Slashdot Mirror
Disney Strikes Against Net Neutrality
1 a bee writes "Ars Technica is running a story by Matthew Lasar about how Disney's ESPN360.com is charging ISPs for 'bulk' access to their content. According to the article, if you visit ESPN using a 'non-subscribing' ISP, you're greeted with a message explaining why access is restricted for you. This raises a number of issues: '... it's one thing to charge users an access fee, another to charge the ISP, potentially passing the cost on to all the ISPs subscribers whether they're interested in the content or not.' Ironically, the issue came to the fore in a complaint from the American Cable Association (ACA) to the FCC. A quoted ACA press release warns, 'Media giants are in the early stages of becoming Internet gatekeepers by requiring broadband providers to pay for their Web-based content and services and include them as part of basic Internet access for all subscribers. These content providers are also preventing subscribers who are interested in the content from independently accessing it on broadband networks of providers that have refused to pay.' So, is this a real threat to net neutrality (and the end-to-end principle) or just another bad business model that doesn't stand a chance?"
They're experts on charging everyone for content, whether they want it or not.
(Whatever happened to all those proposals for 'ala carte' cable?)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Could using proxies like Tor assist getting around blocks based on your ISP?
These companies seem to be stuck in the TV mindset, and view web sites sort-of like internet channels. Web site owners like ESPN want to be able to sell their "channels" to cable companies, and cable companies want to charge their users extra for "premium content." They're trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. My worry is that they'll manage to do it, via monopoly pressure or government legislation, and end up making my internet service about as convenient as my television service (that is, not at all).
I really wish companies would learn to adapt instead of trying to shoehorn everything into their existing business models. Why do we pay CEOs these ridiculous salaries again? It sure isn't because they're visionaries.
Do they then become more responsible for what it is they are allowing through?
Compare it to cable companies, where some individual cable channel broadcasters get paid by the cable companies for their content, and the cable companies then have some responsibility over what gets presented.
Get off my launchpad!
Obviously. There is really no distinction between charging an ISP for service and forming a partnership with them to provide content. Both are just an agreement between two parties.
This is just another reason why CONTENT providers should be prohibited from making any kind of business deals with SERVICE providers. This is a perfectly reasonable anti-trust regulation and one that I've even seen written up in the editorial section of the WSJ, of all places.
This was before net neutrality was such a hot-button issue, and the article made the point that deregulation would have been much more effective if it had been done in a way to encourage competition instead of prevent it; by preventing this partnership, competition between providers would be enabled. This makes sense even without considering there higher-minded principles behind net neutrality.
Guess they want some feedback on this topic:
http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/feedback
No access to Disney content resulting in lower ISP charges? Win-Win! How do I sign up?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I have relatives that worship Disney. They go to Disneyland 4-5 times a year, buy up every DVD they put out, and one of them even has their bathroom painted to look like a Dalmatian, with little Dalmatian statues scattered about everywhere. It's scary. That being said I hope this blows up in their face. I hope that people realize that the good wholesome fantasy world Walt set out to create is dead, and what's left is just a giant faceless corporation with their tentacles raping our society like a scene out of a Urotsukidji manga. It would be nice to see a boycott over this.
The problem at the bottom of all this is the existence of local broadband monopolies. If local broadband markets weren't monopolies, there'd be no problem. Disney could try to extort money from ISP #1, in order to force all of 1's customers to pay an ESPN tax, regardless of whether they wanted to view ESPN via the internet or not. If there was a second ISP, then ISP #2 could position itself as the no-frills ISP in the area, not offering ESPN, and people like me who aren't interested in ESPN would go with ISP #2. In this competitive economic environment, Disney's business plan wouldn't work. All they'd accomplish would be to create a class of users, the customers of ISP #2, who wouldn't even have the option of paying to view ESPN if they wanted to. Disney would recognize that, and wouldn't try this business plan in the first place.
Find free books.
I am paying my ISP for routing to the Internet. They had better not mess with that. If some web site wants to block me, that is their prerogative.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
If this is against net neutrality, then at least its the 'ethical' version. If they want to build AOL 2.0, then let them.
The difference between someone saying "you can't access my content unless someone pays" and someone saying "you can't see this content unless the content provider pays me to let you, even though you've alredy paid me" is vast.
ESPN360 is just a estoteric version of a pay site where the choice to pay is made by your ISP rather than you. If you don't like their choice, you have the option to complain to them or switch.
Once upon a time, when I was your age, we were able to go anywhere on the internet that we wanted. Then the websites realized they couldn't make any money that way and started packaging themselves together and selling access rights to ISPs just like cable tv does. And guess what? The websites made money, and people payed more money to the ISPs for access, and all the corporations rejoiced. Thus died the golden age of the internet which we now just call 'interactive cable'
The site in question seems to work fine from Europe. That was actually my guess beforehand: indeed, how could Disney make deals with all the ISP from overseas...
So it seems that Disney has chosen to only close it to 'some US citizins', ie those of certain ISP's.
(Those which are not one of their choosing).
Guess Disney should be glad to be in the States, and not somewhere in Europe where our Dutch Neelie could get at them ;-0
(See e.g. http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/31/1328249 ).
its very different for a service to filter connections than a backbone. the real threat to end-to-end and neutrality
would be if transit providers start charging for traffic involving certain endpoints (which is how this discussion
got started)
endpoints can make whatever restrictions they like, even if they are as idiotic as trying to get access providers
to handle their sales and billing.
of course it would suck if i couldn't get internet access without also paying for some 'content plan', but thats a
different issue entirely
Here's three screaming kids. Your move.
I lead with a DVD of DreamWorks' Shrek. And if they ask for specific titles of public-domain fairy tales that happen to have been filmed by Walt Disney Pictures, I have plenty of comebacks for those.
This is just another reason why CONTENT providers should be prohibited from making any kind of business deals with SERVICE providers.
While I agree in principle, I'm not completely opposed to an Internet subscription model where I get to choose between Package A (basic Internet with no frills) and Package B (basic plus ESPN.com). If I don't want that crap then I don't have to pay for it.
Seriously, who's to say that it wouldn't be a reasonable business move for AT&T to offer Internet Plus that comes with built-in subscriptions to Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ESPN, etc., for a fraction of the cost of subscribing to each individually. I don't consider that a challenge to Net Neutrality as long as the option exists for me to subscribe, at will, to those services like we do today.
Right now, however, the Internet providers aren't particularly interested in giving me any choices, including choices between different providers (Time Warner is the only provider in my area in the middle of freaking south Austin -- we can't even get DSL). In the rush to provide the illusion of "more" in order to raise prices, nobody seems interested in providing "less."
If you don't like their choice, you have the option to complain to them or switch.
If there were choices in broadband providers net neutrality would be a non-issue.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
the ISPs.
The only thing to understand is greed.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Wow, your foreign friends must be amazingly skilled sociologists, in order to draw such concise conclusions on such a large population. They must have studied the social patterns of the United States for many years, in order to make any such claim. Because most people would not dare to try to summarize the nature of a population of 36 million individuals in a three-word phrase. Why your sociologist foreign friends must be absolute fucking geniuses! Either that, or maybe they don't really know what they're talking about (that is if your friends really did say what you claim they did).
May I offer my summary instead: that some black folks are racist and some are not; some are dumb and some are not. But now it's not such a pungent little assessment, and applies to all sorts of groups.
Oh, I forgot, your friends are from Africa, so that gives them the right to make blanket generalizations about American blacks!
. . . and therefore it must not exist!
You need to meet more black folks, bro.
$META_SIG_JOKE