Bills have been introduced in the House and the Senate this week to restore the parts of the FCC's Open Internet Order that were recently struck down in a federal appeals court (thanks Verizon).
The text of the House version of the bill simply restores what we had until a few weeks ago, until such time that the FCC can draft new rules.
I see this as good and bad. Good for the short term - broadband is once again charged with delivering your internet and banned from playing favorites (deciding which sites or content providers get priority and which ones get shafted - this is why musicians should be very concerned and involved in this fight).
Bad because... well, now the FCC MUST write new rules that it thinks will be upheld in the courts. Who knows how they'll go about this? We can hope they write a nice bit about protecting us, but we've all seen what can happen when you hope a federal agency does the right thing.
Ok, I'll try to stay optimistic.
But while reading on this issue, I realized something I hadn't thought about before. Stupid ISPs, thinking only of the potential profits to be made by charging more for certain types of content or giving preferential treatment to certain content providers, apparently haven't thought about the nightmare of liability they would also be creating.
From techcrunch.com :
And there is a simple question of who decides. If ISPs can censor and slow at will, what can stop activist networks from pushing on those companies to halt what they do not approve of? If a religious group called Comcast complicit in hate speech for delivering content Internet users requested that they found blasphemous, what can Comcast do? We’re removing their shield of “we deliver all to all equally,” which could harm ISPs down the road.
Three years ago thousands of artists joined together to deliver a message to Congress - protect the Open Internet Act. Now, it looks like it's time to do the same thing again, but your voice is needed. You can start by sending a letter to the FCC urging them to reclassify broadband as a communications service.
Contact your Representive and Senator and urge them to support the bill restoring the FCC's Open Internet Order. If you don't know who or how to contact your rep, this site is great : http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/.
Learn more. Educate others. Stay involved. If you're a musician, this is crucial to your future livelihood. Here's a great site to get more info and stay involved : http://www.savetheinternet.com/sti-home
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