In the war against terrorism and media piracy the lines have been drawn - or have they? Highly visible is the conflict between the pipe owners and the content pushers, but are secret deals and treaties that affect the global use of the Internet, music, and movies being made out of the public eye?
"May you live in interesting times" is an ancient Chinese curse.With the failure of the US housing market due to sub-prime loans and the mortgage crisis, the recent failures and fire sales of the big mortgage banks, the turmoil in the markets, involvement in foreign wars, and a presidential campaign in full smear, we certainly seem to be living in interesting times.
While these matters have diverted or concerned us, certain policies, conditions, and secret events that will affect how we use the Internet and the Information Superhighway and how much we pay for it have evolved, almost unnoticed, in the background. These will also affect how we use music and movies and have terms that compromise our privacy.
Here are some facts to get us started.
- In August, 2007 AT&T performed a bit of surgery to a Lollapalooza webcast. Live fans got to see Pearl Jam start their song “Daughter.” It flowed and merged during the performance and became Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” Eddie Vedder replaced some of the lyrics with “George Bush, leave this world alone/George Bush, find yourself another home. “ AT&T edited it out.
- At Macworld 08 in January, Steve Jobs announced downloadable movie rentals through iTunes. Most movies are between 1 and 1.5 gigabyte in size. Since that time, they’ve included much larger high-definition movies through the Apple TV set-top boxes. These travel to customers, of course, over the Internet.
- In April, 2008, an AT&T vice president told a UK group that, without investment, the Internet will no longer be able to cope with the data load after 2010. "The surge in online content is at the center of the most dramatic changes affecting the Internet today," he said. "In three years' time, twenty typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today." (The sky is falling.)
- According to Comscore, Americans watched 12 billion videos online in May 2008. About 35% of that 12 billion were from Google properties such as YouTube.
- Also in May, Verizon Wireless, having already admitted to a secret 5 GB cap in their “unlimited” wireless data plan, announced their new plan for existing subscribers (those having a plan prior to March 3, 2008). Succinctly, it said that users exceeding 5 GB in one billing period would have their download speed throttled to 200 kbs for the next thirty days. We don’t need you: “. . . if you are unhappy with these changes, you may cancel your BroadbandAccess service within 60 days of receiving this notice with no early-termination fee. “ This was after “I got the letter” and “Verizon terminated my service” became popular topics at evdoforums.com.
- There are about 237 million Internet users in the US. This represents approximately 71% market penetration.
We have indeed arrived at some interesting times. On one side are the Internet carriers and ISPs. The biggest carriers also tend to be ISPs. Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and Comcast are examples. They want to keep things balanced and control the size of their own pipes. They don’t mind your blogging or watching YouTube (at least, not much), but they want to be the sole provider of your movies. The thought of users actually downloading their huge entertainment through their pipes has these big boys concerned. This keeps lawyers employed. Caps and metering may be only their opening salvoes.
On the other side are the content owners and purveyors – the studios, the online radio stations, iTunes, Amazon Video on Demand (nee “unBox”), Movielink, and all those mischievous pornographers. Although they are conflicted and deathly afraid of piracy, they also want you to have unfettered access to the content that they sell you – downloadable tunes (“tracks”), temporary music (“streaming video”) and movies. The movie studios want you to rent your movies, preferably at the full purchase price, if they could have their way. Rented movies disappear from your PC or set-top box after you watch them, sort of like the recording tapes in Mission Impossible.
Of course, this is just the public face of the flap between two not disinterested parties. While we’ve been watching these antics, something far more potentially dangerous has been going on.
Next: ACTA, ACTA Origins, and US Border Searches