Having read the \"Transcending Net Neutrality: Ten Steps Toward an Open Internet

Question

Having read the "Transcending Net Neutrality: Ten Steps Toward an Open Internet" and "SOPA and PIPA What Went Wrong" papers, write the Net Neutrality paper. Write a 4 page APA formatted paper that includes references to at least 3 external research sites. The paper consists of the front page, 3 or 4 content pages, and a reference page. Include graphs - full-page graphics will not count towards the number of pages. The paper is to reflect your opinions on the concepts and your experiences with content-based broadband throttling and your experiences with piracy protection (Yes, they are related.) Include research that supports your experiences. You all have experience with broadband speeds and piracy protection. Do you suspect your Internet speeds have been reduced at any time? Are you aware of any annoying piracy protections? What are your opinions on each?

Explanation / Answer

Transcending Net Neutrality: Ten Steps Toward an Open Internet

Network Neutrality

Should Internet users be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet?

Absract

The past few years have witnessed a once-obscure issue known as “net neutrality” blow up into arguably the most publicized policy debate in US telecommunications history. An untold story is how this relatively technical debate spilled outside the rarefied airs of Congressional Committees and the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) eighth floor to rage across the blogosphere, major newspapers, YouTube clips, and episodes of The Daily Show to become, if not a household phrase, a topic of popular debate involving millions of Americans. One explanation is that, at its root, the net neutrality debate is far more significant than a squabble among technocrats. Rather, it is first and foremost a normative debate, one that will determine the role of the Internet in a democratic society, with profound implications for the daily welfare of millions of citizens who rely on the Internet as a critical resource. Unfortunately, it is such normative concerns, along with related political and historical contexts, that have been least explored in much of the net neutrality scholarship to date. This article aims to address these gaps while expanding the parameters of the existing debate.

Network (or net) neutrality refers to a basic philosophy that all legal data and applications on the Internet, as long as they don’t harm the network, should be treated equally by Internet Service Providers (ISP's) and Broadband Service Providers (BSP's). Advocates for net neutrality believe that Congress and/or the Federal Communications Commission need to make it law in order to protect intellectual freedom, stop anti-competitive practices, and to stop BSP’s and ISP’s from secretly interfering with consumer choice. As early as 2002, Google CEO Eric Schmidt saw a threat to net neutrality in the ability of telephone and cable network operators to charge discriminatory and exorbitant fees to access networks (Travis, 2008, pp. 222-223). In 2006, a diverse group of organizations, including Moveon.org, the Christian Coalition, Gun Owners of America, the American Library Association, Google, Ebay, and Microsoft (just to name a few) issued a statement in support for net neutrality (Kraus, p. 8).
Most ISP's and BSP's oppose any regulation enforcing neutrality on their networks. They say that they need flexibility to manage the networks, especially at times of peak activity. Others object simply from a blanket opposition to government regulation.

Net Neutrality and Libraries

On March 1, 2010, the ALA sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski asking him to take decisive measures to protect net neutrality. The letter was cosigned by representatives of ten other library and higher education organizations (American Library Association, 2010). Among the reasons cited are:

1. To protect Intellectual Freedom

The ALA’s letter to Genachowski expresses concern that without regulation there is no guarantee of neutrality (American Library Association, 2010). Meinrath and Pickard (2008) list numerous occasions where BSP’s and ISP’s disrupted content and applications in ways that can only be described as censorship (p. 14). The cases listed clearly had nothing to do with network management but rather the content transmitted over the network. This is not a case where BSP’s and ISP’s might censor certain content without mandated neutrality. They already have.

2. To stop anti-competitive practices

The ALA’s letter to Genachowski expresses concern that BSP’s could degrade services from competitors’ video and telephone services (American Library Association, 2010).
Without mandated neutrality, these companies will continue to stifle competition and harm consumers. Comcast, for example, was caught disrupting their competitors twice.

3. To stop BSP’s and ISP’s from secretly interfering with consumer choice

The ALA letter to Genachowski expresses concern that new network management technologies make it possible for network operators to control traffic secretly (American Library Association, 2010). Comcast’s actions and the actions of other companies enumerated in Part 1 were done secretly, that is, with no notice to end users about how they were managing the network or why certain applications were blocked. Once again, this concern is not speculation. It has already happened.

4. Two-tiered access

One more concern is that BSP's will create a two-tiered system, where many content providers will be regulated to a slow network (). Networks with broadband speed would be only available to commercial interests who can afford to pay a high premium.

The ALA's Office of Information Technology Policy says of this type of system, "A world in which librarians and other noncommercial enterprises are of necessity limited to the Internet’s “slow lanes” while high-definition movies can obtain preferential treatment seems to us to be overlooking a central priority for a democratic society -- the necessity of enabling educators, librarians, and, in fact, all citizens to inform themselves and each other just as much as the major commercial and media interests can inform them."

Comcast v. FCC

In August 2005, the FCC adopted an Internet Policy Statement. This Statement contains four principles to protect consumers on the Internet: “[1]] the freedom to access the content of their choice; [2] the freedom to use the applications of their choice; [3] the freedom to access the Internet using their choice of devices; and [4] a marketplace that fosters ‘competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers’” (Hayes, 2009, pp. 506-507). It also allows for “the reasonable network management practices of the broadband providers,” and applies only to legal activity (Hayes, 2009, p. 507).

In 2008, the FCC found that Comcast was interfering with BitTorrent, a web application some websites use for streaming video and audio, and other Peer to Peer (or P2P) applications. They determined Comcast was engaging in anti-competitive practices against BitTorrent. Furthermore, Comcast’s indiscriminate disruption of P2P applications did not meet standards of “reasonable network management practices” (Hayes, 2009, p. 520). They ordered Comcast to disclose their network management practices and to stop its anti-competitive practices (Brauer-Rieke, 2009, p. 610).
Comcast appeared to comply at first, but in January, 2009, they were caught interfering with a competitor’s VoIP service. (VoIP is the technology used by Skype that allows people to make phone calls over their broadband connections). The FCC again asked Comcast to stop engaging in anti-competitive behavior. Comcast responded by filing an appeal, claiming that the FCC had no authority to regulate them through Adjudication (Hayes, 2009, pp. 521-522; Braur-Rieke, 2009, pp. 606-607). On April 6, 2010, a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the FCC overreached its authority against Comcast (Jayasuriya, 2010; Comcast v. FCC, 2010).
A primary objection of the Court of Appeals was that the FCC relied on a policy statement, which does not have the force of law (Jayasuriya, 2010; Comcast v. FCC, 2010). The FCC tried this. Using the language and principles of the Internet Policy Statement of 2005, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on October 22, 2009. To the original four principles, they added two more: nondiscrimination and transparency (Hayes, 2009, p. 507). In relation to the case, however, this occurred after the FCC ordered Comcast to change its practices. Therefore, at the time, the FCC did not have authority to regulate Comcast in how it managed its network, according to this court.

Next round

Dec. 2010: FCC approves new rules for net neutrality:
1) a transparency rule that requires fixed and wireless broadband-service providers to provide relevant information about their services to both consumers and to content, applications, and device providers; 2) a no-blocking rule that prevents fixed broadband providers from blocking content, applications, services or devices, subject to “reasonable network management,” and, in the mobile space, prevents the blocking of access to websites and applications that compete with voice or video telephony services, also subject to reasonable network management; and 3) a rule, applying only to fixed broadband, that prevents unreasonable discrimination by broadband providers in delivering the traffic on their networks.

April, 2011: Lawsuit from Verizon, MetroPCS, rejected by court as premature. House passes law to cancel new neutrality rules, but it fails in the Senate.

Sept. 23, 2011: Upon publication of the FCC's net neutrality rules, Verizon sues to stop rules from going into effect.

Nov. 10, 2011: Bill to stop FCC's net neutrality rules fails in the Senate, 52-46.

Nov. 20, 2011: Date neutrality rules went into effect.

References

American Library Association. (2010, March). Library, higher education groups call on FCC to adopt net neutrality principles. [Press Release].

Ammori, M. (2009, March). Beyond content neutrality: Understanding content-based promotion of democratic speech. Federal Communications Law Journal, 61(2), 273-324. Retrieved from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale:http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=EAIM&userGroupName=usclibs

Anderson, B. (2007). Net neutrality: What librarians should know. Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian, 25(2), 93-98.

Bailey, C. W. (2006, Sept). Strong copyright + DRM + weak net neutrality = digital dystopia?. Information Technology and Libraries, 25, 3. p.116(13). Retrieved from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=EAIM&userGroupName=usclibs

Barratt, N., & Shade, L. (2007). Net neutrality: Telecom policy and the public interest. Canadian Journal of Communication, 32(2), 295-305. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Brauer-Rieke, A. K. (2009, Wntr). The FCC tackles net neutrality: Agency jurisdiction and the Comcast order. Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 24(1), 593-615. Retrieved from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=EAIM&userGroupName=usclibs

Burstein, A. J., & Schneider, F. B. (2009, June). Trustworthiness as a limitation on network neutrality. Federal Communications Law Journal, 61(3), 591-623. Retrieved from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=EAIM&userGroupName=usclibs


Crawford, S. P. (2007, Spring). Network rules. Law and Contemporary Problems, 70(2), 51-90. Retrieved from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale:
http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=EAIM&userGroupName=usclibs

Greyson, D. (2010, March). Net neutrality: a library issue. Feliciter, 56(2), 57-59. Retrieved from General OneFile via Gale:http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=ITOF&userGroupName=usclibs

Hayes, C. M. (2009, Fall). Content discrimination on the Internet: calls for regulation of net neutrality. University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy, 2009(2), 493-525. Retrieved from Academic OneFile via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=AONE&userGroupName=usclibs

Jayasuriya, M. (2010, April 6). D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Comcast/BitTorrent Decision is out [Blog, Updated]. Public Knowledge. Retrieved fromhttp://www.publicknowledge.org/node/2987

Kraus, D. (2006, Sept). Net neutrality and how it just might change everything.(Washington). American Libraries, 37(8), 8-9. Retrieved from Academic OneFile via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=AONE&userGroupName=usclibs

Meinrath, S., & Pickard, V. (2008). Transcending net neutrality: Ten steps toward an open Internet. Journal of Internet Law, 12(6), 1-21. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.

Newman, J. L. (Fall 2008). Keeping the Internet neutral: Net neutrality and its role in protecting political expression on the Internet. Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal (COMM-ENT), 31, 1. p.153-171. Retrieved from Academic OneFile via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=AONE&userGroupName=usclibs

Rosston, G. L., & Topper, M. D. (2010, March). An antitrust analysis of the case for wireless network neutrality. Information Economics and Policy, 22( 1), 103-119. Retrieved from Academic OneFile via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=AONE&userGroupName=usclibs

Travis, H. (2008, Annual). The future according to Google: technology policy from the standpoint of America's fastest-growing technology company. Yale Journal of Law & Technology, 11, 209-227. Retrieved from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=EAIM&userGroupName=usclibs

US Senate. (2011, Nov. 10). Roll call votes 112th Congress, 1st Session.
Wong, R., & Garrie, D. B. (2008, Summer). Network neutrality: Laissez-faire approach or not?. Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal, 34(2), 315-366. Retrieved from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=EAIM&userGroupName=usclibs

Yoo, C. S. (2010, Wntr). Innovations in the Internet's architecture that challenge the status quo. Journal on Telecommunications & High Technology Law, 8(1), 79-99. Retrieved from Academic OneFile via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=AONE&userGroupName=usclibs

SOPA and PIPA What Went Wrong

The furor over SOPA and PIPA has died down, but the bills have not gone away.

In fact, there’s more reason than ever to pay close attention to the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261) and the Senate’s corresponding Protect Intellectual Property Act (S.968). These acts, while perhaps well-intentioned, are not well-written and could cause serious damage to the free flow of information on the Internet.

That’s why VentureBeat opposes SOPA and PIPA.

At the peak of yesterday’s SOPA protests and website blackouts, it might have been easy to draw the conclusion that the tide was moving against these flawed bills and that they are doomed. Not so: They have merely been delayed. That’s why it’s more important than ever to pay close attention to what Congress is doing.

VentureBeat has had much internal discussion about the proposed anti-piracy legislation. There is a lot of misinformation — or perhaps misinterpretation — about what SOPA/PIPA is, how SOPA/PIPA will affect the internet, why SOPA/PIPA bad, etc. Understandably, it can get confusing.

Based on our own reporting, we’ve concluded that both SOPA and PIPA are flawed a pieces of legislation, regardless of future amendments or rewrites. VentureBeat firmly opposes both bills because they have the potential to harm the tech industry and hinder the pace of innovation. And while we’re against SOPA/PIPA, we do not support piracy.

Below is a list of things about SOPA and PIPA worth considering before reaching your own conclusion about the proposed legislation.

1) What the heck is SOPA? PIPA?

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) — together with the corresponding Senate Protect IP Act (PIPA) — is a proposed piece of legislation intended to curb online piracy. As the bills are currently written, they gives both the U.S. government and copyright holders the authority to seek court orders against foreign-operated websites associated with infringing, pirating or counterfeiting intellectual property. If either bill becomes law, it could drastically change the way the Internet operates. For the full scope of information about the bills, check out VentureBeat’s ongoing SOPA/PIPA coverage.

2) Which U.S. political party is displaying the most support for SOPA/PIPA?

The answer is both — meaning both Republicans and Democrats are showing overwhelming support for these proposed pieces of legislation. If you need further proof, you should note who wrote the bills: SOPA was authored by Rep. Lamar Smith (R – Texas), while PIPA was authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D – Vt.). The White House has voiced its concerns about the legislation, but does agree that some kind of anti-piracy law is needed to protect American companies. It’s also worth noting that former sen. Christopher Dodd (D – Conn.) is now head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which is one of the groups pushing for these bills to go through.

3) How do SOPA/PIPA intend to block websites?

The bills allow the U.S. Department of Justice as well as copyright holders to seek out and prosecute foreign sites that commit acts of piracy. The DOJ needs a court order before it can proceed, which it can obtain if the site in question is operated by an organization outside of the U.S. or the owner of the website’s domain doesn’t have adequate contact information.

Once a court order has been served, there are three main tools these bills give the DOJ and copyright holders for blocking websites. The first involves having an internet service provider (like Comcast, for example) block the site’s Domain Name Service (DNS) record. To do this, ISPs would be required to lower the level of security needed to verify each site’s identity and protect against malicious hackers. This also means SOPA/PIPA actually make the internet far less secure than it currently is.

Authors of both bills have wavered on their stance when it comes to DNS blocking. Smith previously stated that he intends to remove the DNS blocking stipulation from SOPA. Leahy admitted that more study is needed regarding DNS blocking, but hasn’t gone as far as to say he will remove it from PIPA. Regardless of either author’s stated intentions, both bills in their current form still include DNS blocking as a means to stop piracy.

Even if DNS blocking is removed from both SOPA and PIPA, the legislation still offers two tools to block websites. The second method of blocking involves mandating that major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) de-index an accused site from their search results. The logic behind this action is that if you can’t search for sites that commit acts of piracy, then most people won’t be able to find those sites, and they will eventually die.

And finally, the third way prohibits any site accused of piracy from doing business with other services, such as PayPal or any advertising platform. If organizations that are selling pirated goods can’t use secure transaction services to collect purchases, they can’t make money. The same is true for ad networks.

4) Which sites can be blocked under SOPA/PIPA?

Contrary to much of the Internet hype, both the SOPA and PIPA bills would not be able to immediately shut down sites like YouTube and Reddit. The bills are going after sites that are operated by foreign organizations that are making money off of counterfeit goods and/or streaming media illegally. The bills, as written by their authors, won’t go after U.S. blogs or news sites. If a U.S. site is found violating copyrights, its subject to the laws that currently exist in the U.S., primarily the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) (.pdf file) and prior copyright law.

Despite the foreign-site targeting, SOPA and PIPA could eventually turn into a huge nightmare for many U.S.-based sites, especially those with an audience that extend beyond the borders of this country. Since the definition for what’s considered a “foreign site” is vague within SOPA/PIPA, it could potentially allow some copyright holders to mount convincing legal attacks against some U.S. companies that operate internationally or allow foreign users to contribute to a U.S. site. That ambiguity alone has many Internet companies concerned.

5) How will this affect tech startups, innovation, and Google?

Because of vague definitions for “foreign sites,” critics fear that SOPA/PIPA will allow larger companies to sue smaller startups over copyright violations. Even if smaller startups end up winning legal battles over whether or not they violated SOPA/PIPA, the mere threat of a battle has the potential to ruin a company.

For instance, Veoh founder Dmitry Shapiro recently explained how his former company was “litigated to death” after Universal Music Group filed multiple lawsuits claiming that Veoh had violated the DMCA. These lawsuits eliminated Veoh’s ability to attract new investors and spend lots of time and money fighting in the courtroom. Eventually, Shapiro said Veoh was forced to lay off the majority of its employees and sell itself at a low “fire sale” price. While the courts eventually ruled that Veoh hadn’t violated DMCA, the company was essentially ruined. If SOPA/PIPA is permitted to repeat history like DMCA lawsuits did with Veoh, future innovative startups may have a harder time achieving success.

As for Google, it doesn’t like SOPA/PIPA because it essentially allows the government to influence its search results. This is a dangerous precedent, even though the proposed legislation is only trying to de-index sites that commit acts of piracy. Google has already faced legal opposition overseas — for instance, China places restrictions on what content Google can present in search results — and a U.S. challenge would only lend credence to other nations’ attempts to limit what a search engine can do.

6) What is Congress’ motivation to get an anti-piracy bill passed?

It’s easy to give a blanket statement about how members of Congress who support SOPA/PIPA are motivated by money from lobbyist groups that make large financial contributions to their re-election campaigns. That may be the case.

However, it also appears that they’ve been led to believe that these particular bills will thwart organizations operating in other countries that make money off of pirated content. They’d like to stop sites from stealing content and generating advertising revenue from it. It makes sense from this perspective, and piracy is a real and growing problem.

But SOPA/PIPA has the potential to go beyond limiting just foreign copyright pirates, which is why most of the tech business community is speaking out against it.

7) Who is in favor of SOPA/PIPA?

The majority of major media companies (Comcast, News Corp., Disney, Universal Music, Warner Music, etc.) and organizations that support media companies (MPAA, RIAA, etc.) are in favor of SOPA. OpenCongress has a up-to-date list of organizations supporting SOPA and PIPA.

As for congressional support, there are currently 33 co-sponsors for PIPA and 30 co-sponsors for SOPA. Many congressional contact pages were displaying “Technical Difficulties” messages during the height of the protests yesterday, according to The Verge, which is no doubt due to a high number of constituents wishing to voice their opinions on the matter to their representatives in Washington.

8) Who is against SOPA/PIPA?

Plenty of organizations have come out in protest of the proposed bills, including (but not limited to) Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Wikipedia, Cheezburger Network, WordPress, Mozilla, The Internet Archive and many others. We’ve also compiled a list of SOPA/PIPA protest screenshots from sites opposing the bills as well as a list of gaming companies opposing SOPA and PIPA. In addition to opposition through organizations and businesses, hundreds of people gathered to protest SOPA in New York City today and over 3 million people have signed an anti- SOPA/PIPA petition online.

9) When will the House and Senate vote on these bills?

The House has pushed back all markup (debate, amendments, rewrites) forSOPA until February. We don’t have an official date for when a vote will take place on SOPA beyond that. PIPA, on the other hand, will be sent to the Senate floor for a vote on Jan. 24.

10) How can I get involved?

The best way to make an impact regarding the future of SOPA and PIPA is to contact your local congressperson, as VentureBeat’s Jolie O’Dell previously outlined. Taking our own advice, we also decided to call Congress in this week’sVB Weekly webcast.

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