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Lawrence Lessig Reviews The Social Network
Hugh Pickens writes "Lawrence Lessig — author, Harvard law professor, co-founder of Creative Commons — reviews The Social Network in The New Republic. Although Lessig says the movie is an 'intelligent, beautiful, and compelling film,' he adds that as a story about Facebook, it is deeply, deeply flawed because the movie fails to even mention the real magic behind the Facebook story, and while everyone walking out out of the movie will think they understand the genius of the internet, almost none of them will have seen the real ethic of internet creativity that makes success stories like Facebook possible. 'Because the platform of the Internet is open and free, or in the language of the day, because it is a "neutral network," a billion Mark Zuckerbergs have the opportunity to invent for the platform,' writes Lessig. 'And that is tragedy because just at the moment when we celebrate the product of these two wonders — Zuckerberg and the Internet — working together, policymakers are conspiring ferociously with old world powers to remove the conditions for this success. As "network neutrality" gets bargained away — to add insult to injury, by an administration that was elected with the promise to defend it — the opportunities for the Zuckerbergs of tomorrow will shrink.' Lessig laments that the creators of the movie didn't understand the ethic of Internet creativity and thought that the real story was the invention of Facebook not the platform that made such democratic innovation possible. 'Zuckerberg is a rightful hero of our time,' concludes Lessig. 'As I looked around at the packed theater of teens and twenty-somethings, there was no doubt who was in the right, however geeky and clumsy and sad. That generation will judge this new world. If, that is, we allow that new world to continue to flourish.'"
Network neutrality isn't about unabated access to download copyrighted content, it's about keeping the Internet a level playing field. Without network neutrality, big companies like Microsoft, Google and Apple can pay ISPs to put their sites on the premium tier so that you get fast access to them, while poor startups and normal people with brilliant ideas will be relegated to the slower tier. I've even seen concern about ISPs one day offering packages a la cable TV - you can get Google, Yahoo and MSN with the basic package but then you'd have to add a sports/tech/music/etc. package to access those sites. It's not even limited to websites. ISPs could grant you HTTP access with the basic package and then you'd have to add FTP, NNTP, VOIP and other "value add" services". I realize that's hyperbole and possibly FUD but it's not the type of Internet I'd like to use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
This sig is in another castle.
Since when do entertainment and profitabilty make for a deeply flawed movie? Focusing on net neutrality and packet priority would have bored the audience and interfered with the arch of the story. Just because something is ethically (and socio-economically) compelling, does not make it good theater.
You mean like ESPN360 / ESPN3, or whatever they're calling it now?
I gotta do this as AC because I already modded.
FYI warning, you're close to flamebait, but I'll at least be American and say you're innocent of that until proven otherwise!
I think you're seriously scrambling Net Neutrality with price of content.
Want to buy an episode of House? Pay Hulu/iTunes/someone $89.95. (Being facetious). Somewhere in that price is their paying for their outbound line.
You're paying ____ for your inbound line to download it from. But that's paying for content. If you have to have it in 12 seconds flat, pay your ISP $150 for a T3 backbone or some such.
If that's too much for a line, we can discuss the Market Condition of line pricing.
But once you've got your line plan chosen, the ISP better not dare capriciously screw with the bitflow.
I guess the affect for someone like me is that most of my internet viewing is something like youtube, netflix, hulu, etc, and whether or not the cost of streaming media should be passed on to me as the end user.
For me the big deal is that my local monopoly is comcast. I can go on hulu and watch a show for free, or I can pay 99 cents to get it on demand. I have a vonage phone that I pay $15 a month for, or I can pay comcast $40 per month for their VOIP phone. I can pay 8.95 per month for netflix, and be able to stream movies and shows on my terms, or I can pay comcast $LARGE_AMOUNT for slightly better TV service ($45 for digital, plus $6 for DVR/HD, plus extra for premium channels).
So, the question is, with all these online services cutting into their profits, is it unreasonable to have a concern that they will use throttling/prioritization to give themselves an unfair advantage over all their competitors?