[opendtv] Re: Multichannel News: New York Governor Mandates Net Neutrality in Contracts
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 10:29:37 -0500
On Jan 30, 2018, at 8:12 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The issue here had nothing to do with Comcast being the good cop on the beat.
It had to do with Comcast not wanting users creating a lot of network
traffic. BitTorrent doesn't HAVE to involve copyright infringement.
But it did involve copyright infringement Bert - the case ultimately turned on
the fact that some uses of bit torrent were legal.
Thus as John noted, Comcast, and virtually every other ISP that sees
subscribers using massive bandwidth to violate copyrights, have refined the
strategy to control this abuse. They now warn subscribers that they are
violating copyrights; if the abuse continues they cancel the account.
It's more generally a way to circumvent the very slow uplink speeds of the
past. (Now, FiOS offers always symmetric speeds up and down, which kind of
negates any advantage of BitTorrent, at least among FiOS users.) Comcast said
no, we don't have to carry that traffic, BECAUSE we are not a common carrier.
And the FCC had no legal backing to say BS, you are supposed to be neutral,
you have no right to decide what users can send.
No Bert. They were being pressured by copyright owners to solve the problem. In
the end the industry shifted tactics to comply with the court ruling.
Remember this classic Bert?
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American
public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
That was an attempt by the content owners to prohibit VCRs.
When they came to grips with reality they built a massive new industry - the
ability to sell content direct to consumers. The new reality is that the
content owners are now able to sell direct to consumers via the
Internet...legally.
Regards
Craig
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