Moby Speaks Out on Internet Freedom
May 18th, 2006 by Ben ByrneAt a press event in Washington today, Grammy-nominated musician Moby (along with Rep. Ed Markey of Mass.) introduced Artists and Musicians for Internet Freedom, an alliance supporting the SavetheInternet.com coalition that includes the Dixie Chicks, The Roots, Wilco, R.E.M., Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and other prominent acts. See the video here.
Read Moby’s comments here. Some excerpts:
And Internet freedom is not an irrelevant issue – because it affects everything else. The Internet has revolutionized democratic participation, economic innovation, free speech, and the arts.
There’s a reason groups as diverse as MoveOn.org, Gun Owners of America, Christian Coalition, consumer advocates, and church groups are working together on this issue.
And there’s a reason people’s favorite websites – Google, Amazon, eBay, Craigslist – are all fighting together to preserve Net Neutrality.
If Congress guts Net Neutrality, independent music and news sites would be choked off, consumer choice would be limited, and the Internet will be become a private toll road auctioned off by companies like AT&T.
Click here to learn more about the musicians’ coalition.
May 19th, 2006 at 1:03 am
Say, do you guys know that your MySpace profile has been disabled? I don’t want to get all tinfoil-hattish, but it is owned by NewsCorp.
May 19th, 2006 at 2:14 am
Moby is a nice guy and seems genuinely concerned about the issues. And he can jam on that guitar, too. Seen him a coupla’ times, this time was his return to Stamford studio space:
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2005/10/moby-king-rock-house.html
Peace.
May 19th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Okay, so I’ve been reading this and I really have to ask a question.
How is this, on any fundamental level, different than QoS which is part of the standard RFC defined network protocols that have been developed by and for the network community? Now, I’ve been doing high performance network research for universities and other research institutions for 10 years now. So I’m not quite a newbie in all of this but I really don’t see how this is very different than what already exists and has existed for at least 8 years.
Network traffic is generally characterized as being in various service classes. The overwhelming majority of traffic falls into the ‘Best Effort’ category which means the network will make every effort to get your packet to you but if not? Well, shit happens and they won’t make any guarantees about how fast it gets to you. However, there are other classes available that can provide better than best effort service - they setup paths for the people that pay for it that will reserve a certain amount of capacity on the network for their traffic. In congested situations this premium traffic may end up pushing other ‘best effort’ traffic off the network. Now, this has been part of the Internet as we know it for at least 8 years and is known as QoS. It turns out to be a pain in the ass and expensive to set up so generally network providers just overprovision a network instead of trying to manage it like you can with QoS.
Whats interesting in the current proposal is that the network providers would actually be setting up seperate light paths (multiple beams of laser light can travel down one fiber optic cable - so if you need more capacity you just shine another laser down it and instead of carry 10Gb of traffic now you can carry 20Gb). So their premium services wouldn’t even be interfering with the normal best effort traffic like it could with QoS.
So I’m not getting it, if this is something the network has always been capable of then why is it such an issue now? Is it that people don’t undertand how networks actualy work or is it that I’m missing something fundamental that isn’t spelled out in the somewhat purple prose found on the site here?
May 19th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Rapier1, according to Wikipedia, the history of the carriers with respect to innovative Internet services is not proud. About ten years ago, as new devices and applications arose on the Internet, the reaction of many broadband operators was truly frightening:
- AT&T, as a cable operator, warned customers that using a Wi-Fi service for home-networking constituted “theft of service” and a federal crime
- Cox Cable disciplined users of virtual private networks
- Comcast blocked ports of VPNs, preventing government workers from telecommuting
- In the Madison River case, a local telco was found to be blocking voice-over-IP (VoIP) service and was fined by the FCC
Without strong net neutrality rules and FCC enforcement tools, the carriers could very likely return to the days of blocking any innovative service in the hope that they could control and monetize it.
Are regulations necessary? Damn right - until there are true choices for last-mile services. If nothing else, the carriers’ past behavior teaches us just that.
More here - http://directorblue.blogspot.com
May 19th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
DirectorBlue,
I actually know about some of those instances and in each case the background is a little different than what the soundbite reveals. For example, in the first case of wireless service being a theft of services. It used to be very common for ISP to specificallly write into the AUP (accecptable usage policy) that you colud not share a network connection amoung multiple computers. Having worked at an ISP at the time this was common the reason was that people and businesses would buy the cheapest service possible and then put an entire office on it. This had the effect of significantly increasing their network usage. Since the backhaul networks were generally very narrow and much more expensive in comparison to what we have now if enough people did that they’d end up making things bad for everyone. So the policy was in place to actually make things fair for everyone. Sometimes companies do dumb things and sometimes they do suck but for the most part they make money by having happy customers and happy customers want fast networks.
Anyway, none of that really answers the question I asked originally though. Nothing that seems to be being proposed by the network providers is different, on any fundamental level, than what has been an acceptable and well known (if not widely used) practice for years and years and years. It (QoS) was also originally developed as a means to create different classes of service and people would pay for the better classes of service. This wasn’t developed by a corporation but by the IETF and other collaberative bodies of normal people. They cam eup with it because, at the time, buying connectivty was insanely expensive and they needed ways to manage traffic and try and make it work as a business (self sustaining - this was before the internet really took off).
Anyway as demand increases, and its been increasing dramatically with the advent of HD video downloads, dvd downloads, streaming HD TV on the internet, voip, and so forth you need to keep buying more and more equipment and spending more and more money on research to create the next generation of equipment and protcols. It didn’t used to be that much of a concern because the growth rate was prediciatble enough that you could deal with it. However, all of the applications I mentioned threaten to make demand grow an order of magnitude faster than before. So if you don’t have more money coming in you end up in a position where you can’t keep up with demand and then *everyone’s* service will start to suffer. From what I’ve been reading about this the plan is to create ‘fast lanes’ for content providers that are willing to pay the extra money. This money will be used to create, essentially, new networks that will keep this traffic off of the same paths as the normal traffic. Which means that there will actually be more network capacity for everyone and service should actually improve for everyone.
Think about it this way - you have a highway system that is getting more and more congested because you keep getting more and more trucks on it. The trucks are squeezing out the cars and everyone is getting cranky because everyone is being delayed. So you build *another* highway that is right next to the original one and say “If you want to pay extra you can use this new highway”. The people in the trucks will generally pay to use the new highway because its important their stuff gets to its destination as fast as it can (maybe it fresh produce that will spoil quickly). So more trucks start taking the new highway which means there is now more space on the old highway and all the people in the cars end up moving faster as well. Same sort of situation except that instead of cars and trucks you have packets and instead of highways you have laser beams going down fiber optic cables.
May 19th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
rapier1: “Is it that people don’t understand how networks actualy work or is it that I’m missing something fundamental that isn’t spelled out in the somewhat purple prose found on the site here?”
In my opinion, you’ve put your finger on one major issue. There’s a huge amount of confusion among net neutrality advocates, though there are a few who understand what they’re talking about.
“Save the Internet” has posted a response to the “Hands Off the Internet Coalition”’s cartoon which confuses common carriage with net neutrality, apparently thinking that common carriage has something to do with interconnection of Internet services, and which falsely claims that cable companies were required until last year to allow other Internet service providers to use their networks.
That kind of error wouldn’t be possible if it were reviewed by someone who actually understands the technology and currlent regulatory framework. I’ve tried to address some of these confusions at my blog.
May 19th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Moby is not the only one to speak out on this issue.
Nor the most important person to do so. SAVE THE INTERNET please mention
that Hillary Clinton recently spoke out and decided to co-sponsor the bill in
the senate.
Other very influential people have also spoken out while Cisco and similar companies
that stand to profit from the lack of Network Neutrality (by selling equipment to control
the internet) are sending letters to congress urging them not to force Net Neutrality.
A big cobweb. Go Moby. Go Hillary. We have a lot of support, but need much more.
May 20th, 2006 at 12:44 am
who cares what moby says? fuck him. if you think verizon or att can control the internet you are stupid. who cares if they want to make a buck? it is the american way. capitalism is what made this country what is is today. the one place in our world where anyone and i mean anyone can become whatever it is they want. why is this counrty over run by illegal aliens? because we allow it. because once here, even if you are here illegal you can still dream a dream and have an oppurtunity to make it come true. this government only works when the citizens vote for the people they want to represent “their” ideas. if you don’t like someone in office make your opinion known to as many people as possible. stand on the corner with a sign, get your friends to fucking vote. americans have become a bunch of lazy ass bastards. we live in a country of over 600 million people and yet in the last presidential election only 100 million or so voted. what the hell? don’t tell me they are disillusioned. they are lazy. almost every state has many ways of voting early, mail in ballots, a myriad of ways to cast your ballot, voice you opinion. don’t blame someone else. get off you buttocks and vote. up your ass moby. every one has the ability to vote but they have chosen not to. so fuck them. all do is bitch and moan and then do nothing. money doesn’t buy everything in this world nor does it drive or motivate everyone. do something! something not morally reprehensible but do something!
May 20th, 2006 at 12:52 am
if hillary is for something you can bet she does so just to gain favor with a public that has no idea what is at issue, just as she has no idea.
May 20th, 2006 at 7:07 am
Your missing the point entirely. The telcos want to let certain content go over the Internet for free, charge high prices of some, and keep other content off the road altogether. That is the discrimination that concerns net neutrality advocates. According to Consumer Fedreation of America analyst Mark Cooper:
“The government prevented this kind of discrimination throughout the history of the Internet under what was known as the ‘Computer Inquiries.’ In fact, all forms of transportation and communications throughout the history of the U.S. have been subject to this obligation of nondiscrimination, except for a short period when large corporations — the railroads and telephone companies in the late 19th century, tried to evade their obligations under common law. Congress was forced to step in to reopen these vital networks and imposed the obligation of nondiscriminatory interconnection and carriage on the railroads (Interstate Commerce Act, 1887) and the telephone companies (Mann-Elkins Act, 1910).
“Allowing the cable and telephone companies to pick and choose which service providers have access to the public is not progress, but a step backwards to the late 19th century, when the railroads discriminated against grain shippers and AT&T refused to interconnect with independent telephone companies. There is nothing in the recent behavior of the telephone and cable companies to suggest that they would not immediately use this power to discriminate to undermine competition in the Internet applications and service market.”
May 20th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Rapier1,
The QoS issue is pretty easy to cull out. Look at Internet2, the high-speed backbone that represents the latest, greatest networking technology on the planet. In general, that is a best-effort network, despite multiple and ongoing efforts to figure out an overarching tiering scheme.
The problem with tiering is that if enough stuff gets QoS, you just end up with best-effort for the top tier. ATM handled the problem differently — albeit much more expensively — by reserving circuits that, whether or not you used them, were carved out of available bandwidth.
Questions you need to ask yourself that tkarr alluded to:
- when the carriers (and not the consumers) get to discriminate between content-providers, what happens to innovation, startups, and America’s technological leadership position?
- does it even make sense that the telcos are trying to shoehorn TCP/IP into an HDTV/IPTV delivery system when they haven’t even master QoS for VoIP?
- and if the carriers don’t intend to discriminate (block, filter, degrade, or impair various content providers), why have they wall-papered Washington with green and specifically omitted those very words from the COPE Act?
tkarr,
Good job. Another historical example of egregrious discriminatory abuse of a network is the telegraph system implemented in the West at the turn of the last century.
May 20th, 2006 at 9:04 am
I also think one can make a reasonable argument for good public policy. Particularly when the policy in question is designed to keep anyone — government and big corporations alike — from seizing control of the Internet.
In this sense, net neutrality serves as the Internet’s First Amendment, a rule that keeps control of content with the end-users while barring a larger authority — be it AT&T, Comcast or, even, the government — from inserting itself between users and dictating which packets of information get privilege over others.
It’s a basic freedom issue that most everyone — right-left, Democrat-Republican, libertarian-”Great Society” holdout — can support. The line up of net neutralityt supporters (ACLU, MoveOn, Christian Coalition, Gun Owners of America) is ample evidence of that.
On another front, the telephone and cable companies are reporting billions in profits while receiving billions in tax credits for supposedly building out our nation’s broadband infrastructure (Meanwhile, USA has fallen from 3rd to 16th in national broadband penetration, according to ITU).
Their repeated whining about lack of resources to improve access, speeds and services for customers comes across as disingenuous when one considers that both Verizon and AT&T have invested less in their networks than they take out in depreciation.
Last year return of and on capital generated almost $15 billion in free cash flow that they took out of the industry.
Over the past three years, they have taken out approximately $47 billion.
Half of this resulting cash flow has been used to pay dividends. The rest has been used to pay down debt, increase cash on hand, and support the merger wave that is sweeping the industry.
Recall that AT&T has a $67 billion offer on the table to buy BellSouth. And Verizon offered $38 billion to buy Vodaphone out of their cellular joint venture. These huge transactions tie up resources and diminish the ability to reinvest in the industry.
To cover this financial shell game, they claim poverty, while throwing off cash and trying to get a free ride on the backs of the public.
May 20th, 2006 at 10:15 am
tkarr: You just made the same mistake of confusing common carriage with net neutrality.
If common carriage is net neutrality, then why are you so concerned about the local telcos’ status and not the cable companies, when the cable companies have never had common carrier status and never been required to open up their networks to other Internet providers?
Net neutrality is nothing like the First Amendment. The First Amendment doesn’t say that publishers must publish all articles they receive from anyone who submits one, without any editorial standards. Net neutrality says you not only can’t block any legal services (even if they are abusive, like spam that is in compliance with CAN-SPAM), you can’t even offer services over network infrastructure you build yourself that is anything less than or different from the complete public Internet, and you can’t enter into contracts with content providers to provide specialized services to your customers, because you have to let other content providers with whom you have no agreements to use that network for free. That’s a limit on the development of new services.
May 20th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
And you’re confusing ISPs with “publishers.” ISPs are just that — Internet Service Providers. Evidently, you support the phone companies’ contention that they should now be able to erect tollbooths at the onramps and exits to the information highway. Under this new regime, the success of online content and service would be determined by those who pay AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth the most. I think this is a bad idea that would undermine the Internet freedoms that have made the Internet a dynamic force for new ideas and innovation. You seem to like the notion. This is where we disagree.
The real choice we face is whether we’re going to support good government policy that has protected Internet freedom, created a truly free market in content and services, and encouraged free speech to flourish online — or let predatory companies like AT&T and Comcast rewrite our telecommunications law and place their chokehold on online content and services. For the history of the Internet, Web sites and online ideas have succeeded or failed on their own merit based on decisions now made collectively by millions of users.
Getting rid of Net Neutrality will hand these decisions over to a cartel of broadband barons. Do you really want AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth picking the next generation of winners and losers on the Internet?
Do you think that they will protect our freedom to choose online in an environment where they have a virtual monopoly over the market and no structure to protect consumers?
May 20th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
There is no contact us form on the site, so I just wanted to say that as someone searching for a new cell phone/internet provider it would be very helpful to have a list of companies supporting net neutrality and a list of those wanting to end it so I know who to and not to sign a contract with.
May 20th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
[…] Moveon.org is hosting a video from Thursday’s SaveTheInternet press conference featuring Moby and Rep. Ed Markey. […]
May 21st, 2006 at 11:33 am
Another aspect to this argument is the technical feasibility of tiering. When Internet2’s QoS Working Group tried tiering, the results were not promising:
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2006/05/net-neutrality-is-tiering-reasonable.html
May 21st, 2006 at 2:01 pm
DirectorBlue: If you want to look at the commercial feasibility of QoS, look at how it is currently used commercially, not how it worked out in a research network.
tkarr: No, I oppose the creation of misguided “net neutrality” legislation that doesn’t address the real issues posed by the telcos and has bad unintended consequences on other players like the backbones, doing things like restricting the ability to keep bad actors off the network, banning commercial services like QoS, prohibiting differentiation of services (see Mark Goldberg on the difference between differentiation and discrimination).
And I also oppose misinformation in support of any position. (BTW, the highest-quality pro-net neutrality arguments I’ve seen are on David Isenberg and Susan Crawford’s blogs.)
May 22nd, 2006 at 7:15 am
Glad to hear it. David Isenberg and Susan Crawford are both members of the SavetheInternet coalition. So do you oppose the Snowe-Dorgan bill in Senate and the Markey and Sensenbrenner bills in the House?
Any system that gives Internet right-of-way to those who pay the most is problematic because it stifles bootstrappers and online innovators’ efforts to have their ideas heard. These innovative “outsiders” are the reason the Net has become a crucible of new ideas and economic growth. A pay-for-play system that only allows large corporations into a fast lane is a mistake.
I also doubt that these corporations really need this extra source of revenue to build faster, cheaper networks for more people. I asked CFA analyst Mark Cooper about this. Here’s what he had sto say:
Network operators will build out their high-speed networks whether there are network neutrality rules or not. The cable companies have largely built out their networks already. Telephone companies will upgrade their copper wires in order to compete with cable television one way or another. They would have done so even if they had lost the Brand X case and the nondiscrimination rules still existed. The only reason they are claiming they need discriminatory pricing is because they see an opportunity to extract monopoly rents from a new source.
They will generate the revenue to build networks in the same way they always have—from three sources. First, they will continue to receive billions of dollars every year from the monthly subscription fees paid by retail and enterprise consumers. Second, they will continue to receive billions of dollars every year from the access charges they receive from Internet content producers whose goods and services travel over their networks. That’s right—everyone pays big bucks to be on the Internet. There are no free rides. Any network operator who feels they are being shortchanged can raise the rates—provided they do so on a nondiscriminatory basis. Finally, network operators will generate revenues by entering the content and applications market and competing for consumer dollars the old fashioned way—earning them.
There is no economic reason why nondiscrimination must be sacrificed to develop infrastructure. On the contrary, consumers are attracted to purchase Internet service because of the open, free market for content and applications. It is this marketplace that drives consumer demand to subscribe and which attracts producers to interconnect. Bringing the content market to its knees threatens to badly weaken demand for consumer access to Internet services.
Professor Robert Reich had this to say about the situation: “The pipe companies claim that unless they can start charging, they won’t be able to invest in the next generation of networks. Well that’s ridiculous. They’re already making lots of money off consumers connected to the Internet. They just figure they can make more money charging the big content providers for the best service.”
It is worth mentioning that the recent financial history of the large telephone companies does not suggest that they have been particularly serious about infrastructure investment. Since 2000, the annual reports of SBC and Verizon indicate that they have depreciated billions of dollars more than they have spent on their networks. Instead, they have laid out capital to purchase other telephone companies—reducing competition and increasing market power. In effect, these companies have been disinvesting in their infrastructure. If they now project increases in infrastructure spending, that reflects the fact that they are working from years of deficit.
Approaching the situation through a slightly different lens, we can note that AT&T’s path back to Ma Bell status involved the conglomeration of SBC, Ameritech, PacBell, SNET, and AT&T Wireless, at a cost of roughly $140 billion. In the process, their market capitalization increased only $40 billion. Ironically, the $100 billion that disappeared is roughly what it would cost to run fiber to every American household. Now AT&T is lining up to spend a further $67 billion on BellSouth, while Verizon has a $38 billion offer on the table to buy out its partner in Verizon Wireless. And they expect consumers to believe that they are short on capital and cannot afford to build their network without the elimination of consumer protection rules? Even in a world of Enron accounting where mergers mean shell games on balance sheets, the idea that there is no revenue in the industry is a tall tale.
May 22nd, 2006 at 8:16 pm
“So do you oppose the Snowe-Dorgan bill in Senate and the Markey and Sensenbrenner bills in the House?”
I’ve critiqued the Sensenbrenner bill, HR 5417, here. Perhaps its biggest problem is its overly broad definition of broadband.
I haven’t read the text of Snowe-Dorgan, but it appears to have the same flaw about prohibiting blocking “lawful content”–it would be nice if legislative staff would look to see what kinds of things are in existing acceptable use policies–it should be legitimate for an ISP to require that its customers not send unsolicited bulk email and use confirmed (”double”) opt-in rather than merely conform to CAN-SPAM. The Markey bill (HR 5273) seems to be the best of these bills, but Sec. 4 (a) (2) (A) would force the provision of services to spammers and (B) is potentially problematic if it includes the device directly connected to the provider’s network (as opposed to devices on the customer LAN). Markey has a slightly better definition of broadband than Sensenbrenner due to Sec. 4 (e) (2) (B), which at least excludes Internet service to colo facilities, backbone peering connections, and so forth.
“Any system that gives Internet right-of-way to those who pay the most is problematic because it stifles bootstrappers and online innovators’ efforts to have their ideas heard.”
I have no idea what you mean by “gives Internet right-of-way to those who pay the most.” What do you mean by “Internet right-of-way”? Access to right-of-way is a physical issue, and I would have no problem with telcos being required to pay for use of public right-of-ways–they did get a free ride there, where the cable companies didn’t.
“A pay-for-play system that only allows large corporations into a fast lane is a mistake.” I agree, but I disagree that “pay more for faster access” is unreasonable or would restrict access only to “large corporations.”
I agree that the telcos (meaning the last-mile access providers) are rent-seeking–that’s what they’re good at, and they’ve had decades of special privileges that should be eliminated. I also quite agree that they have not been the innovators–they’ve only gained access to large Internet backbone resources through merger and acquisition. I disagree that they are as big of a threat to consumer Internet access as you seem to think–introducing wireless into the mix changes the picture.
I’m all in favor of consumers having the right and power to fight attempts by telcos to block access to services they want to use (so long as those services are legal, don’t disrupt service for others, and that they’re not shifting costs onto others without consent or compensation in the process).
Finally, I also agree that the telcos have been deceptive about infrastructure spending and promises they’ve made in the past–I still remember what a wonderful thing ISDN was supposed to be with all the great services the telcos would provide, but in fact its benefit to me was that I used it for a point-to-point connection to an ISP for a few years before cable came to my neighborhood. (I still don’t have access to DSL).