Yes, it can get worse.
Two weeks ago, I told you how a small, ideologically rigid group was "swift boating" their fellow Democrats and sucking all of the oxygen out of meaningful tech policy solutions in Washington over an issue few Americans are even paying attention to.
The Obama Administration? They're staffed with "crash test dummies." Large unions? They're slaves beholden to "corporate masters."
Congressional Democrats, including large numbers of the Black and Hispanic Caucuses? They're "willing to sell out their president and their constituents."
Now they've added another Democratic scalp to their collection: Congressman Henry Waxman, one of the strongest supporters in Congress for labor and creators.
On September 30th, Multichannel News reported that Free Press was working furiously behind the scenes to kill Congressman Waxman's net neutrality legislation. According to the story, Free Press president Josh Silver warned the Open Internet Coalition in an email that if it supported Waxman, Free Press would pull out of the group.
Flash forward to last week when Free Press campaign director Tim Karr claimed with stratospheric chutzpah that Congressman Waxman was trying to "craft a bipartisan compromise on Net Neutrality only to have his bill deep-sixed by hostile Republicans."
I'd like to say I'm surprised, but unfortunately I'm not. After all, this is an organization that calls itself "Free Press" while advocating turning over the power to censor the Internet to the FCC.
This is an organization that wants to discriminate against copyright owner's rights to set up premium content delivery channels that will give consumers faster, safer, and better legal content to help fight piracy. They insist that we continue to have to compete on a 'level playing field' with sites like Pirate Bay who steal our work and give it away.
They talk only about a "free and open" Internet but never about a "just and fair" Internet.
Sure, radical interests on the right (like the Tea Party) helped kill Waxman's legislation by pressuring Republicans. But as Multichannel News and others make abundantly clear, radical interests on the left were just as responsible.
You see, consensus and compromise to foster an Internet environment that's fast and fair for everyone -- even when you've got staunch progressives like Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and Public Knowledge at the table - isn't acceptable to the Free Pressers. For them, net neutrality is all about the politics.
But while Free Press and the Tea Party don't get it, Congressman Waxman does: After thanking CFA, Consumers Union, and Public Knowledge for their "steadfast advocacy on behalf of consumers" (note Free Press was conspicuously not mentioned), Waxman went on to lament that "this development is a loss for consumers and a gain only for the extremes."
As in... The Tea Party and Free Press perhaps? Tea Partiers boycotted and Free Press launched its own behind-the-scenes fusillade against the Chairman's bill.
The result: Waxman has shelved what would have been a clear-cut victory for progressives and for the Obama Administration.
It also would have been a victory for the overwhelmingly Democratic constituency I represent: Songwriters and recording artists trying to make a living through online retail.
Thank you, Tea Party. But special thanks to Free Press. You both scored your political points and further reinforced why voters are so disgusted with politics.
Two weeks ago, I thought progressives, unions, the Obama Administration and Congress had found the light at the end of the tunnel, given Democrats a slam dunk opportunity to declare victory, and allowed us to move forward to focus on jobs and the economy. I was wrong. Today, the Waxman effort lies in tatters and we're right back where we started.
You see, for extremists on both side of the political fence it's not actually about ever accomplishing anything or solving problems. It's all about politics and that means no issues are ever resolved. The proof: Free Press' shockingly cynical attempt to place all of the blame on fringe right wingers, when they were working just as furiously behind the scenes to kill the Waxman legislation themselves.
I never thought I'd see the day when Free Press would ally with the Tea Party to kill legislation from one of Congress' most respected Democrats, but that's exactly what happened. Reasonable compromise solutions were hijacked by the fringes of both parties. It's terrible for the American creative community, it's terrible for the country, it's terrible for Democrats - but I'm sure it's great for Free Press' fundraising.
The quickest way to erode free speech and expression is to make it impossible for creators to learn a living from their intellectual property. Piracy destroys the motion picture industry from the bottom up. The small, independent films who cannot get a box office release rely on secondary markets for revenue. When those markets are eroded by piracy, these small films- the ones that represent the wonderful diversity of expression- are the ones that don't get made.
And while the above commenter casts aspersions over the participation of the Songwriters Guild in Arts+Labs, look and see who is funding the piracy apologists.
No one is stopping creators for earning a living. Some creators have stopped being creative in the ways they earn a living. Sorry Uncle Buck, you are worng.
CC seems to say you can only get known by giving music away since you can't compete with stolen music. They have been at it a while and I don't see many new artist's music becoming very successful unless a moneyed label steps in. I don't think a single monetary judgement has been won in a CC court case. Can you win a settlement with the value zero on your music?
Not only are creators having a hard time of it. Rank and file working musicians and engineers etc. are all getting squeezed out. I live in a large Music Community - Maybe you don't realize that most record labels survive and grow on the sales of just a few artists. That profit is what used to fund a lot of new artists records. The amount of legal sales shrink as the stealing of the same music rises.
Record companies are not just evil giants. They have brought us a lot of great music and even some positive social change over the years.
There are many giant corporations that want to continue the stealing or change the laws so these things are not illegal.
They are promoting the Censorship/Sky Falling rhetoric to the millions who like "Free" music.. In return these corps get rising profits from "free" music. And all the musicians' network will pay for this the hard way.
It's a leap Evil Knievel would not have attempted to suggest that telling AT&T and Verizon they cannot impede, block, or overcharge content providers for access to their customers is "censorship."
Waxman's bill would have opened the door to a trillion amendments written by the telco and cable lobbies to further their agenda and weaken the core principles of Net Neutrality. It also would have never gotten anywhere.
Net Neutrality is about one simple thing -- providers can make all the money they want from their customers, but they should not be allowed to artificially slow down traffic for non-preferred partners to make room for "winners" the companies pick themselves.
Anyone who wants to see a non-Net Neutral Internet can visit Australia or Canada, where providers set traffic limits and then slow Internet users down to dial-up speeds, discriminate against file transfer traffic, and in the case of Canada, blocked a website run by critics of one of Canada's largest phone companies.
The SGA's participation in Arts+Labs, a telecom industry front group, speaks volumes about why we are hearing these phone/cable talking points from the SGA. This group and its offshoots support Internet Overcharging and traffic management that simply do not benefit customers. Follow the money.
It appears your record has a scratch in it because every time you play it it appears to be stuck on the same response no matter what the forum. Net Neutrality is not just about one thing. It's about people perpetuating a misunderstanding of the issues to goat people into believing what they are fighting for will in the end help them. As this article shows pro net neutrality groups are not out improve people's lives but instead want to strong arm people in their own way of thinking. You can show examples of the discrimination in other countries because it does not exist here.
But what does exists a group of people in this country who either don't have access or have not been made digitally literate enough to understand the values and opportunities that the Internet provides right now and because of that they missing out on the educational, professional and personal growth opportunities that could significantly affect their lives in these tough times Do i see you speaking of those issues? NO! I only see you making attempts to goat the FCC into taking on something that will and already has taken their focus away the issues and people that need it most ( re: the underserved). I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you want to educate people on the whole picture but it's just that your record is scratched so it's stuck on saying the same thing.
I have said, and still say, that if the FCC is allowed to regulate the internet under
title II then they will have the power to censor the internet. The current FCC claims that they
will 'forebear' to censor the internet. But anyone who has ever listened to Howard Stern or
remembers George Carlin's 'Seven Dirty Words' routine will immediately recognize the
threat that the FCC poses to freedom of speech. Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge agreed with
me on this position on a panel at an FMoC conference. So even some die hard Net Neutrality
advocates recognize the threat to freedom of speech that an FCC regulating the internet under
title II represents.
It is simplistic to say that Net Neutrality is all about one thing. If it were, there would be no
need for six rules. But if I were to reduce Net Neutrality to one major issue it would be how content
will be delivered over the internet. And that is why the SGA is involved with this issue and was
involved long before A&L was born. We create the content.
You talk about discriminating against 'file transfer traffic' but make no mention of whether
that 'traffic' is illegal. That is what Net Neutrality means to pirate apologists and corporations
that profit from linking people to pirated files. They want to maintain a level playing field for
pirate sites like Pirate Bay.
But again I get no response from the 'experts' and 'opinion leaders'.....still left unanswered.
What would work is more competition, via open access, which is what almost every other country has. But Verizon and ATT don't want that, and they have a lock on the FCC and enough of Congress. They hate the Internet too -- it broke their pricing model, based on high long distance charges. So everybody's posturing, hiding their real agendas.