Mark Cuban Calls on ISPs to Block P2P

boaz112358 writes "Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner, HDNet CEO, and noted gadfly is publishing on his blog that Comcast and other ISPs should block all P2P traffic, because as he says, "As a consumer, I want my internet experience to be as fast as possible. The last thing I want slowing my internet service down are P2P freeloaders." He complains that commercial content distributors instead of paying for their own bandwidth, are leeching off consumers who are paying for the bandwidth. As an alternative distribution method (at least for audio and video), he suggests Google video."

Comments

One way to solve this

[CRCulver]

A major ISP in the city I resided in in Romania help alleviate demands on bandwidth to and from the outside world by just setting up a DC++ server for their customers where they could share music and movies with other people in the same city. Seems easier to do than trying to ban all manner of P2P traffic. Too bad that sort of thing would never fly in the U.S.

Re:One way to solve this

[Enoxice]

Sounds like what happens at various US universities. Students set up DC hubs, the IT dept. looks the other way, everybody wins. The hub keeps file-sharing traffic internal to the school, meaning the heavy traffic is on the intranet (where the school's infrastructure can handle it better than saturating their external pipe) and since no students are using KaZaa, there are no lawsuits.

Re:One way to solve this

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you prioritize among lots of anonymous encrypted bitstreams?

Re:One way to solve this

[PHPfanboy]

Like you I also work for an internet QoS hardware manufacturer and I think this is definitely the right way to go...

Re:One way to solve this

[unlametheweak]

Mark Cuban is talking about corporate broadcasters using P2P bandwidth. One would hope these corporations pay the artists what they deserve for their hard work. Yes group-think does suck, especially when you are on the wrong side of it.

Some facts:
Real fans pay for music.
Poor fans won't pay for music whether it is easily available or not.
And if there wasn't any demand, then there wouldn't be any supply.
The market will work itself out despite DRM and the like.

Re:One way to solve this

[Simple-Simmian]

I use bandwidth for P2P and a lot of it. I also pay for the top tier plan that my ISP offers. If it's not enough to pay for the bandwidth I use they need to charge me more. This clown is out of his depth.

Re:One way to solve this

[CRCulver]

All the excuses in the world won't change the fact that if I get my music for free and don't go to concerts, the artists don't get a penny.

FWIW, with the sort of music I listen to (modern-classical music), the performers don't usually get royalties, and the labels--even if they sold all copies of a CD--still wouldn't turn a profit without funding from state arts ministries. That changes the situation significant. The ethical dilemma of downloading the works of a rock band is not the same as in other genres.

Then there are cases in the popular music world where the artist, because of some contract issue, no longer gets royalties on his albums at all I believe that that is the case with Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, for example. If not a penny goes to the artist anymore, what is the difference between downloading and buying?

Re:One way to solve this

[Seumas]

I'll buy music when it's a reasonable price. No song is worth a dollar. It's just music. And a dollar for much lower quality music compared to the uncompressed CD format? What a rip off.

I'm all for supporting artists, but I won't support the RIAA and bullshit business tactics to do it. I stick to music from people I know or discover and that I can buy directly from them or an outlet similar to CDBaby.

Re:One way to solve this

[budgenator]

Mark Cuban owns a NBA basketball team and has a flashcraptic web site that distributes video clips. These Pro sports owners think if you pay $50 bucks to sit in the stadium and take a picture of the game you infringing on their copyrights; he'd gladly sacrifice the ability of 100 starving artists to make a buck so his team could get an 8 cent advertising impression. A profession sports team owner is hardly an unbiassed opinion on P2P and network utilization.

Re:One way to solve this

[db32]

That's funny. I'm pretty sure those pay to play music boxes in bars and stuff have been charging .25 to .50 for a single play and have been doing quite well.

Re:One way to solve this

[untaken_name]

Either that or get their own Internet access and get off the school's network.

They should not use the access they're paying for, but instead should go pay another internet provider also? That sounds fair. And by fair, I mean utterly stupid. It's not like you get to choose not to pay your inet fee - most schools either require it or bury it in other fees anyway, so even if you DO pay for your own inet access, you're just double or triple-paying. How about when you pay for internet access, you get to... I know this is crazy... access the internet? If it's too slow for Mark Cuban, he's welcome to run his own, faster network and put whatever policies he wants in to place to govern it. He has enough money. But he, you, and everyone else can stay the fuck out of my internet usage, thank you.

Re:One way to solve this

[Seumas]

That seems like a reasonable price. I'd also buy a lot more music. The question is whether or not the movement artists are slowly making to get away from the major distribution labels and moving into self-distribution (thanks, intarweb!), will result in artists dropping the price of their product significantly, while still managing to raise the amount they would receive from royalties with a corporate label? Or will they decide that if record labels can charge $20 for a CD and give them a buck, they should be able to charge $20 and keep it all?

See, here is the thing. How much is music worth? Well, it is worth whatever the artist is paid. The idiot anonymous coward who posted elsewhere here in reply to me suggesting that I am somehow obligated to buy music I don't even line for whatever value corporations place on them is completely off base.

How much does a VERY successful band get from a single $20 CD? A buck. Maybe two bucks if they are lucky. Therefore, the music is worth one or two dollars for an entire album of content. The other $18 is the price of advertising, distribution, lawyers, music videos, corporate revenue building. It has nothing to do with the value of the actual music to me as a consumer. Those are all added expenses by other people to get the music to me. It isn't needed anymore. Especially since I don't find out about music on the radio or television, but through friends and the internet. If a band is paid $2 for the royalty on each album, then $2 is what the album itself is worth. Do away with the middle man and sell me the product for $2. Or charge $4 if you like, as the artist.

So until the artist is the one dictating the price of their product, people like that anonymous coward who want CORPORATIONS to dictate the price of an artist's product can suck it.

Re:One way to solve this

[totally bogus dude]

I think it's more that people don't care how ISPs make their money. It's not my problem if an ISP offers a product which they're unable to make a profit on, any more than it's my problem if a store mis-prices an item and sells it a loss.

ISPs have been telling everyone that bandwidth is cheap, by selling X mbit at Y$ per month. "Use it as much as you want and that's all you'll pay", they say. Now they're complaining that their customers actually think their $Y per month entitles them to X mbit of bandwidth. Gee, I wonder why that is?

If you sell an internet connection as an unlimited service, people are going to use it as an unlimited service. If you can't actually provide that, then don't sell it! IMHO, if an ISP that sells you an unlimited X mbit connection and then tells you you're using it too much, it should be an open-and-shut case of false advertising. They're entering into a contract with you without being able to fulfil their side of it.

In the internet backwaters of Australia, ISPs used to offer unlimited access plans on dialup. The low bandwidth of dialup meant that this was kind of feasible, because there's only so much you can download at 56k. When ADSL started coming out, they went to a quota system, because even a couple of hundred kilobits per second can add up to a crapload of data if left going 24/7, and data from overseas costs a lot.

So now I'm paying for 40 gigs of traffic on an ADSL2 link at ~ 19mbit down, 1mbit up. Sure, it's only 40 gigs, but they're my 40 gigs. I can do whatever I want with that and not worry about being throttled because my ISP doesn't approve of particular types of traffic.

There are ISPs here which offer cheaper prices for a much higher quota (and even some offering unlimited quotas at low speeds, i.e. 256kbit). I'm with a more expensive ISP because the cheaper ones heavily oversubscribe and that means you often get poor performance during peak periods. I don't have a problem with ISPs providing such a service; there's people who want to download a lot but don't really care if sometimes (or often) websites are slow to load. It's only a problem if they try to hide the fact that they do this.

hold on a sec...

[timmarhy]

.. so this assholes logic is his traffic is better then mine? I pay just the same as he does for the service and as long as i use it inside the terms of my agreement he has no right to say anything.

Re:hold on a sec...

[CoolVibe]

Amen. This asshole isn't paying for my bandwidth, so he should shut the hell up. Arrrr.

Re:hold on a sec...

[Seumas]

By his logic, we shouldn't be using the internet for VoIP, either. Or watching videos. Or listening to streaming radio stations. Or watching and listening to podcasts. After all, those all consume a lot of bandwidth, even if it's not over P2P. And of course, EVERYONE who uses P2P is a massive multinational corporation that can afford massive bills. Does he not realize that P2P allows a downloader to receive content in return for a small payment of bandwidth to help redistribute the same content to other users, instead of monetary compensation? P2P allows a significant number of small-time content producers to get their content out to a lot of people. Otherwise, they could never afford it and only the big guys would get to play the game.

And really, if you are only using the internet for shell access and to get your email account and refresh drudgereport, then what the hell are you bitching and moaning about needing high speed for in the first place?!

And really, if an internet provider wants to give HTTP, POP, IMAP and shell traffic top priority, that's fine with me. That way those packets will not be affected should a heavy load of other use throttle the connection -- and at the same time, a bunch of people just using HTTP and shell accounts isn't going to slow down your P2P or streaming activities by any noticeable amount.

I don't see why all of this is a big deal. And I don't see why my solution isn't good enough. It allows the content of the supposed majority of users to always get through unimpeded while allowing all other content to cross the wires as the remaining bandwidth (which is supposedly the other 90% of traffic) allows.

Cuban is a hot-headed little prick.

Re:hold on a sec...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I think what he meant to say was that companies distributing products via the internet, using P2P are using the users bandwidth for free. That is not a choice of the user, but instead a dictated protocol by lets say a movie distribution company.

I'm not quite sure he meant that it isn't a users right to use P2P if they chose... but instead he wishes to prevent companies from using your bandwidth for free, for their monetary gain.

The attack on all P2P i think was a unintended target and just poor wording on his case.

I might be wrong on this.

My view is that P2P is a users right. They can do what they want with the bandwidth they pay for. But companies that charge you to download again lets say movies from them through a P2P system, should not expect to use my bandwidth for free, so that they can in return profit, and charge me for it.

Re:hold on a sec...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Read his article. He wans ALL p2p traffic blocked, and he doesnt't mantion any exceptions.

He clearly doesnt't specialise in clear thinking though. He seems to think that blocking p2p would improve his own internet experience (at the expense of many other perople's of course, but that doesn't bother him). He seems to think that his own improved experience will come about because blocking p2p will reduce the amount of traffic flowing through the internet. The fact that all that p2p traffic is people downloading, and that if they can't download it p2p style that they will _all_ have to download it from a big server somewhere, and that the amount of traffic flowing over the internet would be THE SAME doesn't seem to have dawned on him.

Of course, if you had to get your downloads from a great big server, someone would have to run that great big server, and that costs money. This provides excellent entry barriers to content distribution and represents an excellent way for the encumbent providers like the RIAA and multinationals to extend their stranglehold over the internet the same way they have over all other content distribution mechanisms. The limited number of distribution servers would all make fairly easy pickings for future moves to extend their control, like legislating well, any kind of restriction they want really. I see it as rather like bus companies trying to ban private cars from the road system, trying to re-establish the kind of monopoly over transport (and the economy as a whole) that the railways once enjoyed. I think this is his real agenda - gaining control of the internet for the big corporations.

Actully, there is one problem I can think of with current p2p aplications - I don't think they make any attempt to favour local peers over wildly remote peers. It really would help the internet as a whole if p2p applications could show a preference for nearby peers. Perhaps measuring hop-count could be built into future p2p protocols?

P2P is only int its infancy

[Basje]

The same argument can be applied to voip and more recently internet television. But it's a logic stance for an established player with enough capital: they have the means to provide enough bandwidth to things in a traditional client-server way.

P2P is only in its infancy. More and more applications are being found for it. Joost is one example, where p2p is used in a way to allow a relatively small player to operate. New uses even bring bandwidth use down, keeping it local.

It would be stupid to kill these opportunities for the benefit of a few big players.

Freeloaders?

[melted]

Excuse me? $46 a month for my Comcast connection is not exactly "free". In fact as far as I'm concerned, that's about $20 too much. Now if I had a free (as in beer) connection, I might give up my torrent rights, but as long as I pay for it (and pay dearly, including through taxes) I insist that I should be able to use it in whatever way I deem necessary. Whether I want to download the latest Fedora DVD, or a gig of porn - I've paid for the privilege.

Re:Freeloaders?

[Enoxice]

Ummm... Mark Cuban != Mark Shuttleworth

Just FYI.

Re:Freeloaders?

[Nicholas Evans]

Then, is it the customer's fault that his ISP is grossly overselling their capacity?

Re:Freeloaders?

[aussie_a]

Perhaps the ISP shouldn't oversell their bandwidth? It would result in higher prices, but it would be more honest.

Re:Freeloaders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Next we should disable people's cars who drive more often than the grandma next door. And what about those people who use the city parks every day?! I mean clearly everyone should behave *exactly* the same as everyone else. Who do these leechers think they are?

Re:Freeloaders?

[Kadin2048]

They should get their gig of porn, too. In fact, gigs of porn all around.

Or at least to whomever's ISPs promised them service. That's the real problem here, the overselling of backhaul capacity and quoting of mindless 'burst' speeds rather than average or continuous transfer. What everyone is doing with their connection is irrelevant. If I'm downloading porn or watching YouTube, the effect on my neighbors is going to be basically the same (witness most recent 'imminent death of the net' story, which IIRC blamed video).

We need a little more truth in advertising in internet access. Let's make them advertise two separate figures, one for speed and one for transfer, for starters. And if they're going to do QoS or prioritize traffic, that needs to be disclosed, too -- not just that they're going to do it, but on what basis they're going to do the QoS and a breakdown of what traffic is going to get what priority over what else.

Re:Freeloaders?

[jackharrer]

And that's the reason why instead of whining about p2p traffic they should finally invest in infrastructure.

Do you know how long it takes to download film in Sweden? 15-30min. Why? Because somebody invested in fiber to homes and fast switches. That's the reason they have ethernet straight to home. Yes, ethernet socket at home, 10/10Mb, upgradeable to 100/100.

And of course everybody knows that if your infrastructure is designed properly most of the traffic will stay local - p2p client usually prefer local fast nodes.

So you pay for your 'net connection - it gives you possibility to download whatever you want, everybody can. You can download newest Fedora, but your neighbour probably sits 12 hours a day watching youtube. Same IMHO.

Re:Freeloaders?

[smallfries]

What you really need to do is come to some sort of understanding, perhaps an agreement amongst gentlemen, or peers even. Then you could somehow work together to download your gigs of porn. It would be like a distributed network of peers, a peer-to-peer network even. If only there was some kind of snappy name for this system. Sorry I have to go, I need to call Mark 'fuckwit' Cuban and describe my latest invention to him. He's gonna love it!

Re:Freeloaders?

[bstone]

>>Perhaps the ISP shouldn't oversell their bandwidth? It would result in higher prices, but it would be more honest.

Or perhaps they should sell their bandwidth differently. Some people want a really high-speed connection for instant response time and occasional large transfers, others want to use all the bandwidth they can get 24/7. The two could be charged differently for their usage. Sell different plans with the same connection speed but different limits on maximum monthly usage. When someone goes over the limit, either throttle their connection to a much lower speed or bill the extra usage at a premium rate. The ISPs could actually offer higher speeds at much cheaper rates to the 'normal' users, and make extra bucks off the high volume users. Users would pay for what they use, and as people moved to high volume use, the ISP could add the bandwidth without having to gripe about it. They could even shape their traffic if they wanted to, offering lower rates during off hours for high volume use.

A side benefit would be that they wouldn't have to oversell bandwidth by anywhere near as much since they would know how much real bandwidth they need by the type of account.

Re:Freeloaders?

[ptte]

Where I live, if you live in an apartment, you will mostly have the possibility to have 100/100mbps internet connection. That said, your own regular netgear wireless router will probably only have a throughput of 20-40 mbps, whatever the manual said. But that aint the ISP's fault anyway... I can assure you the connection is working, even during "primetime" and not only at 5 in the morning. And where I live, we are considered far behind most medium cities with their own city-net where you in some rare cases can get 1 / 1 gbps. And I live in Sweden, not China.

Re:Freeloaders?

[nikanj]

Finland is also installing fiber. I think we can finally lay the "sparse population" argument to rest :)

Paying Customer?

[jythie]

Ok... so now paying customers who buy a service as it is advertised are freeloaders?

This is getting silly..... ISPs should NOT be advertising services they can not actually provide and then blaming groups of their own customers for their lack of infrastructure.

Re:Paying Customer?

[shark72]

"Ok... so now paying customers who buy a service as it is advertised are freeloaders?"

He means this in the sense that while you might pay Comcast a monthly fee for bandwidth, you're using that bandwidth to get free movies, games and music that are otherwise being offered for sale. Yes, I'm aware that some people use BitTorrent only for legitimate purposes, but he's addressing the other 99%.

"This is getting silly..... ISPs should NOT be advertising services they can not actually provide and then blaming groups of their own customers for their lack of infrastructure."

Agreed. Since Comcast is a virtual monopoly in many localities, they could simply drop the "unlimited" plan and start selling monthly bandwidth alotments in tiers. This wouldn't be a popular decision among BitTorrent fans, but it would be more equitable.

Re:Paying Customer?

[aussie_a]

He complains that commercial content distributors instead of paying for their own bandwidth, are leeching off consumers who are paying for the bandwidth. Sounds to me like he's complaining about that 1% actually.

Internet Experience

[easyTree]

Block HTTP, FTP, NNTP too, that way the tubes will be nice and clear so that you can have a better internet experience. I'd be happy to forgo internet altogether; use my share to build him his own private intarweb.

How exactly ?

[HuguesT]

Sure one can probably block BT, but then how does one block TOR? other P2P protocols to come that will cleverly hide behind innocuous-looking web servers and use port 80 or 22 for traffic ? What about all the legal content delivered via P2P ?

This is a battle that cannot be won, unless the whole Internet is shut down. Most people in the content business would like to regulate P2P like TV or shut it down like unregulated radio, but unlike these media, P2P doesn't require more equipment or knowledge than ordinary citizen already possess in order to be able to broadcast.

The cat is out of the bag, and the clever ones will take advantage of it. The others will fight to the bitter end and lose, as always.

Re:How exactly ?

[Kadin2048]

Possible, but that's not trivial. In fact, it can be quite hard to tell an encrypted bitstream from a heavily compressed one of some unknown format (say, the Flash video codec-of-the-week). It wouldn't be hard to take encrypted data and encapsulate it in some other format, making it appear to casual inspection to be streaming video or VoIP or something else entirely.

They could make life on ports 22 and 443 and using conventional protocols like HTTPS and SSH really obnoxious, but you can't just ban all encrypted content, at least not easily and at very high speeds.

obligatory

[sam.thorogood]

As a consumer, I want my P2P experience to be as fast as possible. The last thing I want slowing my internet service down are regular downloading freeloaders, only getting content from one source, and clogging up the tubes, rather than downloading different parts of my final file from a whole bunch of different (and potentially local) sources. Seriously.

Depends on the country...

[femto]

Here in Australia most plans are for so many bits each month. They are my bits as I paid for them. If I choose to use the 480Gbits I have purchased from my ISP for running a P2P protocol that's my business, not Cuban's, my ISP's or anybody else's.

Re:Depends on the country...

[Boronx]

It's the same in America, you just have to download 24 hours a day at the fastest speed in order to get all your bits.

Re:Depends on the country...

[Opportunist]

We have a similar system in use. Called "fair use policy". Or, as we customers like to call it, "russian bandwidth roulette". You download and then suddenly you get angry letters and throttling. Next month, you do exactly the same, nothing. Then you are on vacation for a month, don't download anything, and you come home to be greeted by one of those letters in your inbox and your bandwidth slow enough to greet every bit and call it by name on arrival.

My guess is that this happens totally at random.

Google video requires no bandwidth

[beef3k]

Moving to Google Video... yeah I guess that'd help a lot. Let's centralize everything and see how well that works out for everyone.
Or wait... why was it that this P2P concept was invented again? "Distribute load" or something... difficult concept.

Try again Mark.

Nonsensical

[_Hellfire_]

Well personally I think the Dallas Mavericks need to improve their front line ball-running and trade players in and out of the game more often if they are to be in with a chance this season. Also, if the Captain Maverick was placed in the middle instead of the front during the offensive plays, they could ensure more runs on the board by getting more stoppages in their favor.

Who are the Dallas Mavericks?

Indeed - maybe he should stick to whatever the hell he's good at, and leave the ISP stuff up to those that actually know what they're talking about.

meanwhile

[lordvalrole]

cuban has thought of the fact that these telecos have squander all of our money away and have yet updated internet service. I find it funny that America is suppose to be the biggest badass country in the world and we lack on just about everything technology wise (except for when it comes to military needs). Other countries have way better internet than we do and we are so lagging behind.

Americans just don't care. They don't see what we "could" have and suffice what we do have. Cable, DSL, FIOS are all better than dialup 56k so we must not complain. worthless I I tell you.

For once I would love somebody from a corporation do something for the public and not for their own self interest. when will companies figure out that helping your customers out only attracts more people to their company and because of that you gain more business. They always seem to want to screw over the consumer as much as possible.

I don't know but a lot of issues can be solved but no one wants to put the effort into solving it.

Mr. Cheapskate asks for more.

[thej1nx]

Actually it is not the paying customers who are the freeloaders.

All ISPs offer a "shared bandwidth" plan where they tell you that you will be sharing the bandwidth at the last mile, with your neighbors. And if you want to have fast guaranteed unshared access, they offer a dedicated "bandwidth connection" for a premium fee, where only you get the full bandwidth and if it is any lower than promised average, you can actually complain to the ISP and get it fixed, or even possibly sue them for not providing service as promised.

Mr. cheapskate bigshot CEO opted for the shared bandwidth option, where he was aware that his neighbors would share the bandwidth and thus his connection quality was dependent on their usage. He chose not to go for the premium dedicated line in order to save a few dollars.

And now the Greedy Bastard is complaining about why he is not getting the features of the *premium* dedicated service on his cheap shared bandwidth connection. And then he calls *others* freeloaders!!!

Just imagine how fast the internet would be...

[Chrisq]

Just imagine how fast the internet would be if there were no content to view. After P2Ps gone, get rid of all these freeloading websites, emails, etc. and it will be blisteringly fast.

Re:Just imagine how fast the internet would be...

[Kadin2048]

Are we allowed ICMP ping, so we can tell how fast it is?

Nothing else, just ping.

There's part of me that would pay for that.

Re:Just imagine how fast the internet would be...

[cyriustek]

Actually, it has already been done.

From the ISS X-Force Database...

LOKI is a client/server program published in the online publication Phrack. This program is a working proof-of-concept to demonstrate that data can be transmitted somewhat secretly across a network by hiding it in traffic that normally does not contain payloads. The example code can tunnel the equivalent of a Unix RCMD/RSH session in either ICMP echo request (ping) packets or UDP traffic to the DNS port. This is used as a back door into a Unix system after root access has been compromised. Presence of LOKI on a system is evidence that the system has been compromised in the past. http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/1452

My ISP

[endemoniada]

My ISP (here in Sweden) has this to say about P2P:

P2P-nätverk
Vi har inga synpunkter på att du använder abonnemanget för fildelning via P2P-nätverk. Våra tjänster fungerar mycket bra för detta. Om du laddar från andra datorer som också finns i Bredband2:s nät får du maximal prestanda. Om du vill kan du använda förkortningen [BB2] för att visa att du sitter i Bredband2:s nät. Tänk på upphovsrättslagen när du tar del av andras filer och själv delar ut.

(in english):

P2P Networks
We have no objections to you using your connection to share files over P2P networks. Our services work very well for this. If you connect to other computers that are also in the Bredband2 network you will get maximum performance. If you like, you can use the prefix [BB2] to show others that you are using the Bredband2 network. Please respect copyright laws when you download and share your files.

And it's dirt cheap too. 100mbit both directions, full duplex for 200SEK a month, or ~$15.

Why yes, I AM a bastard :D

He's right in his complaint, but wrong conclusion

[Opportunist]

Yes, the complaint is valid. I do want to get the bandwidth I pay for. But guess what? So does everyone else too. Whether you're streaming porn from xtube or sharing P2P, everyone has the damn same right to use the bandwidth.

What's wrong here is that ISPs want to sell you some fat pipe (to somehow justify being quite expensive for often very little service), but don't want you to use it. They expect you to be a "burst" user. Download a page in 2 seconds, then look at the page for 5 minutes, then flip to the next... and so on. Yes, that's 10mbit you get. For two seconds. And you get it because everyone else is also expected to do that.

They don't expect you to use those 10mbit constantly, permanently, 24/7. But that's as what it is being sold. They promise you 10mbit, but they don't want you to use it.

They're overselling by magnitudes, and of course that doesn't work out in the long run when people actually (gasp!) use what they're being sold. How dare they!

So instead of telling people how to use their internet connection (what makes your traffic more important than mine, btw?), how about telling ISPs to sell only what they got?

Will the real Mark Cuban, please stand up?

[vivaoporto]

That makes no sense. One day, he is venting against Youtube, calling it "cockroach in the kitchen" and telling everybody knows it is a safe harbor for copyright infringement; and now, he is suggesting that people should be using Google Video (that is, Youtube sister site). IMHO, he should get the Dvorak trolling award for every now and then stirring up the hornets nest for whatever reason he does it. Lame.

Re:Who cares?

[jcr]

Can someone explain to me why anyone should care about what Mark Cuban says?

Sorry, I'm still trying to figure out why anyone should care what Bill Gates says...

-jcr

please don't feed the trolls

[burris]

This one is rich coming from a guy that invested in a BitTorrent wanna-be that was recently purchased by Akamai. I heard Cuban made most of his money back on that one.

So no TCP/IP then?

[MasterOfMagic]

Mark Cuban is an idiot. You'd think that someone that made most of their money sending media over the Internet would at least understand how it works. TCP/IP itself is a "peer-to-peer" technology. Despite how many ISPs run their service, one of the overarching ideas of TCP/IP is that any machine can connect to any other machine, and if the other machine accepts the connection, can communicate. TCP/IP does not care which machine is the client or the server, and in some cases for some protocols, it is the server that connects to the client. So really, Mark Cuban is against the Internet as a whole, has shown that he is a crackpot, and can rightfully go back to obscurity where he belongs.

Interesting comment...

[SerpentMage]

Hmmm, do you really want this? Think hard about this... It's a slippery slope...

What you are referring to is breaking of network neutrality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality).
******
The principle of net neutrality and regulations designed to support the neutrality of the Internet have been subject to fierce debate in various forums. Since the early 2000s, advocates of net neutrality rules have warned of the danger that broadband providers will use their power over the "last mile" to block applications they oppose, and also to discriminate between content providers (e.g. websites, services, protocols), particularly competitors.
******

So if universities do priorization, why not corporations, why not ISP's?

A slippery slope....

Re:Interesting comment...

[untaken_name]

Yes, of course I did.
Now, ask me if I care.
Actually, you shouldn't ask me that. It starts out harmless enough, but soon you'll be asking me much worse things. It's inevitable!

Re:Interesting comment...

[ArcherB]

So if universities do priorization, why not corporations, why not ISP's?

Because a university is a private network. Same with a business. Your house is also a private network.
So if I do priorization in my own home, why not corporations, why not ISP's?

Do you want the government telling you that you can't prioritize you WOW session over you daughters MySpace traffic?
When there is only one choice of ISP in a given area, that ISP becomes a public utility, not a private university, company or home. This is where net nutrality rules will apply. Once that traffic is delivered to the ISP's customers, it becomes private data and is not governed by Internet rules.

What about legitimate P2P sites?

[MichaelCrawford]

I'm not talking warez and pr0n - what about all the Free and Open Source software projects that distribute their installers via BitTorrent?

And not just software - p2p is critical to the ability of independent musicians to distribute downloads of their music. For example, Jamendo offers Creative Commons music from thousands of artists via BitTorrent and eMule.

I'm such a musician - I offer BitTorrent downloads of my music. If (Heaven forbid!) I got slashdotted, the torrents would keep me from being bankrupted by bandwidth bills, as would be the case if I only offered HTTP downloads.

Also FYI

[TubeSteak]

Mark Cuban = Part owner/founder of HD Net*

He isn't gunning for P2P because he actually thinks it's a bad thing, but because it has the potential to bring high definition programming to anyone with a net connection... which would directly compete with his HD cable network offerings.

It's be vastly cheaper to offern HD content over a 'secure' P2P application instead of building up the infrastructure or business relations in order to offer it through traditional channels.

*"The first all-high definition national television network"

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Put his thing down, flip it and reverse it

[billcopc]

In other news,

P2P users call on ISP2 to block Mark Cuban.

Seriously, this guy reminds me of an opposition party. Whatever the majority says, he contradicts for the sole reason of getting attention. The dumber his statements, the more we flame over it.

Wasn't this asshat pushing P2P not so long ago with yet another stupid browser plugin called "Red Swoosh" ?

Man, you got me all excited...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not expensive. The quality is good (256kbit vbr mp3's). And they have everything from my favorite band: the relative unknown The Flower Kings.
But it's not for me, because I don't live in the USA, but in the Netherlands. So I am not allowed to download anything from them.

Re:hold on a sec... BINGO!!!

[zotz]

"P2P allows a significant number of small-time content producers to get their content out to a lot of people. Otherwise, they could never afford it and only the big guys would get to play the game."

And this would make the big guys very happy. I wonder if our Mr. Cuban is a big guy or a small guy these days...

all the best,

drew

Okay, how does $500 a month sound?

[walterbyrd]

I think that's about what T1 costs. If you want honest, unlimited, 1.5mbs, then isn't that what you should pay?

Re:Okay, how does $500 a month sound?

[Opportunist]

Fine with me.

The point is not that I want 500mbit for 5 bucks a month and if you can't do that go to hell because we want it. What I want is honesty. I want ISPs to sell what they can sell.

Our ISPs currently outbid each other with promises of bandwidth. 2m, 4m, 8m... but what you really get is less and less every time. I had 2mbit, and I could use 2mbit. Then I was promised 4mbit, and I got 1.5mbit actually. Now we're at 8mbit and on a good day, I get 1mbit. I fear when they promise 16mbit, I can't get a connection at all anymore.

I'm fine with having 256kbit when I can have those 256kbit. I want to get what I buy. Else the promised bandwidth doesn't mean jack.

In light of his position...

[zotz]

"Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner, HDNet CEO, and noted gadfly is publishing on his blog that Comcast and other ISPs should block all P2P traffic,

In light of that perhaps we should conclude that all free thinking people should boycott his wonderful Dallas Mavericks and any of his other businesses.

It is a wonder he can't afford his own T3 or at least T1.

The big boys don't like it too much when the little boys get to play the game at all. They don't want the advantage their wealth brings them, they want the game all to themselves. No thanks.

all the best,

drew

You've moved up on my shitlist, Cuban.

[urcreepyneighbor]

You earned your initial spot on my shitlist by financing Redacted. You've bumped up a rung by this stunt.

Please remember - It's not all about pirating

[scarboni888]

I REALLY do use P2P to download my Ubuntu .ISO's. You want to cut me out too?

Re:Want VPN? Upgrade to business class.

[totally bogus dude]

I think the term "business class" means something else when you're a student at a uni.

Anyway, this is a horrible idea. ISPs should just make sure they have enough bandwidth to satisfy everyone at peak time. Not doing so is called being cheap and nasty.

In Australia we have monthly download quotas, which some people hate but seems to actually be a good solution. If you want to P2P 200 gigs a month you can, but you're going to pay a lot more for your access than someone who wants to do 10 gigs a month over their company's VPN. Also, you have a well-defined limit to work to; I've seen quite a few posts here about some ISPs having a seemingly undefined "limit" after which they start asking you to curb your net usage. But if you ask them what they consider acceptable you'll never get an answer, because it's always changing. So, I might only get 40 gigs a month on my account, but I know I'll always be able to use it at full speed because my ISP ensures they have enough capacity to handle peak periods.

There is of course money to be made by catering to the heavy downloaders who don't care too much about performance, by selling them cheap accounts with heavily overcommitted bandwidth. But if you're doing that without being upfront about it, then you're cheap and nasty; and it shouldn't be the norm. If you pay for a X mbit/sec connection, that's what you should get, and the only time you shouldn't get the full throughput is if the host you're receiving data from can't handle it.