Panel Two - The Net Effect

Of course, the debate goes far beyond broadcasting. The idea of Network Neutrality, or Net Neutrality, offers a whole new issue for the potential of music on the web – being able to hear it at all.

The basic issue is this:  ISPs have control over the bandwidth that users receive.  Proponents of Net Neutrality want it to be legislated that ISPs cannot discriminate the resources given to one site over another.  The ISPs and those that represent them feel that strictures on their ability to operate constitutes infringement on their rights as a business, and that these restrictions discriminate against them and their ability to compete. 

The discussion was heated, though hard to determine the point being made.  It devolved fairly quickly into a tennis match of sound bites between Scott Cleland, who is the president of netcompetiton.org, a site that supports the business rights of ISPs, and Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a group that supports Net Neutrality.

The writers and musicians who also sat on the panel had a chance to speak at the beginning.  The basic message on their part was this - there has never been a time when artists of whatever variety have had more access to more people quite so easily.  Duncan Black, writer of the blog Eschaton spoke of it this way:

“If people in power had realized what was going on with the Internet, they probably would have tried to stop it.  The Internet as we know it is not a logical infrastructure development – it was a combination of genius and chance. 

"What has evolved is that barriers of entry for self-publishing and self expression have declined.  In the old days of the Internet you could just express yourself in text – now you can express yourself in audio and in video.  It’s not only inexpensive, but practically free – anyone can do it.

"Now, what happens is that in all these areas the gate keepers have been going away… with any social change those gate keepers will try and rise up and reassert their power.  The Internet has been extraordinarily resistant to that, and it would be very dangerous to let them reassert themselves.”

It was this idea of gate keeping that finally made all of the legal and business aspects make sense.  This idea that certain people control our access to information – the way newspaper editors deciding what news is important, or a website writer deciding which facts are most necessary for their readers – can potentially extend to ISPs.   If the ISP has control over bandwidth, they can make the decision to allow faster access to one site, while effectively restricting access to another.  This could compel users to use one fast site by reducing the speed of a competing one, thus affecting users’ ability to access information from particular sites of their own choosing.