have a bottom line. They are industry associations that were formed in order to lobby for legislation that is in the intrest of their members.

"The Recording Industry Association of America is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry. Its mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members' creative and financial vitality. Its members are the record companies ..." [1]

Part of the "legal climate" that the associations desire is one of strong intellectual property rights; as such, the groups will always pursue actions against entities such as clean-flix even if these actions harm sales in the short term.

In the long term, if sufficent demand for 'clean' movies should arise, the association's members will be able to provide the product themselves, and any legal precedent established through action against someone like clean-flix will ensure that they can do so without competition.

[1] http://riaa.org/About-Who.cfm