thinglets: Losing Net Neutrality - Bitter Tiers

via plime.com

(This is not my graphic. If someone can tell me the source, I will certainly link to give creator credit.)

[EDIT: Thanks to @640k for providing me the link to the article the above graphic came from. As it's from Gizmodo, I would've found it in my feed later tonight, but I'm glad to update now anyway: http://gizmodo.com/5391707/losing-net-neutrality-the-worst-case-scenario - looks like the original source is here: http://bit.ly/2CT0bm]

Just a great example to explain to people what losing the Net Neutrality fight is all about. In the same way you WISH you could get every channel in a cable television package, but have to pay extra, the picture above shows what the net WILL resemble when ISPs start to package tiers of services ON TOP of your existing broadband speeds.

If there was ever a reason to rally people behind Net Neutrality, the ominous threats of inequity, cost-for-access, and price gouging are just some we need to worry about. I fear the Information Age is going to become laden with explicit Information Tolls.

Ask not for whom the web tolls - it will toll worldwide.

thinglets: Lack of Vision on Canadian Net Neutrality

In as much as some people are praising elements of the CRTC's decision last week when it came to Net Neutrality in Canada, I remain the right cynical bastard lovehatethings readers would expect. As such, I created the following to protest the lack of vision on the part of the CRTC. Please don't upload this to a Bit Torrent site in Canada. Anyone who downloads it will have their bandwidth throttled if the ISP deems it necessary.

lovehate: The Great Throttlewall of Canada

“Madness is badness of spirit, when one seeks profit from all sources” - Aristotle

For the past week the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission has been listening to ISPs press for the ability to regulate internet bandwidth based on their ability to soak every last penny from end users/customers across Canada. While I understand that the minutae of such hearings in an Ottawa committee room may not be of tremendous interest to anyone outside of Canada then I would urge you to reconsider. These considerations are not just national because the money that is backing much of the anti-net neutrality debate is coming from multi-national music and film conglomorates that don't only seek to enact such restrictions in Canada, but world-wide.

The end run of film and music lobby groups is in no small part responsible for a press to throttle the internet. If ISPs are allowed to eliminate your computer's throughput because you're downloading a video or music file using a bit torrent protocol, the hope, on the part of the studios is that you'll eventually stop doing it. But what about legal files shared through bit torrent technology? If I had a CD or independent film to offer up for free (or pay-what-you-want), the bit torrent protocol would likely be the only way I could afford to pursue such a practice, yet ISPs and studios want to shut it all down.

If there's one thing I've learned over more than 20 years of 300 baud dialups to BBSs to highspeed surfing through social networks, recommendation engines, and news aggregators, it's that the net is REALLY good at self-regulating. I'm not denying the illegal activities that go on with file-sharing, but where were all of these lawsuits against people making mixtapes 25 years ago?

Data are clusters of ones and zeros having no more or less intrinsic value than an ascii text string. To assume by the method which I choose to acquire data, that somehow it's automatically illegal, is idiotic. It analogous to saying that, because speed boats are used more often than canoes to smuggle cocaine, anyone who uses a speedboat can go no faster than those in the canoe or they must be cocaine smugglers.

I pay for high speed internet. Let's repeat that: I PAY FOR HIGH SPEED INTERNET!

I don't pay for high speed web page surfing or Youtube watching or email sending or podcast listening. I pay for bandwidth. I pay the same amount as anyone else pays with my provider. They have every right to use their bandwidth to its fullest potential. To imply that my downloading habits adversely affect someone who is choosing to use even less doesn't make sense. My basic cable and telephone subscription packages are a flat rate no matter how much I use them. Does this mean that if I watch less television, I should get a rebate? Should get a cut rate telephone bill if make only half the calls that my neighbour does while on the same package? To sell an upload/download speed and then throttle back the advertised speed I purchased, without telling me when or why, is an unfair business practice that is probably actionable... though I am far too lazy to hire a lawyer.

To put it in a completely exaggerated way, ISPs are participating in their own form of Neo-McCarthyism. It's like the great "Red" scare: "Have you downloaded or watched, or have you consorted with anyone who has downloaded an illegal copy of a Harry Potter film?" If we allow ISPs and media conglomorates decide that it's okay to punish those who use a TYPE of program they don't like, what's next: The Great Throttlewall of Canada?

Fight for your right to an open internet. And if anyone has the gumption to start up a class-action lawsuit for ISPs throttling my bandwidth without telling me, I'll sign up.

DyscultureD Podcast 39: Don't Be Dissin' Twitty

DyscultureD Podcast 39: Don't Be Dissin' Twitty

Show Notes

Remember that July 15th is Text Nothing Day

Full Dysclosure

  • Google seeks to be a gamechanger with Chrome OS
  • Rogers subsidizes netbooks for expensive data plans
  • Who should be the long arm of the net law in Canada?
  • Indie filmmakers support Bit Torrent technology and Net Neutrality
  • United Breaks Guitars… and then they break our hearts
  • Fiddy Cent works cheap PR with teen Youtube critic

Movies

  • Bruno models Number One behaviour
  • Michael Moore’s latest film a "love story"
  • Ryan Reynolds get greenlit as Green Lantern

Websites of the Week

  • Twitterfall - have a waterfall of aggregated tweets flow down your browser
  • Nerdfitness - an oxymoron by name and a good idea for us all by nature

Music

  • Endangered Ape - Tales of Survivalist Horror Pt. 2

lovehate: The CRTC and Protectionist Television

While I know that many readers south of the 49th parallel will have no idea what the CRTC is, and probably many Canadians won't either, I've had it with their ridiculous protectionist practices when it comes to primetime television.

I'm an avid television watcher. Some might call me an addict though I can't hear them because I'm watching Big Bang Theory. While many of you in the US are used to having local affiliates broadcast network shows and take advantage of being able to sell and show local ads to garner their revenue, the permissions of the affiliates only extend to their own channel.

The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission employs methodologies that have been prompted by the lobbying efforts of local Canadian stations and cross the line from logical to manipulative and destructive to the medium. In essence, the CRTC mandates that where a Canadian station is showing the same show as a US station that can also be seen by a viewer, the Canadian channel will "take over" the US channel for the entirety of the broadcast.

For example, I cannot watch Lost on WKBW from Buffalo (Cable 9) because at 9pm my local CTV affiliate is showing the same episode and Cable 9 becomes Cable 16 for the entire hour. Essentially, the cable providers have been ordered to redirect feeds to accommodate this protectionist regulation. Why shouldn't I have the right to watch to the show through a US feed if I want to? What harm does it do to CTV but for the chance their advertising will go down... and there's the rub.

Some of you might be thinking "what difference does it make if they're showing the same episode on both channels?" There are a few problems that are not clearly evident unless you are subject to it, but I'll try to illuminate:

  1. I should have the right to watch US commercials if I wish. Paying for cable gives me that right. While I admire the fact that the CRTC on one hand restricts the amount of paid ads a station can show each hour, this merely subjects me to the mind-numbing repetition of station promos every commercial break to fill in the gaps.
  2. Many primetime episodes from US networks are now tinkering with start/end times. Sometimes an episode runs for an extra one or two minutes (usually where a cliffhanger happens). Canadian stations don't only broadcast shows from one US network; they mix and match. If the 63 minutes broadcast of Fringe ends at 10:03 on Fox, but on Global Canada they've got an episode of Lipstick Jungle set to start at 10:00, the feed will often jump to the new show before the previous one fninished - ON BOTH CHANNELS. That means that even if I was watching Global, saw the switch, frantically switched to FOX, I'd still be watching the beginning of Lipstick Jungle instead of the end of Fringe.
  3. During a big television event (read: Superbowl, Oscars, etc.) US networks often debut new ad campaigns with high-end commercials that we will never get to see. I know that some of you can't understand the allure of seeing a new commercial, but trust me, it far beats seeing another promo for Corner Gas during the two minute warning of the big game.
  4. The Canadian uptake on HDTV has been very well implemented in some cases but annoying faulty in others. In watching the CTV-HD feed of the NFL yesterday the HD dropped out at least a dozen times down to SD for half a minute or more.

When I emailed the CRTC with this complaint earlier this year, they claimed Canadians wanted it this way and it was the law. First, if Canadians wanted to watch Canadian feeds, they could still do so. Second, laws evolve and are prone to change when people realize how wrong they are.

The CRTC has a place. The CRTC has a purpose. Its place should not be on a US channel that I pay for. Its purpose should be to offer me choice, not restrict it. If you're Canadian, go to the CRTC website, register a complaint and see how little they're willing to even discuss remedy. If you're American, be happy we don't spend billions of dollars each year on television programming, because if you wanted to watch our stuff, your government would probably be lobbied to do the same thing.

no crtc