With Democrats poised to take over the Congress, and on the heels of AT&T’s agreement to abide by net neutrality requirements, the notion of passing net neutrality legislation is gaining steam. The New York Times has this editorial today entitled “Protecting Internet Democracy,” which endorses the idea of a bill to enforce net neutrality.
Democrats who are moving into the majority in Congress — led by Ron Wyden in the Senate and Edward Markey in the House — say they plan to fight hard to pass a net neutrality bill, and we hope that they do. It is vital to preserve the Internet’s role in promoting entrepreneurship and free expression.
CNET’s Anne Broache has this longish piece about the state of play of various legislative initiatives aimed at creating net neutrality laws. The National Journal’s Andrew Noyes has this piece about how the AT&T deal has bolstered pro-net neutrality advocates to seek legislation.
As much as I think broadband network owners will give in to their own worst instincts absent some kind of non-discrimination rules, trying to squeeze as much money as they can out of third-party service providers, all this talk of legislation gives me the willies. For one thing, the Internet ecosystem is pretty fragile because it is very complex, despite all the robust businesses being built on the web.
Throw into the mix a new set of variables — rigid ones, mandated by law no less — and all kinds of weird economic distortions could occur. We just don’t know what will happen and I’d hate to see the Internet screwed up by new laws just as much as I’d hate to see the Internet screwed up by misguided cable and phone companies.
Of course the best solution is to jumpstart competition, create a marketplace where there are more than two broadband service providers, something beyond the current duopoly. My pal Larry Honig, an iconoclast and independent-thinker, has an editorial in this week’s Broadcasting and Cable in which he advocates precisely this solution. Larry also thinks that the Internet’s self-healing mechanisms will short-circuit any attempts by broadband providers to impose their own economic priorities on Internet content.
In politics, geeks are often described as anarcho-libertarians. Unlike Groucho Marx, this is a club I include myself in. “Hands off my computer” is our rallying cry. But there’s another axiom: “The Internet sees censorship as network outage, and routes around it.”
I would argue that the Internet will see differential pricing—a non-neutral Net—as just such an outage, and the venture world will finance all sorts of free wireless ways around it. The public wins.
Larry’s probably correct, but for some period of time, some services, certain kinds of content, could be killed off in the fragile environment while the Internet heals itself. Moreover, it could take years before viable competition gets off the ground.
So, cable operators and phone companies can’t be trusted not to get greedy, new laws could screw everything up and competition won’t solve anything for years to come.
What’s the solution, then? I’m with Princeton’s Ed Felten, who thinks the best option is to do nothing while at the same time threaten to do something. Keep broadband providers on the straight and narrow with the prospect of new regulations if they get out of hand. In other words, make broadband providers wary of stepping over the line by scaring them with the threat that if they do go too far, the government will crack down.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:46 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Web-movie delivery pioneer Intertainer is pursuing a bold strategy to capitalize on its first-mover status in the delivery of films over the Internet. The now-defunct company had filed what’s bound to be a lengthy patent lawsuit against Apple, Google and Napster, accusing the online giants (well, two of them are giants anyway) of infringing on the company’s 2005 patent that covers the distribution of audio and video over the Internet.
That Intertainer was one of the earliest players in the web delivery of films is without dispute. In 1997, I ran a seminar on interactive TV for Paul Kagan Associates in New York where Intertainer CEO Jonathan Taplin demo’ed the prototype for his company’s service. Without a doubt, Taplin’s presentation was the break-out hit of the event, and from there Intertainer went on to build a business with great promise. (Disclosure: Taplin has been a contributor to this blog on the topic of network neutrality. See here and here and here.)
But, Hollywood’s supply of hit films to Intertainer dried up when the studios formed their own online movie consortium, Movielink. Intertainer filed an antitrust suit against the studios (settled last year), but the company tanked, shuttering its business in 2002.
Despite its early-mover status, Intertainer didn’t file for a patent until 2001 — by that time, other companies, including Real Networks and Apple, were already engaging in the same kind of activity that appears to be covered by Intertainer’s patent. Intellectual property lawsuits are among the hardest to win, something lawyers for Apple, Google and Napster surely know. But they’re also among the most expensive kind of legal complaints to defend against — something lawyers for Intertainer surely know.
The real question here is whether Apple, et. al., are willing to possibly save money by paying off Intertainer, at the risk of inviting other patent holders (and there must be hundreds of patents involving the distribution of video and audio over the Internet, right?) to file comparable suits. Google, at least, is well known for fighting mightily against lawsuits, particularly in the intellectual property arena, simply to discourage any settlement-seekers.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:16 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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