You can’t see tits on the radio

If you’ve been paying attention to anything over the past few years (or at least the past few days for some of  you) you’ll know something about Net Neutrality. At least you may have heard the term. What you may not know is what it actually is. Basically the FCC wants you to have the right to use your Internet enabled devices however the fuck you choose to (computer, VOIP phone, etc), using whatever software you want to on those devices, as long as the devices, software, and your activities on the Internet are all legal.

This idea is nothing new, it’s been around for about four years, but the reason you are hearing about it now (if you are just now hearing about it for the first time) is because the FCC is adding to their existing Net Neutrality rules. They are expanding them so that Internet Service Providers (ISP) like Time Warner Cable, or [insert your local Internet provider here], can’t limit, or control your access to legal content.

Why this is important is because large ISPs, in an initial effort to manage their networks, would like to throttle or block certain traffic heavy websites (like YouTube, WoW, Facebook, Hulu, etc) at peak load times on their networks. Sounds logical at first, but where this ends up is with a tiered based pricing structure from your ISP. They would also like to squelch their own competition.

Say you really like watching movies online through Hulu, Netflix, or even videos at YouTube. Under a tiered pricing structure, since those are heavy load sites, you would now have to pay a premium—on top of your basic Internet package price—to have access to those sites during the ISP’s peak hours. Or, let’s say that you really like watching Hulu, but Time Warner Cable is rolling out their own Movies On Demand Online service. They know that you’ll probably not want to subscribe to their service if you are getting free movies from Hulu, so they may choose to block your access to their competitor in order to drive business to their service. I use Hulu as an example only because it’s free NOW, even though they’ll begin charging you in 2010 for the same service.

Now I’d bet that the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), who would typically lean against further regulation of their industry, may actually be for Net Neutrality, at least with the smaller content providers. That doesn’t mean that the power players who run NAB aren’t fully against Net Neutrality, much like SAG members disagree with the producer/actors running their guild, I’m sure there’s a rift. The “cream” floating at the top has a lot to gain by throttling everything you have access to on the Internet. Afterall, the Internet has many “competing entertainment choices” and that means competition for media providers like those running the NAB. But Net Neutrality is what is keeping the doors open right now for their smaller members to compete.

I’m sure my own company may be against Net Neutrality, as well as the rest of my industry, because we are constantly trying to monetize an asset that in the Internet age has been thought should be free. Partnerships with ISPs could actually end up re-monetizing the movie and music industry’s content. And I’m sure I can agree with the idea that we should be paid for all the hard work that goes into providing entertainment for you to steal. But as a user of the Internet, as a media provider (even if it’s in the form of rants on this blog, or those things I do for my paying gig), and a belief that I should be allowed to view whatever legal content I want on my Internet enabled device, I tend to think that Net Neutrality is beneficial to us.

Just so you know where I’m coming from. I’m not a politician. I do not get paid by lobbyists to take their stand on an issue. I not only know how to turn on my computer, but I know how to surf the web.