Newsmaker: An Internet for the few or the many?

(continued from previous page)

The Senate Commerce Committee last week began to mark up a vast communications bill that would give the FCC the authority to adopt its controversial "broadcast flag" rules again for protecting against copying over-the-air content. How do you feel about those rules being reinstated?
Copps: Well, I voted for the inclusion of the broadcast flag originally a couple of years ago. The courts overturned that, so we are bereft of that authority right now.

It's a very difficult area. The FCC is not a principle player in copyright and things like that. But moving into this digital age, we're not going to make this digital transition unless there are some rules of the road. So if Congress in its wisdom decides that the FCC should be given this authority to do what it tried to do a few years ago, that's fine with me.

Congress recently decided to increase indecency fines on broadcasters tenfold. Do you think that's an effective mechanism for deterring the sort of content they're targeting? Does the FCC have any plans to wade further into this area and make new regulations?
Copps: I think it's important to us. There (are) roles for everyone in this decency discussion. There's obviously a role for parents. Maybe that's the critical role--to exercise control over their television, over their children, and over their homes. There's a role for industry...to make controls available and to educate people, help people understand how to use those tools.

Those who expect us to just put out a piece of paper and say, this is what's indecent and this is not, are looking for the impossible.

But it's not just that. There's also an obligation on industry to produce family friendly programming during those hours when Congress has stipulated that we can't have indecency on the airwaves. And I think the industry needs to do a lot more there. For example, the FCC, our obligation is to enforce the law and try to bring some clarity to what is indecent and what is not. We don't have total clarity there yet.

But those who expect us to just put out a piece of paper and say, this is what's indecent and this is not, are looking for the impossible. You have to build that up over the course of jurisprudence and look at specific context. But you have to enforce the law. But we also have to bring some clarity to it. And this is an additional tool Congress has given us to increase the fines. I'm happy that the new legislation doesn't get into the concept of fining performers for something said on the air. Our recourse is to the licensor and the station owner. I don't think the FCC has any business going after the performer.

It's a difficult sensitive subject. We have to get a balance. That's why I go back to: There's a role for everybody. Don't just put it all on one group, or look to the FCC, or whatever. Parents, industry and government together can solve this. If we had had that approach 20 years ago, we wouldn't have all these battles going on right now, because there would have been some self-discipline exercised along the way.

What's the No. 1 thing on the FCC's agenda for the rest of the year?
Copps: The No. 1 thing on my agenda is this debate over media consolidation. It's so important, not just to the quality of entertainment that we are served up, but it's important to the vitality of our democratic process.

We have to get back to more localism, more diversity, more competition. (We need to) tee up issues so the American people have the information they need to make good decisions for the future of our country.

Will there be any change in the dynamic there, now that you have returned to a full slate of commissioners--with a 3-2 Republican majority?
Copps: Well, we'll see. On balance, I think it's good to have a full commission, even though that puts me into the minority. But I think that's the way the commission is intended to function.

The next thing I'd like to see is Congress change the law so the five of us can get together and talk together. Right now we are precluded from meeting more than one person at a time. It would be very nice if all...the commissioners could sit down (together) and work their way through these problems.

What advice would you give the technology industry right now?
Copps: Get involved. Decisions without you are decisions against you. Technology innovation and entrepreneurs have already paid a price because of their not being fully involved in public policy debates in Washington. Those who want to go in another direction are well-represented, well-entrenched and well-financed.

It's a steep climb, but I think these issues have the kind of public interest, common interest and impact that those who believe as I believe have a lot to build on. And I'm an optimist. With a lot of hard work, I think they can prevail on these issues and make sure that all these wonderful new technologies that we have serve the purposes that they were intended to serve in the first place, and not change into something that they were never intended to be.

More Newsmakers

[R Me]

Back to the stoneage

This is a hidden plus for the small and regional ISP'swho are slowly drying because their dial-up customers are switchingto broadband connections.

Yup, you heard me right. So why?

Well, when my broadband becomes useless and bittorrent is blocked and only M$, yahoo, google and other large $$ corporate sites are on the "fast track" then I might as well save $40 month and go back to dial-up and put them all on level playing field.

But then again maybe the powers that be will gain some insight in time to stop this idiocy...Nah.

[tnt1954]

1993 donahue, future discussed

they introduced the coming internet society
on donahue's talk show. it might have been
earlier than 1993. many felt there were so
many unstable people in the world, this new
society would not be a good, or safe one.
in fact the introduction of the internet society would cause many 'normal' people to become
abnormal. it would be a bad influence on the
human mind. rather like the control data
institute commercials of the 1960's, where
people were intimidated into learning computers,
so this whole internet society has been
caused by overt coercion. in the beginning was
the computer and it made itself. its creator
totally forgotten.

[Scott Cleland]

"Its all about control"

Commissioner Copps take on net neutrality is interesting becuase he probably could be credited as the "father" of the grass roots net neutrality movement. He is the one that shrewdly politically linked net neutrality and media consolidation as two sides of the same political coin -- meaning both were about keeping big companies from controlling both distribution and content.

In his CNET interview, he says that net nuetrality and media consolidation are "about the same thing." "It's all about control -- can you control both the distribution and the content. And when you do that, it is of course a clasic recipe for monopoly."

With all due respect to Commissioner Copps, I have to challenge that his monoploization thesis does not square with the facts. The Internet and convergence have inalterably shifted competition from the intra-modal "silo" competition that occurred before to the inter-modal, cross-technology competitive free-for-all of today. Any definition of monopolization focuses on the ability to restrict supply and to raise prices. All the evidence points to an explosion of supply, and new voices, more people have more ways to communicate and distribute content than ever before -- and real prices are coming down.

Combining distribution and content can be very pro-competitive. Arbitraily and preemptively blocking the combination of distribution and content blocks more consumer choices and benefits, degrades competition and freedom, and impairs innovation and investment in new technologies and business models. Government regulatory interference is the biggest threat to a free and open Internet, not more competition and integration of distribution technologies and content.

In closing, I agee with Commissioner Copps that this debate is "all about control". However, it appears to be more about maintaining government control over the marketplace than anything else.

[dknews]

Distinguish transport from applications

The Internet was always regulated for non-discriminatory data transport from the get-go, while leaving applications free from constraints.

It is this combination of the original common-carrier architecture of TCP/IP with the freedom of application development that has fueled the explosion in innovation on the Internet.

So conflating these two domains in talking about "control" is completely misleading. What has changed recently is the classification of broadband access as "information services" instead of falling under the domain of "telecommunications services" which remain regulated as common carrier, and rightly so. Net Neutrality (especially as applied to the data transport layer) would simply return us to the original regulatory framework that powered innovation on the Internet. Abandoning NN threatens that innovation, and provides leverage for increased market power by those offering broadband access.

This is about more than "pricing" (though that is a bogus excuse for the telcos), it is about the means for leveraging pricing -- i.e., private content control.

The Internet has risen to the level of public utility in the present day, and thus it should be treated and regulated as such. No private interests should be allowed to control our communications without oversight in the public interest, because those communications are the bedrock of fair markets and broad citizen voice in governance processes.

Yes, it's all about control (of free speech, not just of prices), and we should not give it away to access providers. If we have to choose whom to allow to control the market, at least public government has some mechanisms of public accountability (and keeping the Internet strictly nondiscriminatory can help to ehnace those mechanisms). Private firms are accountable to no one but their shareholders, and maybe not even them. The "invisible hand" is not so apparent in a world where there are still a tiny number of local options for broadband access in any particular locality -- multimodal or otherwise. We can't rely on market competition to make these firms accountable, if they all share common market interests that diverge from public interests that extend well beyond pricing.

It sure doesn't look like a competitive market to me, as the baby bells continue to re-acquire each other and local options remain typically limited to about two choices. Duopolies are not competitive markets. Economists call this an "oligopoly" and market signalling tactcs can still provide a way to avoid anti-trust prosecution (at least pending the outcome of the case that SCOTUS just agreed to hear regarding AT&T).

I'm with Copps on this one.

The only control that the government has imposed on the Internet in the past is that which precludes the data transport companies from controlling what we do on the Internet. That's a good kind of control -- it balaces the power of companies that would otherwise have us under their thumb. Balance of power is good.

If the government removes that oversight, then private forces will be free to ignore the public interest in their dealings, and no effective market forces will be present to rein them in.

Control is a fact of life, it cannot be removed. The only question is who does the controlling. Frankly, I'd be a lot more confortable with a publicly-accountable entity having contrtol than a private entity. I don't trust private entities to respond to any incentive other than those that favor them. As an individual customer I have insignificant leverage to influence the company that provides my Internet access, and if all the choices are equally bad, then I have no means to influence the market.

I see no reason to expedct that any significant amount of market competition will provide meaningful alternatives, especially since broadband service now is not mandated for CLEC-type rules of competition.

Claims of "competition" in broadband service provision are what is unproven here, and until that can be demonstrated convincingly, we ought not experiment with our freedom of speech and the level playing field of our information market.

[dknews]

Distinguish transport from applications

The Internet was always regulated for non-discriminatory data transport from the get-go, while leaving applications free from constraints.

It is this combination of the original common-carrier architecture of TCP/IP with the freedom of application development that has fueled the explosion in innovation on the Internet.

So conflating these two domains in talking about "control" is completely misleading. What has changed recently is the classification of broadband access as "information services" instead of falling under the domain of "telecommunications services" which remain regulated as common carrier, and rightly so. Net Neutrality (especially as applied to the data transport layer) would simply return us to the original regulatory framework that powered innovation on the Internet. Abandoning NN threatens that innovation, and provides leverage for increased market power by those offering broadband access.

This is about more than "pricing" (though that is a bogus excuse for the telcos), it is about the means for leveraging pricing -- i.e., private content control.

The Internet has risen to the level of public utility in the present day, and thus it should be treated and regulated as such. No private interests should be allowed to control our communications without oversight in the public interest, because those communications are the bedrock of fair markets and broad citizen voice in governance processes.

Yes, it's all about control (of free speech, not just of prices), and we should not give it away to access providers. If we have to choose whom to allow to control the market, at least public government has some mechanisms of public accountability (and keeping the Internet strictly nondiscriminatory can help to ehnace those mechanisms). Private firms are accountable to no one but their shareholders, and maybe not even them. The "invisible hand" is not so apparent in a world where there are still a tiny number of local options for broadband access in any particular locality -- multimodal or otherwise. We can't rely on market competition to make these firms accountable, if they all share common market interests that diverge from public interests that extend well beyond pricing.

It sure doesn't look like a competitive market to me, as the baby bells continue to re-acquire each other and local options remain typically limited to about two choices. Duopolies are not competitive markets. Economists call this an "oligopoly" and market signalling tactcs can still provide a way to avoid anti-trust prosecution (at least pending the outcome of the case that SCOTUS just agreed to hear regarding AT&T).

I'm with Copps on this one.

The only control that the government has imposed on the Internet in the past is that which precludes the data transport companies from controlling what we do on the Internet. That's a good kind of control -- it balaces the power of companies that would otherwise have us under their thumb. Balance of power is good.

If the government removes that oversight, then private forces will be free to ignore the public interest in their dealings, and no effective market forces will be present to rein them in.

Control is a fact of life, it cannot be removed. The only question is who does the controlling. Frankly, I'd be a lot more confortable with a publicly-accountable entity having contrtol than a private entity. I don't trust private entities to respond to any incentive other than those that favor them. As an individual customer I have insignificant leverage to influence the company that provides my Internet access, and if all the choices are equally bad, then I have no means to influence the market.

I see no reason to expedct that any significant amount of market competition will provide meaningful alternatives, especially since broadband service now is not mandated for CLEC-type rules of competition.

Claims of "competition" in broadband service provision are what is unproven here, and until that can be demonstrated convincingly, we ought not experiment with our freedom of speech and the level playing field of our information market.

[David Trammel]

Maybe The Commis can explain it

Not to go off topic, since this article was about Net Neutrality, but anyone whose run across my comments to other articles here on CNET know I'm a bit of a fanatic about the First Amendment and all the government seems to be doing lately to gut it.

<<But those who expect us to just put out a piece of paper and say, this is what's indecent and this is not, are looking for the impossible.>>

Thanks for the clarification there Commissioner. (NOT!!!)

I still don't understand, how do you justify making something a crime (like posting a naked picture), yet can't tell anyone clearly just what makes it criminal (and so keep me from committing the crime in the first place?)

Wait and defend myself in court? Must be nice to have the public's dime to do that on.

This goes to the whole root of the so called limit on Free Speech just because the image or subject is "indecent". What you define as obscene and what I define as obscene is never the same. Yet if I'm wrong I face tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills and prison.

And as for the Miller Decision which set forth that clear cut set of criteria for what's obscene. Here's what they said. A work is obscene if it meets these three things:
"(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards," would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, . . . (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

Supreme Court Justice Douglas writing the desent said:
"Those are the standards we ourselves [we meaning the United States Supreme Court] have written into the Constitution. Yet how under these vague tests can we sustain convictions for the sale of an article prior to the time when some court has declared it to be obscene?"

But the Commissioner has no problem fining people hundreds of dollars first on something you don't know is obscene to begin with.

And as for letting a jury decide, it used to be that you would face a jury of your peers in your own locale. That way, if you were an adult bookstore in LA, at least you faced the community standards of LA. Now the Administration shops the case around. Make a film in California, get tried in West Virgina (where the community standard is much more conservative.)

Talk about chilling Free Speech. Pro-censorship people don't have to defend their views if they simply make the cost of speaking your mind (and getting the boundaries wrong) so sky high as to make people unwilling to risk it.

Trampling on the 1st Amendment through vagueness is still trampling the 1st Amendment.

[laramaral]

the snowe amendment

Here's a link tot he actual amendment that was proposed to protect internet access and has so far failed to be included.

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2917:" target="_newWindow">http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2917:</a>

if this link dies you can google Snowe 2917 to get a link to the amendment.