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?"

Comments

Well, the cable industry should know.

[Shag]

They're experts on charging everyone for content, whether they want it or not.

(Whatever happened to all those proposals for 'ala carte' cable?)

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[langelgjm]

(Whatever happened to all those proposals for 'ala carte' cable?)

There are a number of objections the cablecos raise against a la carte. In the old days, they'd cry that it wasn't technologically feasible to offer individual channels to each household. That was sort of true; analog filters could block out groups of channels, but if they had rearranged channels logically and used the filters to filter out these groups, they probably could have gotten close to a la carte.

Nowadays, the technology issue is moot. Many, many people have digital boxes, making a la carte extremely simple. All modern cablecos are also in the process of switching their analog customers to digital boxes anyway. Many won't even sell you new analog service. However, the cablecos will say that large channels subsidize the smaller ones (of course that's true), and that if they did a la carte, smaller channels couldn't survive. E.g., fewer people would be paying for BET or whatever, so BET would die out. I don't think anyone actually knows how the numbers would turn out, but there is a lot of crap on cable that people would probably be interested in NOT paying for... however, what I think is crap might be interesting to some people (e.g., sports).

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[foo1752]

I don't understand your medical analogy. Please restate in the form of a car analogy. Thanks!

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[The End Of Days]

There's a big difference between "the ones I don't watch anyway" and "the ones nobody watches anyway."

As a Slashdotter you should very careful trying to apply your tastes to the population at large, because it's extremely likely you're nowhere near the norm in that regard.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[TheGratefulNet]

OLD disney films were special.

otoh, to see the dark side of disney, check out the BANNED 'uncle remus' tales (aka 'song of the south').

due to PC pressure, disney self-banned that film. I got a copy on the bay. I grew up with that movie, as a youth, in the 70's. taken in historical context, there's nothing wrong with it. yet disney outright bans it and only released it to some countries.

they also manipulate their 'vault' for fake money reasons, not at all based on real supply/demand, but they try to artificially create scarecity.

the old films are worth stealing (yes, I said that). the new ones are worth nothing at all.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[WCMI92]

A la carte cable would be the death of 75% of cable channels out there.

Yep, especially the more niche ones. Which is why it's actually the cable channel broadcasters who oppose it. A lot of those channels get on there because in order to get a desirable channel (such as ESPN) a cable company is forced to take other channels they might not want and add them to their basic tier. Indeed, most all of them try to force their way onto the basic tier, while wanting to charge premium rates. In the cable companies defense, this is the biggest pressure there is causing basic cable rates to rise.

There was a recent battle between Comcast (I think it was them) and the NFL network... The NFL and other leagues now think that even being shown on sports networks like ESPN isn't good enough and what their own channel. They've since started moving games there that used to be shown by broadcast networks which pissed a lot of football fans off. They are one of the ones wanting to charge outrageous fees for their channel, yet insist it be on basic cable. Comcast agreed to carry the NFL Network but insisted it be on a premium sports tier, which would mean less money for the NFL (but would also mean that subscribers who didn't want it wouldn't have to pay for it). The NFL threw a hissy fit over that. Haven't heard anything about that in awhile but Comcast was sticking to their guns on it.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Ethanol-fueled]

These are the same folks who bought the last four copyright extensions with mass "secret" donations and visits by Disney-sponsored hookers to congressional offices.

So our congressmen are not only corrupt, they're also furries?!

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[GIL_Dude]

I am a Comcast subscriber affected by the NFL network thing and although I missed a couple of games that I expected to be able to watch - I think they are doing the right thing by refusing to stick special interest stuff like NFL Network on basic cable and make people who don't want to watch it pay for it. Would I have liked to see those couple of games that I thought I could watch? Sure. The NFL shouldn't have tried to move them to a crazy new network like that. Should Comcast stick to their guns on this? Absolutely. It's one of the few things that I think they've ever done right.

For the actual issue being discussed here about the ESPN programming - this is indeed the same as the NFL Network deal. I'd prefer to see this ESPN offering die than have my ISP pay extra (and up my bill proportionately). Either make it free to ISPs like content should be, and, if needed, allow individual subscribers to sign up and pay for the content or make it all free and ad supported. Their choice. But none of this back door forcing the ISP to subscribe on my behalf.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I wouldn't waste a 2400bps connection on their drivel.

Here's three screaming kids. Your move.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[eln]

Who cares. Disney is to culture what thyroid cancer is to metabolism. I wouldn't waste a 2400bps connection on their drivel.

If that's how you feel about Disney, then you absolutely should care, because if your ISP is a subscriber that means you are paying for content that you can't stand and will probably never watch. If you decide not to use any ISP that subscribes, you are being subjected to a reduction in choice in your ISP selection because of this. If a sufficiently popular site decides to go this route (and ESPN is popular whether you watch it or not), then you may be left with no choice in your area other than pay for this stuff or go without Internet access. This should matter to everybody.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Fished]

I recently got my kids some Loony Tunes, which had the episode where Elmer Fudd (as a Mounty) catches Bugs and has him in front of a firing squad. For his "wast wequest", Bugs breaks out into "I wish I were in Dixie", with the whole firing squad transforming into "black-face" minstrel singers, a la the old black minstrel shows.

Well, whoever compiled this DVD chose to blur the faces out, presumably for reasons of political correctness.

Now, I have a big problem with this, because it robbed me of a great 'teachable moment' for my kids... a chance to talk about the fact that just fifty years ago that sort of thing was perfectly acceptable and accepted, and why it was wrong. This happens all over the place... all the remnants of a horrible era in American history (slavery and Jim Crow) being gradually swept under the rug. How can we help forgetting when the purveyors of common culture are working so very, very hard to make sure that we forget!?! I mean... my father went to Little Rock Central High School, and graduated a year before they sent the National Guard in, but nowadays we act as if all that stuff is something from the distant past. It's not--and it could come back if we don't watch it like a hawk.

I'm fighting back though... my oldest (11) just finished reading (at my insistence) Uncle Tom's Cabin, and I plan to have him read the Autobiography of Frederick Douglas and watch Schindler's List as well this summer. (He's quite precocious. Most 11 year olds probably wouldn't be ready for this.) Later, we'll read together the works of Martin Luther King and similar writings. I've laid out an education program for my kids in my mind, to make sure that they at least know what a horrible thing racism (and it's cousins, racist nationalism, fascism, and National Socialism) is.

If only the schools would do the same, instead of white-washing everything and reducing the desperate fight of oppressed peoples against brutal oppression to a few names and dates, boring and bloodless.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[erroneus]

I hate to use the stale "I have a black friend" interjectory, but I do have a black friend and asked her opinion of "Song of the South" and the whole Uncle Remus thing. She stated that it was a depiction and a snapshot of historical standards and expectations and should be considered as such. Disney has been around a long time and has evolved with the times. Ultimately, she says it is just fine to her because it is historical in a way and should be preserved as it was in spite of any other political correctness problems.

She's rather intelligent and I appreciated her view on it. However, not all of "our black friends" have such a wide view on things which is rather unfortunate, but it is typical as not all people have a wide view on things. It is most unfortunate that the rather Nazi-like intolerance we call "political correctness" is even permitted at all.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Tanktalus]

Yeah, until all your neighbours complain and get a Disney Tax added to your internet bill... then it won't matter whether you access it or not, they'll make (your) money.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[AndersOSU]

Think again.

Lifetime gets better ratings than the Discovery channel and SciFi.

TruTV gets better ratings than CNN, the History channel or Comedy Central.

Soap, Oxygen, and the golf channel all get better ratings than G4, the military channel, biography, or BBC America.

source

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Moryath]

During college, I knew a lot of African immigrants (as in, people who'd come to the US from Africa, either to stay for good, or to get a degree).

Without exception they agreed on one thing: American blacks are racist dumb shits. They couldn't understand where the "dignity" was in rap "music", hip-hop "culture", or the idea of teaching your kids that it's "acting white" to be smart. And they were constantly assailed by American blacks who bugged them about precisely those things - "acting white", not sounding black when they talked, not listening to the "right" music, not being in the "right" major to be black, etc. They were some of the smartest people I knew, and that's because they held themselves to a high standard, worked hard, and didn't think the government owed them a living like 99% of American blacks seem to.

Political Correctness has always been bullshit. I've been to "America's Black Holocaust Museum" in Milwaukee. You know what? It's a piece of shit. Slavery was bad, but the deep South was never anywhere close to Nazi Germany, and they want to hide the truth that blacks sold blacks into slavery, and there were plenty of black slaveowners in America (over 3000 in New Orleans alone according to the 1860 census).

The so-called "history book" you learned from as a kid was a bastardized, sanitized, rewritten version of "history" that had about as much relation to the truth as a made-for-TV "based on a true story" movie.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Etrias]

Y'know, people used to raise children without a television and without Disney at one point. It's true!

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[kirillian]

I'm white and I grew up in the South - Texas to be specific. There seem to be quite a few more black people living there than in the places I've lived up North. No one ever told me that I needed to be careful not to be racist, but I really can't see myself as being racist. My black friends just have a different cultural upbringing than I do. That's perfectly ok with us. We just make fun of each other and have a good time.

My grandmother is racist and my father is a little racist (he's pretty good for the most part, but he still has a tendency to point a racial finger at people when something bad happens). My mother could care less if you were purple spotted and were made of jelly. She'd love you anyway. I think that was more influential than anything else. However, I really didn't meet many people that I actually thought were racist down there. Some people were a little skittish, but, for the most part, there wasn't a problem with anyone.

The first time I encountered a whole group of people who collectively were rather racist was when I moved up North. Outwardly, everyone was extremely politically correct, said the right things and were extremely "outraged" that I called people 'black' instead of African Americans (try calling anyone that in the 'hood' of town...I won't come to your funeral). In fact, there was no mixing of white people and black people at all...they were completely separated cultures and groups of people. The black people were extremely defensive and not open to making new relationships - I don't know whether they are just burned really bad or if it is just instilled in them that everyone hates them. Whatever it is. Everyone up North seems to be extremely racist toward everyone else - its kinda sad.

I'm more of the opinion that yes, there are definitely still some racists about, but I think, for the most part, it's turned into perception more than anything. We assume that someone's out to get us, so everything becomes self-prophetic and seems to support the conclusion that we assumed. Personally, I think that's crap.

I do disagree with the cultural "glossing-over" that has happened, but I also think its a bunch of bunk to try and hammer those lessons into the young. They are only going to learn to treat people as their equals if the people around them are doing so. Hammering into the young that they need to avoid the mistakes of the past only sharpens those lines that still exist - it doesn't magically erase them.

Racism is just some form of elitist thinking that's tied to being identified with a race. The same thing happens, for example, when people join gangs - their gang is better than the rest. It's a coping mechanism that exists in society. It's not something you can just educate away. Sometimes you can try to help a single person one at a time, but you can't just change people. It doesn't work. I would know. I'm lucky to have escaped my neighborhood alive - I could be caught up in the gang mentality just as easily as anyone else, but I managed not to. It doesn't make me better than any of my buddies who are still doing drugs, stealing, and killing people. It just means that I escaped the spiral.

I don't think that gangs, racism, or any other elitist thinking is something that can be "fought". being aware is good, I think. But I think that coming to the table thinking that you are going to 'do your part' and fight racism is really bringing a fight into something that's not. Racist persons are more people to feel sorry for than people to hate.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Braino420]

Honda and Toyota wouldn't even know how to start building a car that tough.

It's funny, because for the whole first part of your comment, I thought you were talking about this. For those with short attention spans, it's the Top Gear episode where they ravage a toyota truck. For example, they put it on top of a sky scraper they demolish, among other things. The cool thing was, the engineers were only allowed to use a can of wd-40 to get it running again, and it started up without much of a problem through each course.

But you're defending American cars, which are the laughing stock of every Mechanical Engineer I know. I owned 2 Fords, and the mechanics I would sometimes goto would just end the list of problems with, "But you know, it's a Ford." I have a Honda now, and I can tell you, I'm never going back. With the current economic climate, it might not even be an option anyway. Now, they have def caught up in recent years, but to say they surpassed, or even caught up to the Japanese is ridiculous.

What about going through proxies?

[CRCulver]

Could using proxies like Tor assist getting around blocks based on your ISP?

Re:What about going through proxies?

[orngjce223]

If the exit node is in one of those willingly-paying-through-the-nose ISPs, probably. (Q: Does Tor let you pick where your exit node is?)

The problem is that the (in this case, not grandmas, but) Grandpas who were sent a link to the site by the grandchildren can't see what they're supposed to be seeing, and, simultaneously, people who don't *want* to access the content (like me and mine) are forced to pay for it anyway.

They're stuck in the tv mindsest

[Rycross]

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.

Re:They're stuck in the tv mindsest

[Jaysyn]

"Why do we pay CEOs these ridiculous salaries again? It sure isn't because they're visionaries."

It's because they are all power hungry sociopaths that are charismatic & good at extracting money from us.

Re:They're stuck in the tv mindsest

[TheSync]

These companies seem to be stuck in the TV mindset, and view web sites sort-of like internet channels.

That is probably because TV makes money for them, and free Internet web sites do not make any money for video content producers right now.

I really wish companies would learn to adapt instead of trying to shoehorn everything into their existing business models

Losing money is not really a great business model...

Is This A Threat to Net Neutrality? Yes.

[Fantom42]

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.

Ooohhh, they have a "Feedback" feature!

[volxdragon]

Guess they want some feedback on this topic:

http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/feedback

I hate the disney cult...

[t0qer]

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.

From Europe seems fine...

[plankrwf]

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 ).

Re:I don't think this is net neutrality.

[tsm_sf]

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.

I don't even understand the argument for charging

[falconwolf]

the ISPs.

The only thing to understand is greed.

Falcon