Thanks!

The fight for Network Neutrality is spreading as quickly as a flu through a day care. Everybody’s got a touch of open-Internet fever.

Activists in the US aren’t the only ones trying to keep the Internet healthy and robust – our northern neighbors are pushing back against attempts from corporations to block and discriminate against online content in Canada.

Rally at Parliament Hill

Last week, Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) introduced legislation to the House of Commons designed to enshrine Net Neutrality principles into law. The bill would amend Canada’s Telecommunications Act and “prohibit network operators from engaging in network management practices that favor, degrade or prioritize any content, application or service transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination, subject to certain exceptions.”

The bill comes on the heels of national outrage after the country’s largest Internet service providers – Bell Canada and Rogers Communications – were caught limiting customers’ access to the Internet. Sound familiar? The move is straight out of the playbook of ISPs in the U.S. who have been vying for “content management” control of the Internet.

Even more alarming, it was recently revealed that Bell Canada was using deep packet inspection technology to steer, shape and throttle access to the Web.

Just one day before the NDP introduced Network Neutrality legislation, activists held a rally on Parliament Hill calling for government action. Led by the Campaign for Democratic Media and SaveOurNet.ca, protesters called for three specific Net Neutrality principles: competition, innovation and consumer rights.

As the debate in Canada moves forward, it looks like we share more in common with our neighbor than Niagara Falls – on either side of the border, people want an open Internet and a vibrant democracy.

Today, the New York Times weighs in again on the Net Neutrality debate, calling on Congress to pass legislation that would prohibit content discrimination. Currently, three Net Neutrality bills are snaking their way through Congress.

The Times’ editorial remarks on why an unfettered Internet is vital: “If you type in the domain name of a large corporation or a small blog, a government Web site or a radical political party, the pages are sent to your computer with equal speed. Like a telephone line, an Internet connection does not play favorites — it simply transmits the words and images.”

But the big cable and telephone companies have a vested interest in changing the rules. “They have realized that they could make a lot of money by charging some Web sites a premium to have their content delivered faster than that of other sites,” the Times writes.

The editors, who have chimed in for Net Neutrality in the past, agree that the time to safeguard it is now.

“Cable and telecommunications companies are fighting net neutrality with lobbyists and campaign contributions, but these special interests should not be allowed to set Internet policy,” says the Times. “It is the job of Congress to protect the Internet’s democratic form.”

Net Neutrality has inspired legions of grassroots video makers. And on occasion a musician has chimed in to make the issue his or her own.

Late last week, reporter Nate Anderson added to the discography, recording a spoof about Comcast’s storied “TCP Reset Packets,” secretly deployed by the cable giant to block users’ ability to share videos and other rich data files.

“I wrote and recorded a little ditty about Comcast’s P2P blocking technique and the resulting FCC fallout,” writes Anderson. “No, I can’t sing, but that never stopped Bob Dylan.”

Give it a spin here. Some choice lines of sarcasm:

At the hearing, Harvard’s hallowed halls became a comfy bed
Our employees work so hard, w/o rest they’d soon be dead
All this talk is sure terrific, but it’s also soporific
Set me free to innovate, I see no need to regulate!

Net Neutrality’s greatest hits. Listen to them all:

“God Save the Internet,” the Broadband

“Series of Tubes,” Sen. Ted Stevens Techno Remix

“TCP Reset Packets

Comcast is not alone on the list of wannabe gatekeepers. Cox Communications has joined the ranks with news today that it is degrading and blocking customer file-sharing in the same deceptive manner.

The news follows an exhaustive study by the Max Planck Institute, which tested the connections of 8,175 Internet users around the world. According to Institute spokesperson Krishna Gummadi, they found conclusive evidence that Cox blocked file-sharing connections alongside Comcast in the United States.

Robb Topolski, the former Intel engineer who first revealed Comcast’s blocking last year, told the Associated Press that the Institute’s investigation was the most authoritative study so far of this type of Web discrimination.

These results confirm what’s already become obvious to many Internet users around the country: Cable companies simply can’t be trusted to protect the free-flowing Internet.

Despite widespread public outrage and an ongoing investigation of Comcast, these companies persist in thinking that Internet content can be shaped and manipulated like their legacy video services.

“This harmful practice appears to be spreading through the marketplace,” Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott said.

Indeed, as a high-speed Internet connection becomes our portal to all things media – from email to user generated video and music – the old media regime can resist the temptation to get in the way.

These corporations have built their empires upon controlling the ebb and flow of information in America. The Internet, however, is about free choice and user-generated content – all being shared without the need of content gatekeepers or middlemen.

They want to be more than just a window to the Web, and have proposed a closed scheme of Internet fees and filters that allows them final say over which ideas make it to the top of the heap.

These moves by Comcast and Cox are further evidence that the threat to Internet freedom is real; the need for baseline user protections more urgent than ever.

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UPDATE: Read Harold Feld’s latest post at WetMachine for more on the anticipated spin.

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UPDATE 2:And at the Wall Street Journal, beware the “wrath.”

Freedom of the press extends only to those who own one — or so the saying goes. It once rang true in a world ruled by newspaper chains, radio and television broadcasters, and cable networks.

But the Internet has changed all that, delivering the press — and in theory its freedoms — to any person with a good idea and a connection to the Web.

This extraordinary twist to “mass media” has catapulted many an everyday YouTube auteur to celebrity-status while turning ideas born in a garage or dorm room into Fortune 500 companies. It is the reason so many Americans are now passionate about protecting their right to choose on the Internet. But it’s also triggered a backlash from the old regime — media corporations that built their empires upon controlling the ebb and flow of information in America.

This list of media giants includes the nation’s largest phone and cable providers, who provide a portal to the high-speed Internet for more than 98 percent of residential users in America. Now they want to be more than just a window to the Web. These companies have proposed a closed scheme of Internet fees and filters that affords them the final say over which ideas make it to the top of the heap.

Say “goodbye” to indy rock bands breaking big via a backyard YouTube video and “hello” to censored rock-and-roll courtesy of AT&T’s “Blue Room.”

Open v. Closed — A Clash of Cultures

This closed business model has proven a financial windfall for the gatekeepers of traditional media. But it comes at a too heavy a cost to the millions of Americans who see the open Internet as the 21st Century’s catalyst for free speech and opportunity.

It’s against the backdrop of this clash of cultures — open versus closed — that an unusual series of official events have occurred this year.

Washington — where lobbyists for Comcast, AT&T and Verizon have long had the home-field advantage — recently witnessed an extraordinary series of public meetings and congressional hearings on the fate of the Internet. If you listen carefully, you might actually hear the people’s interests being represented. They are certainly being expressed.

The 110th Congress has called Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Chad Hurley, the founder of YouTube, to testify in favor of Net Neutrality — the principle that safeguards the Internet against blocking and censorship from Internet service providers. In recent weeks, leading consumer and Internet rights advocates, Silicon Valley’s top entrepreneurs and Hollywood’s creative community have testified that an open Internet is vital to the health of our economy and democracy.

The Federal Communications Commission has gone one further, venturing beyond the Beltway to take the public temperature on the Internet.

At hearings in Cambridge, Mass., and Palo Alto, Calif., the agency got an earful; hundreds of Net Neutrality supporters stood before the microphone to condemn Comcast’s recent efforts to block people from using peer-to-peer applications, which make possible the sharing of videos and other rich media without the need for corporate media to broker the content. One after the other. people called on the federal agency for basic protections against Comcast’s brand of digital discrimination.

The New Free Speech Movement

They are not alone. A growing movement of Internet users is pushing for legislation to stop would-be gatekeepers from re-routing the free-flowing Web. It has attracted millions of supporters ranging from MoveOn.org to the Christian Coalition of America, from independent rockers OK Go to the executive producer of the TV show “Hannah Montana.”

Our voices are starting to rise above the din of lobbyists that too often drowns out genuine public debate in Washington. It’s now up to our elected officials to act.

The official inquiry on Net Neutrality has given a public voice to the remarkable consensus in favor of free speech and user choice on the Web. And it may turn out to be more than show. The bipartisan “Internet Freedom Preservation Act” is making its way through the House at this very moment. It is a bill that takes into account the many voices that have spoken out since Net Neutrality became a much-debated principle.

Fundamentally, this bill recognizes that we must establish baseline protection for an unfettered Internet. It doesn’t call for Web regulation, but gives the public the power to stop the old regime from turning the Internet from a revolution of the many into a funnel for the few.

And that’s a freedom worth fighting for.

While Comcast’s blocking is the most talked about violation of Net Neutrality, new information calls into question AT&T’s offering of unfettered access to the Internet.

Before their reincarnation as AT&T the phone company — following their merger with SBC — they were AT&T, the long distance company. (You may remember their never-ending ad campaign, 1-800-CALL-ATT.) The difference between the new AT&T and the old one is the latter didn’t control any wires — they just used them. This distinction is at the center of the debate over Net Neutrality - the idea that those who own the wires cannot block or discriminate against the content flowing over the network.

As a long distance provider, AT&T relied on Net Neutrality rules to ensure access to the customers at the end of these wires. This changed after the company merged with SBC, and then BellSouth, making it the largest Internet service provider in the country. (This chart may help you make sense of this merger craze.) Once it gained power over customer’s Internet connections, AT&T turned into an ardent Net Neutrality opponent.

A Telco’s Change of Heart

On May 28, 2004, AT&T lawyers said:

“The Internet has flourished to date because of openness. Network owners do not tell subscribers which Web sites they can visit or which applications they can run over their Internet connections. …. The commission can directly prevent anticompetitive use of broadband transport facilities and foster unimpeded access to IP applications with modest technology neutral conduct regulation that merely prohibits broadband carriers from discriminating against unaffiliated IP applications an content.”

But here’s AT&T on June 15, 2007:

“There is no need to subject the Internet to a scheme of ‘nondiscrimination’ rules to protect anyone against anticompetitive conduct.”

And: “There is no potential upside to Net Neutrality regulation.”

And finally: “These ‘blocking’ concerns are a sham.”

AT&T Caught Blocking?

Peer-to-peer video distributer Vuze Inc, recently collected information that raises the question of whether AT&T customers were being provided a full and unfettered connection to the Web.

Given the lack of candid disclosure from Internet providers like AT&T, Vuze’s report attempts to shed much-needed light on whether these companies are providing customers with an open Internet experience.

If only AT&T would remember the way they used to be. It’s time they stopped fighting against the wishes of their own customers and started fighting for them.

Looks like our prediction in our recent SavetheInternet blog post was spot-on. Citing piracy concerns, Big Media has made its deal with broadband ISPs like Comcast to make sure its Internet video gets priority A-1 Express Lane carriage over the Internet.

In exchange, they are supporting the ISPs’ fierce opposition to net neutrality rules that would bar them from pushing everyone else’s video into the Bus Lane, if they even deign to deliver it at all. Variety reports:

at an Institute for Policy Innovation panel addressing online piracy, leaders of Hollywood, the recording industry and the wireless industry touted the beginnings of a long-term relationship built on a foundation of making the Internet a thriving market for legal content and a dead end for bootleggers. “We’re all in this together,” said MPAA chairman-chief exec Dan Glickman.

“We’re moving toward a world where all our interests align,” said RIAA chairman-CEO Mitch Bainwol. “The long-term relationship is much more complex and partner-based,” Bainwol said, suggesting that congestion, while a serious issue for content generators and ISPs alike, is only one common interest.

Could it possibly be that degrading and discriminating against video that competes with Big Media, Big Cable, and Big Telco could be another “common interest?”

As much as we also support fighting piracy, for Big Media to shout “piracy” as a reason to oppose reasonable Net Neutrality rules is a diversionary smoke screen for what’s really going on.

The existing FCC policy principles that call for net neutrality, as well as every proposal to turn those principles into enforceable rules, speak to ensuring that broadband providers allow consumers “to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.”

By definition, pirated content is not “lawful content.” Big Media’s claim that Net Neutrality rules will prevent it from combating piracy goes way too far, as evidenced by Comcast’s recent blocking and slowing of its customers’ access to content distributed by BitTorrent.

In kneecapping BitTorrent, Comcast didn’t just block pirated content, but all BitTorrent content, including legitimate un-pirated content such as a file containing the text of the King James Bible, and video that BitTorrent was distributing on behalf of its clients Fox, Time Warner, and Viacom - all card-carrying members of the MPAA!

At a recent Senate hearing on the Internet Freedom Preservation Act introed by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), FCC Chair Kevin Martin spoke disapprovingly of Comcast’s blocking and tackling of BitTorrent and strongly hinted that the FCC would take action, despite Comcast’s claim that the FCC didn’t have legal authority to enforce its net neutrality principles.

Allowing Comcast, ATT, and other broadband gatekeepers to discriminate against video content delivered by the BitTorrents of the Internet world vastly strengthens the competitive position of Big Media’s new Hulu.com as the leading and “safe” web distribution method for video.

Can there be any doubt that as a condition of Big Media’s allying with the broadband providers to fight net neutrality that there is a clear understanding between them that Hulu will never be discriminated against in the way BitTorrent was?

Look for all the Big Media companies currently using BitTorrent and other distribution over the Internet to sign up soon with Hulu. Following that, to ensure they are not discriminated against by broadband gatekeepers and placed at a competitive disadvantage, look for many more video content creators to place their content on Hulu.

In a world without Net Neutrality, linking up with Big Media’s Hulu — and its insulation from Comcast-style discrimination and degrading — will be a matter of self-preservation.

The Independent Film and Television Alliance has called out the MPAA and ISPs and their anti-competitive collusion. Writes the IFTA:

That openness [of the Internet] is threatened by the power of a small number of broadband providers to discriminate unilaterally against some categories of users or types of traffic or to accord preferential treatment to certain content providers over others, all under the ambiguous claim of “network management.” While these providers may have some legitimate issues related to the technical management of their networks, there have already been cases of different treatment of users and it is clear that there must be transparency, equal treatment and an avenue of redress when the providers’ private decisions trespass fair rights of others and the public interest. Thus, the issue is not whether government should regulate the Internet, but whether there will be effective oversight to prevent a handful of corporate giants from imposing their own version of private regulation to the public’s detriment.

The opening of Hulu and the MPAA’s vehement denunciation of net neutrality are intimately related, a double-barreled shot aimed at the heart of the open Internet. The goal of Big Media and the ISPs is nothing less than to turn today’s wide open Internet into a closed system more akin to cable television.

The likely result: as we’ve documented in cable, independent and diverse voices and their content will be inexorably marginalized or silenced.

To prevent this Big Media alliance with Big Cable/Telco from cornering and controlling the Internet, it is time for the government to implement reasonable network neutrality oversight that protects consumers and content creators, and preserves the open Internet we enjoy today. We need the Internet Freedom Preservation Act.

Two leaders of Hollywood’s creative community today called upon the Senate to guarantee that the Internet remains a free-flowing medium for independent writers, producers and filmmakers.

Verrone: We Need Clear Net Neutrality Rules

In testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, Patric Verrone of the Writers Guild of America West said that the recent vertical integration and consolidation of power in the movie industry has left independent writers and producers with few to no options.

“The axiom in Hollywood is that ‘content is king’ but those who control access to the king, control the kingdom,” Verrone told senators. “That control is in the hands of neither the consumer nor the content creators, but the distributors.”

Neutrality Means Content is King

The Internet now faces a similar threat – a point that was made very clear to Verrone during the recent writers strike. “When traditional media is in the hands of the same corporations that employ you, it’s hard to get your message out. We had four thousand attend rallies that got less — and later — coverage on the local news than a dog wedding.”

To maintain contact with one another, guild members used the Internet – creating protest sites and viral videos that got their message across to millions. Through these “the public saw the crucial role writers play in media creation,” Verrone said.

“The policy decision that triggered the consolidation of old media has not yet been made for new media,” Verrone concluded. “In an industry filled with oxymorons from jumbo shrimp to Hollywood accounting, we must win the fight for neutrality.”

Neutrality Will Restore Innovation and Creativity

Bateman: Net Neutrality Would Ensure a Level Playing Field

According to actor and producer Justine Bateman, the demise of this creativity in Hollywood was directly proportional to the increase in consolidation of the industry.

“In entertainment, I believe we are on the verge of a creative renaissance,” Bateman told senators. “The Internet is the new grid upon which this renaissance can rest, because unfortunately the business grid of TV and film today cannot support that.”

Bateman, who is known to many as Alex P. Keaton’s kid sister Mallory in the 1980s sit-com Family Ties, said, “Net Neutrality will allow for we creators to continue owning and controlling our content … with this innovation comes competition. Net Neutrality would insure a level playing field for that.”

“We need to establish clear Net Neutrality rules to ensure that the Internet remains a level playing field for all. We dethrone the gatekeepers and once more make content king,” Verrone added.

“The Internet Freedom and Preservation Act ensures that future, and we support it.”

And they’re coming out of the woodwork. Another peer-to-peer software application is warning that many major phone and cable companies — not just Comcast — may be targeting and blocking legal Web traffic.

Vuze, maker of a popular P2P video distribution application, released a preliminary report that sheds light on ISPs’ prevalent practice of throttling communication between users.

Last fall, the Associated Press exposed Comcast for cutting off access to legal file-sharing programs. In response to petitions filed by Free Press and Vuze, the Federal Communications Commission has launched an ongoing investigation, which has included public hearings at Harvard and Stanford universities.

Vuze also launched its own investigation, creating a software plug-in to track network interruptions from reset messages. The rate of interruptions was so alarming, Vuze said it suggested that “network management practices that ‘throttle’ internet traffic are widespread.”

The company is calling on the public to install the Vuze Plug-In to help expose ISPs’ covert scheme to restrict the free flow of Internet traffic.

In a returning guest blog post, Sen. John Kerry asks for your ideas for America’s broadband future. Respond to the Senator by commenting in the thread below. Senator Kerry will circle back to address some of your comments and report on developments in Washington. - TK

By Sen. John Kerry

This may be the only place I don’t feel the need to play up the importance of tomorrow’s Commerce Committee hearing on Net Neutrality.

When I’ve talked to other people – and when I post on other blogs – about this hearing, I always try to grab people’s attention and tell them that, even with the primary tomorrow, we need to keep our eyes on the ball when it comes to Net Neutrality and the future of the Internet.

Guest Blog Post by Sen. John Kerry Join the debate

I know I don’t have to tell all of you at SavetheInternet.com about that.

I know you realize the importance of the government setting the rules so that some traffic is not discriminated against in relation to other traffic. I know you have followed some of the revelations of some activities of the telecom companies that have gone against their previous promises (Comcast’s actions related to BitTorrent got the most attention, but they are far from alone). I know you feel deeply – as I do – how vital this is to our future.

Because – bottom line – our economic and political future is tied up in a free and open Internet, available to all Americans. That involves making sure the content of the Internet flows freely, and it involves expanding broadband to the urban and rural areas that are underserved with our current infrastructure.

In Massachusetts, we have some of the most technologically advanced companies in the world, and we have broad swaths of Western Massachusetts that still have nothing but dial-up service. We have pockets of our largest cities without reliable broadband coverage. This is unacceptable and a danger to our nation’s future prosperity.

We need to set the rules of the road so that it doesn’t take overwhelming public pressure to get movement from corporations on network management issues. We need to give the investment and telecommunications industries clarity on what they can expect going forward.

I’ve seen compelling testimony that Net Neutrality, for example, would have a minimal effect on investment in infrastructure improvements and expansion. There is simply no reason for us to delay any longer in this.

I understand that clogged traffic due to high volume can be a problem – another reason to enact policies to expand infrastructure, by the way – but discriminating against content is not an acceptable network management practice.

You know, some of you may not agree with me on this, but I don’t even really blame the corporations on this. Congress and the federal government must lead the way and set the rules of the game.

And, like I said, I know that you realize the importance of all of this. When I came here last year before one of our hearings and asked for your input, I got some of the best feedback I’ve gotten on any issue.

So, I ask again: what would you like to see discussed in this hearing? And I’ll check back after the hearing to get your impressions on what transpired.

Thanks, John Kerry