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Will BitTorrent's Paid 'Fast Lane' Violate 'Net Neutrality'? (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by msmash on from the what's-happening dept.

BitTorrent and TRON have an ambitious plan to improve the BitTorrent protocol. Not only will users be financially rewarded for seeding, but they can also pay for faster access. While this may sound good to some, we wonder how this rhymes with BitTorrent's fight for Net Neutrality and its advocacy against paid prioritization. From a report: We ask this question because BitTorrent has been a fierce proponent of an open Internet. It has been a frontrunner in advocating for Net Neutrality, repeatedly criticizing paid traffic prioritization and so-called "fast lanes." BitTorrent went as far as creating the dedicated "internetbetter" website, avenging FCC's plans to meddle with the 'Open Internet,' advertising its campaign on a massive billboard. "The FCC's proposed changes to Net Neutrality would create a preferential fast lane for designated traffic," BitTorrent wrote at the time. "Those with the deep pockets to pay for this fast lane will have the ability to access and distribute content at higher speeds. Those who lack the purchasing power will be disadvantaged. This moves us towards an Internet of discrimination." These efforts didn't prevent the Net Neutrality rules from being repealed in the US, but it appears that BitTorrent's own plans may not be in line with an 'open' Internet either.

9 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. There’s nothing wrong with it. by Hallux-F-Sinister · · Score: 5, Informative

    Bittorrent isn’t the provider, they're the end-point. It would be different if they were the ISP. (They haven’t become an ISP, have they?) In the highway scenario, where Comcast and AT&T and all are providers of the highway, Bittorrent is the drive-in movie theater... actually that’s not even right. More like they’re a search engine for where little bits of data are located around the interwebs. It’s a bit closer to them being providers but... they’re only providing “where it is” data, not the means to CONVEY that data...

    Now that I’ve written this, I’m suddenly not feeling as certain Bittorrent is in the right on this. Hmmm...

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    1. Re:There’s nothing wrong with it. by sosume · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They are free to fork the protocol and introduce this as an alternative. Let's see how much adoption it will get - law enforcement will love that sharing a movie will now provide a financial incentive, as that will make it a crime instead of a violation.

    2. Re:There’s nothing wrong with it. by Calydor · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is no different from free download mirrors with a speed cap (remember when the cap was 40 KB/s on sites like Tucows?) and Premium mirrors you can only access with a subscription.

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  2. Application or virtual ISP by jonsmirl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's an interesting question, is bittorrent an application or a virtual ISP? The genesis behind net neutrality is to ensure fair access to monopoly pipes. Can a virtual ISP have a monopoly pipe?

    1. Re:Application or virtual ISP by postbigbang · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It seems respondents/reactors to the post want to hijack it for their own political agendas. I'll take the pure open source agenda for my standard, and using that, react by saying that using speed as a funding model is a harbinger of the ugly stuff that is closed-model.

      Yes, I understand they need a funding source for innovation. It's my hope that if Tor is still FOSS, someone just hacks the speed differential and we move on.

      In my book, it's a valid criticism against the project for creating fast lanes when net neutrality is important to both their project, and so many others.

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    2. Re:Application or virtual ISP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There's no such thing like a 'Virtual ISP'? Bittorrent is a P2P protocol, it's up to me as an end user to decide I want to seed some torrents, and if so, at what pace I choose to do so. I could of course (aided by a bit of software) decide to seed it a little faster if you give me some crypto tokens in return.

  3. If they pay people for seeding by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    and they seed pirated content they're going to be eaten alive in court by the RIAA & MPAA.

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  4. Written by the MPAA/RIAA? by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not only will users be financially rewarded for seeding

    Oh great - I bet Hollywood lawyers are salivating at this. There are many countries in the world where downloads and uploads are no big deal and not criminal - so long as there's no commercial gain from it. "Financially rewarding" people for uploads will criminalize a whole group who currently are not breaking the law.

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  5. Re:Ignorant by jpaine619 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Fast lanes were never about prioritizing TYPES of traffic for performance reasons, you shill. That shit has been legal FOREVER. Exemptions were always (even under the net neutrality days) given for performance and congestion situations.

    Net Neutrality is about prohibiting ISPs from getting to shape traffic for purely FINANCIAL reasons.