Internet Filtering Lobby Forms

mbone writes "Wired's David Kravets reports on a new lobbying effort to support the filtering of internet traffic called Arts & Labs. Coverage is available at PC World as well. The lobby's members include AT&T, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Viacom and the Songwriters Guild of America. Their web site says, 'network operators must have the flexibility to manage and expand their networks to defend against net pollution and illegal file-trafficking which threatens to congest and delay the network for all consumers.' Does it seem that this is an attempt to categorize P2P with spam and malware, or is it just me?"

Comments

No surprise

[MiKM]

And Cisco has the means to produce filtering equipment, while Microsoft has recently secured a patent to watermark music and track it through the internet.

After reading the summary, I wasn't surprised that Cisco is in it for the money.

Re:No surprise

[Baton Rogue]

Well aren't they all in it for the money? AT&T, Cisco and MS for the products and services that will be used for this, and NBC, Viacom and the music industry for the "stolen" revenues that this is trying to prevent. How is it not obvious this is all about money?

Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would -love- for this lobby group to be made to define clearly those terms - particularly "Net Pollution" - and explain their FOOLPROOF ways to identify them.

Not that this would make them worth listening to, but it would be a lot closer.

Sounds like a ploy

[Lord Kano]

I'm suspicious of this. I concede that illegal filesharing is a problem, but it sounds more like an attempt to turn the internet into a tightly controlled broadcase medium, like television.

No more freerepublic and no more dailykos.

LK

Re:Sounds like a ploy

[timmarhy]

"I concede that illegal filesharing is a problem"

is it really though? we've had torrent sites for years now and it hasn't killed itunes, which is competing at 99c vs free. i don't see any of the big studio's going through tough times because of it.

Re:Sounds like a ploy

[Stanislav_J]

I'm suspicious of this. I concede that illegal filesharing is a problem, but it sounds more like an attempt to turn the internet into a tightly controlled broadcase medium, like television.

It's already well on the way there. The Internet in the "good ol' days" was like one gigantic public forum where anybody with a cheap modem, a shareware program, and a free web host could establish a beachhead from which they could proclaim their likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams, hobbies and avocations, opinions and rants to the world. And while, of course, that element is still a part of the Net, look how dominated it has become by huge corporate commercial websites. Some of us still search for the individual blogs and sites that enrich our lives, but increasingly a lot of Net users probably spend most of their time with the Big Boys.

I foresee an increasingly widening divide between content providers and content consumers. "Net neutrality" is just the tip of the iceberg in the effort to clamp down on and marginalize the little guys. See, technically right now, even TV and newspapers DO afford an opportunity for anyone to broadcast their thing to the masses -- IF you have the money. I see the Net heading in the same direction. I believe that eventually the ability to put up your own website is going to cost ya, and cost big.....no more cheapie/freebie blogs and such. Your internet connection will remain affordable -- on a par with cable TV or subscribing to a magazine -- as long as you are just consuming the content that the corporations want you to see and hear. But if you want to actually speak to the masses instead of being a passive lump, well, show us the money and we'll see. If you want to buy even a single 30-second ad on the smallest TV station, it will run you at least hundreds, probably thousands of dollars. I see the Internet as eventually degenerating into the same unbalanced affair -- it will largely cease to be an interactive medium, and become another mass medium for the dissemination of what the folks with the power and the money want you to see.

But it was fun while it lasted...

Re:Sounds like a ploy

[MrNaz]

Have you really paid attention? CD sales are way down, far more than online sales are up.

Could that possibly be because the last 3-5 years have seen huge drops in consumer spending overall? Correlation is not causation.

Copying 100GB of a well sorted collection of pretty much all famous bands in recent history is just absurd convienience. Did you hear Apple dropped their biggest iPod model because even the packrats didn't need more space? It's not a problem. Not in terms of bandwidth, storage or anything. I think we're very soon going to break all those bounds on information, it's only a matter of how much information we need, we can organize and we can process. Our digital tools will in practise be infinite, the human mind not.

Believe you me, the government, it's various agencies and the big boys from the provate sector will find new ways to sort, catalog and search larger volumes of information, right after they find new ways to gather larger volumes of information about you.

technological unfeasability

[circletimessquare]

so let's make believe you could separate all boxes in the internet as either server or client

you still need to allow something upstream (filling out forms, emailing)

then its just a matter of p2p traffic masquerading as allowed two-way protocols

sure the network providers can put more complicated filters in, but its a simple arms race, and p2p developers will merely obfuscate better

you can throttle upstream taffic, sure. so i'll get my bootleg movie in 8 days, not 8 hours

what else? outlaw encryption? so no one can use their bank online anymore?

network providers: you will spend more money enforcing a p2p ban than if you just did your fucking job: provide your customers with access to something you don't control, and never can, due to the nature of the web, and shut the fuck up

is there some horrible scarcity of fibre? is the network clogged?

then take some of the money we fucking pay you, and lay some more fibre, assholes

Re:technological unfeasability

[FST777]

Not my way to say it, but: exactly. I pay my ISP to provide me with connectivity and an IP address. It really should be my choice and my responsibility what I do with that service. If you want to combat illegal file sharing or illegal child porn, you should track down the providers and the big users and sue them. Don't use the ISPs to do that job.

And even if you want the ISPs to do part of that job, have it done right. Don't give them more power, give them rules (like: if we find a certain IP-address offending the law, give us the appropriate name and address).

I am glad that I'm not in danger of having my ISP sort out my traffic for me, yet. But if the USA implements this kind of ludicrous legislation, I'm sure the EU will follow in a few years "because it has proved to work at the other side of the Atlantic". We all know that it will only end with less freedom and more commerce (hence: either higher prices, or more advertising).

Re:technological unfeasability

[hairyfeet]

Ummm.....Actually,the child pr0n thing is kinda a red herring. I have a buddy at the state crime lab that specializes in computer forensics. He says it is actually quite rare to catch anyone getting their pervo fix through P2P anymore. They have set up invitation only darknets hosted from forums in countries that don't give a sh*t as long as your money is good and trade the smaller files through the darknets and the larger ones they actually ship to each other through the mail as encrypted DVDs. So while I'm sure that you get a few really stupid pervs if you banned P2P tomorrow,the majority probably wouldn't even be slowed down.

And I know this will probably be modded flamebait,but what the hell,it has always bugged me about the "war" on kiddy pr0n. Why in the hell are we spending so damned much time and money going after the sick perv wanking off in his basement instead of,oh I don't know,actually rescuing the horribly abused kids from the monsters that are f*cking them on camera? According to my friend these guys are making so much money off this sh*t they even have child pr0n "studios" like you have regular porn studios. Shouldn't we be concentrating our efforts there? These "wars" just strike me more and more as bullsh*t,like trying to stop drugs by busting the junkie on the corner while the big boys are bringing semi loads in across the border. Surely there has to be a money trail that can be followed. It has just always bugged me that we seem to worry about the perv in the basement more than the kid being raped on the screen.

Re:'must'

[slimjim8094]

Wait, disregard my above comment for dumbassery. This has nothing to do with children... I should go to bed.

But I'll try to salvage it:

Assuming there was consumer choice in the ISP market, why wouldn't you be able to choose 'granny ISP' that allowed email, websites, and iTunes but filtered porn, hack attempts, and would clean your computer for you if you got infected? And then there's the HARDCORE TORRENT provider with a (possibly) lower bandwidth, but no throttling and high upstream, with the assumption that people will torrent 24/7.

As it is, they're selling a 'one-size-fits-all' plan of high-bandwidth, but we'll cut you off if you use it more than we want, and charge you more than you should pay.

This is trying to shoehorn this strategy into a changing market. People are using IPTV and there are more people knowing how to use BitTorrent... but they don't want to upgrade their system to support new uses. So, to fend off the law knocking on their door, they're trying to get it named 'malware' because their system can't handle it and it hurts other people sometimes.

Ruh roh!

[Bobfrankly1]

A new lobbying group with known offenders AT&T and Viacom? That sounds dandy!
*puts gun to head, pulls trigger*

And what they really want...

[merreborn]

AT&T: Has a bussiness model based on overselling their bandwidth, and hoping that customers don't actually use it.
Cisco: Wants to sell filtering hardware.
NBC Universal, Viacom and the Songwriters Guild of America: Trying to save a business model that simply cannot survive in the age of digital distribution.

Microsoft...

Someone's gonna have to help me with that one. What's their role in this? Is it a continuation of their battle on software piracy?

If anything, piracy of *other people's* IP drives sales of Windows.

Re:'must'

[Anonymous Coward]

I like that, "think of the children."

ISP's need to be able to filter whatever they want because of the children...or because they could then charge content providers extra if they want. Once you do away with net neutrality, we can rely on big businesses to help themselves. But don't worry, the robber barons will donate some money to the poor unfortunates that will no longer be able to compete. Or maybe they'll donate condoms to Africa with some of that money. Sorry, but I'm not feeling overly optimistic about the ability of most big businesses to play fairly, without getting laws passed that favor them.

Maybe some year when I'm not being asked to bail out slimeball businessmen with my taxes, I'll feel differently. BTW, 700 billion isn't much. Just take the net worth of the richest man in the world, multiply it by 13 or 14, and you're in the neighborhood. I was looking at figures and comments about social security, and it's called the largest government giveaway program. I think it'll be surpassed shortly.

Re:And what they really want... let me help

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has software patents on watermarking and tracking digital content, in particular music

People in Charge

[neight108]

Click on People

2 Politicians
1 President of the Songwriters Guild of America
1 Lawyer

need I say more?

Wrong part of the quote

[EdIII]

network operators must have the flexibility to manage and expand their networks to defend against net pollution and illegal file-trafficking which threatens to congest and delay the network for all consumers.

I am not concerned about the the "net pollution" being lumped in with the "illegal file-trafficking". Strictly speaking, that does not refer to P2P any more, than file transfers via FTP, Email, or instant messaging. Of course, big picture speaking, they are probably attacking P2P since that is the most popular way to share files among the masses.

What interests me is the "threatens to congest and delay the network" part of that statement. That IS NOT THE FUCKING PROBLEM OF THE CONSUMER . That IS THE PROBLEM OF THE PROVIDERS . Whether or not the congestion is caused by legitimate or illicit traffic is wholly irrelevant.

They oversold the bandwidth for years, and worse (oh so much worse), provided "unlimited" terms in their advertisements. Of course, there is no such thing as unlimited and only so much traffic can be handled by the providers various infrastructures. By and large, the masses are only using the Internet in the ways it was advertised that they could. They are blameless. Yes, I said blameless. You can complain about your "piggish" neighbor downloading 500 gigs a month and "taking" away from the available bandwidth at the street, but the real responsibility lies with the provider that told you both (and sold you both) the ability to use that bandwidth at the street in an unlimited way. Your neighbor is merely using "more" unlimited then you are.

Congestion, and delays merely being part of that problem, are caused by the users having no incentive to behave themselves accordingly. That same behavior, exhibited in public, does not pass in private. You will get your ass handed to you on a platter if you cause network problems in a corporation, and in the homes there have been more than one argument started over it. I nearly killed my room mate just last night over network "behavior". Civility stepped in at the last moment, with a little awareness of the laws against homicide, and stopped me from using my considerable bulk to squash him.

What is the cause of the lack of incentives? Unlimited of course. If you don't have a reason to behave, most of the time you won't. Human nature I guess.

The solution is not filtering, which is just a fancy way of saying copyright enforcement. The theory being that copyright infringment makes up the major bulk of the illicit traffic. Possibly true for now, but in the future it will be replaced by high definition streaming video and the problem remains. Whole neighborhoods will be streaming movies (with draconian DRM even), with multiple streams from each house since, after all, American families don't want to watch content with EACH OTHER. God forbid. If you think all that traffic alone will not cause congestions and delays, think again.

The solution, in my mind, is to increase capacity while changing the contracts under which users operate. Add a little QoS technology to it, meaning, actually FREAKIN implement it. The moment the user can transparently and easily understand the real costs of participating in that 60 gig torrent, they will start to exercise a little more judgment. Congestion will go down, satisfaction will go up, and no draconian control policies need be implemented. Not picking on torrents either. It will be a bad day for a lot of companies if families realize just how much it costs them to download those Hi-Def BD download titles at a few gigs a piece. You hit your monthly cap in two weeks and your lovely little teenagers will give you a 2-inch thick bill by the end of the month. None of that even possibly illicit either.

Ha! The most important part of that quote is where they blamed their problems on all of us again, and of course, calling us criminals at the same time.

Yeah right....

[Kjella]

Clogging the lines, sure... because you can't build out the lines right? I'm hoping this will be my next ISP. It's in Norwegian but what you need to understand is only before and now. They just upgraded their customers from 10/3Mbit to 10/10Mbit, 25/5Mbit to 30/30Mbit and 50/25Mbit to 50/50Mbit for the same price. They don't even deliver a slower line if you're one of the 110,000 (of 4,5mio) people that can get this, with an estimated increase of 25,000 or so next year. Within the next decade bandwidth will be so plentiful the argument will completely cease to make sense. Just like Napster didn't kill the Internet, YouTube didn't kill the Internet, piracy will never kill the Internet. It'll expand with headroom to spare to the point where you can send live HDTV if you want. In the dotcom days we laid the backbone, now we're laying fiber on the end mile. From there, anything is possible.

Re:'must'

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe some year when I'm not being asked to bail out slimeball businessmen with my taxes, I'll feel differently. BTW, 700 billion isn't much. Just take the net worth of the richest man in the world, multiply it by 13 or 14, and you're in the neighborhood. I was looking at figures and comments about social security, and it's called the largest government giveaway program. I think it'll be surpassed shortly.

Yeah... and then you didn't yet include the 1500 billion of emergency credit the fed bank gave to banks in the past week.

It's not the same soup though, it's got a whole different taste! The social security money goes to poor or sick people, ordinary human beings. But the 700 billion goes to..... the banks who caused this shit in the first place! The man in the street is being ripped of *TWICE* this time, once by the banks, and now by the taxman!

Americans! Land of freedom! Where are your protests, where are your riots?! Are you all just gonna put up with this? They're ripping you off *twice* and you all just sit there and let them get away with it??

no, it isn't.

[lysergic.acid]

if you visit the forums of popular gaming sites like IGN or Gamespot, you've probably seen moderators crack down on discussions of modding, emulation, CFW, or homebrew development.

i can understand if they don't allow users to discuss warez/piracy or other illegal activites because of potential liability issues. but the problem is they also try to lump console modding, custom firmware, and homebrew development together with piracy & illegal file sharing.

i found this out when i posted to a discussion about a PSX game and mentioned that i was running it on my PSP via PopStation. my post was immediately censored and i was given a warning about my TOS violation.

all i'd written in the post was that i wished this title were available on the PSN store so that i didn't have to convert it into a POPS file myself. there was no mention of any illegal activity or even file sharing, so i decided to check out the IGN message board's TOS. however, the TOS simply forbids the discussion of criminal activities and copyright infringement--though the IGN TOS considers ROMs and emulators a form of copyright infringement.

i had to explain to the mods that using PopStation to play a PSX game is not illegal and the PopStation i referred to was the PSX emulator Sony included in newer versions of the official PSP firmware. furthermore, there is nothing illegal about ripping a PSX disc and converting it to a POPS eboot file. that is fully within my fair use rights, just as ripping a music CD into MP3s or movie DVD into XviD vidoes is considered fair use. it's only the illegal distribution of MP3s, that is forbidden. so long as i don't share those files with others, i am not breaking the law.

but this kind of deliberate corporate posturing has been going on for so long, and is so prevalent, that the public has started to buy into the attitude that any kind of fair use outside of what's sanctioned by corporate industries is illegal or taboo, and must be discussed in secrecy. that's why these days you even get members of the public sticking up for corporate interests and equivocating MP3, P2P, file sharing, homebrew, modding/CFW, etc. with piracy.

i guess if we're conditioned to think that way then it'll be much easier to lobby for legislation that tosses out fair use altogether--or legislation to allow ISPs to filter internet traffic to combat P2P filesharing.

No it's not you.

[Pig Hogger]

It's just the bourgeois finally waking-up and wanting to put back the genie in the bottle, so they get back to the times where only the very rich can afford a printing press or a radio station or a TV studio so they can tell everybody what THEY approve of and nothing else.

No, They don't want to police the net.

[Lead Butthead]

They want to CHARGE YOU THROUGH THE NOSE for the PRIVILEGE of using the net. And you are expected TO THANK AND *PAY* THEM FOR IT. Everything else are just excuses.

Re:Here goes some Karma

[plasmacutter]

If the internet were around back in the 1920's

"Drinking beer is illegal. Get over it."

Legality does not necessarily equate to morality.

We live in a fundamentally unequal society where the voices of the very few "haves" drown out the have nots.

When laws are passed based on the warped morality of those cloistered in their ivory towers rather than the will of the people, civil disobedience results.

It's still going on with the drug laws (every 5th apartment I delivered pizza to on the late shift stunk of weed), despite the selective and corrupt destruction of people's lives.

Filesharing will also continue, and I will encourage anyone I meet to engage in the practice. Cue the letters suing me for "inducement" in 3, 2, 1...

Re:'must'

[unity100]

why not post with a fucking account instead of AC when expressing your opinion ?

see, i used profanity in this post. and i posted it with my own account and id, despite it is going to be modded down as flamebait.

grow some balls first, then blabber anti net neutrality crap. for that net neutrality thing is the most important thing that has created this internet as a second world as it is.