Network Neutrality vs. Broadcast Flag
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has recently been debating several initiatives that I’ve been following, both of which I’ve discussed in previous posts.
The first is the Broadcast Flag - an initiative originally mandated by the FCC to force all electronics manufacturers to obey a “broadcast flag” that would determine how any given stream of data played on that device could be manipulated. So if Disney Corp decides that you can’t record its broadcast of The Little Mermaid, the device isn’t allowed to record it. The flag was originally struck down by the Supreme Court because the FCC had exceeded their mandate, and that only a Congressional Law could put it into action. The Big Content companies are greatly in favor of the broadcast flag because it will open new revenue streams to exploit, and it is opposed by the
Personally, I am strongly opposed to the Broadcast Flag. I figure if I’ve already paid for the content (via some TV subscription, rental fee, or media purchase), I should be able to do almost anything I want with it without paying additional fees, short of rebroadcasting. i.e. I should be able to record a TV broadcast with my DVR, copy it to my personal video player, burn it to CD, or share it with a few friends. I should be able to backup any DVDs I purchase, either to another DVD or transcoded to fit on a CD (for archival), transferred to a hard disk on my media system (for convenience), or copied to my personal video player (for portability). I do agree that I should necessarily get rebroadcasting rights, i.e. if I record CSI on my DVR, I can understand if CBS wants to restrict my ability to put that recording on a P2P network that would conflict with whatever download service they might have in place. (Of course, if CBS has no such download service, I don’t really see why I can’t provide such a service, since they are ostensibly unwilling or unable to do so.)
The second major initiative is Network Neutrality, which if passed would require ISPs to allow all traffic on their networks with equal priority. If Network Neutrality is enforced, then Comcast must give equal priority to traffic from Google or Microsoft, or VoIP providers like Vonage (even though such companies compete with Comcast’s own telephone services). Nearly all ISPs are against network neutrality because if it is enforced, they will be unable to collect additional revenue for “enhanced services” to specific customers, and they assert that it will stifle innovation of their networks. Most Internet companies (Yahoo, Google, eBay, Amazon, Microsoft) are strongly in favor of network neutrality, because they would avoid having to negotiate numerous contracts with every ISP in the nation in order to achieve a minimum acceptable quality of service for their applications.
I am strongly in favor of Network Neutrality. Selfishly, I don’t want my ISP bills to skyrocket just so I can access the sites I want to visit, and I don’t want to be forced into a contract with a monopolistic service provider just because they have the power to eliminate all competition in my area. I also don’t want to see the currently egalitarian Internet fragmented along ISP-geographical lines into a hodge-podge of non-interacting and weakly connected networks, or see new Internet start-up innovation stifled from the cost-prohibitive negotiations to acquire sufficient “favored nation” contracts to achieve viability.
In following the debates on Network Neutrality (which have been in progress for several months), the primary reason I’ve seen given is that it imposes government regulation on the ISPs, and (to paraphrase South Park) “Regulations are bad, m’kay?” I can understand this viewpoint, as excessive government regulation of any industry can cause it to stagnate or even wither and die. However, I don’t buy the argument that all regulation is evil, because at least some regulation must be imposed to avoid total anarchy. For example, the government regulates the supply of money in our economy in an effort to prevent major incidents that would adversely affect the populace (e.g. inflation, depression, etc.). Governmental regulation thus falls on a spectrum, with total anarchy at one end and the total stagnation at the other.
What is interesting is that the Broadcast Flag initiative also represents governmental regulation, and the same folks who hem and haw over imposing network neutrality because “Regulations are bad, m’kay?” are the very ones who have voted in favor of the broadcast flag. It seems strange to me that these Senators who claim to be anti-regulation are so ready and willing to impose it. It becomes even more illuminating when you consider that their voting record (over this admittedly tiny sample) strongly supports Corporate America, and completely discounts the public good. Perhaps they believe that in granting such unilateral powers to the corporations that they will wield this power with benevolence for the good of the people. Personally, I’m far more inclined to believe a corporation is in business solely for the bottom line - and in both of these cases, the corporation’s bottom line seems likely to trump any charitable interest for “the people.”