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Save the Internet? Musicians take up a cause |
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Written by asap
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Friday, 19 May 2006 |
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Moby went to Capitol Hill on Thursday. His mission: to save the Internet.
The electronic rock star/activist was there as part of a coalition urging lawmakers to defend what it sees as one of the Internet’s core values: that all Web sites, from the lonely blogger to the multinational behemoth, receive the same treatment.
Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., the country’s largest Internet carriers, have said they would like to explore ways to give priority treatment, or “tiered service,” to those who pay more to move data faster. Essentially, they say their services could be overtaxed by an increase in online video, resulting in delays and hiccups in service.
They want to be able to give priority treatment to those who pay to get through faster. But advocates say that would mean sites that didn’t pay up could become virtual second-class citizens.
The result has been an online firestorm of protests. The Myspace.com page of Save the Internet has more than 7,500 “friends”; more than 4,000 blogs have linked to “Save the Internet.com,” and nearly 700,000 signatures have been gathered in favor of protecting “net neutrality,” as it’s come to be called.
The “Save the Internet.com” coalition also has a broad range of support from more than 650 groups, ranging from the right-wing Gun Owners of America to the liberal group MoveOn.org.
MOBY SPEAKS OUT
“As we all know, Internet freedom is under attack,” Moby said Thursday from the office of Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., during a telephone press conference. Markey introduced an amendment to a pending telecommunications bill that contained net neutrality provisions, but it was defeated in late April in committee.
Sen. Hillary Clinton released a statement Thursday declaring her support for net neutrality and said she intends to co-sponsor legislation to ensure open Internet access for users and content providers. In the House, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Rep Rick Boucher, D-Va., introduced the “Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act” on Thursday.
Moby announced that R.E.M., Q-Tip, Trent Reznor and the Nine Inch Nails, Wilco, the Indigo Girls and the Dixie Chicks have joined the “Artists and Musicians for Internet Freedom” coalition.
“From my perspective, the Internet is this remarkable institution that really does work pretty flawlessly as it is,” Moby said. “Because it’s inherently egalitarian and democratic, it’s enabled a lot of very small companies to grow very quickly.”
He noted that his 1999 album “Play” was his most successful, in part, because it spread “virally” online and by word of mouth. Without net neutrality, he said, the bias of gatekeepers could dictate the spread of information.
HANDS OFF THE INTERNET
What’s good for consumers? That’s still up for debate.
A coalition called “Hands Off the Internet,” which includes AT&T and Cingular, issued what they called the “Real First Amendment for the Internet” in response. The statement said that Congress should make no law that “burdens consumers with the entire cost of building the next-generation Internet” based on “hypothetical and speculative fears.”
The coalition says needless regulation would slow down Internet innovation.
Eric Rabe, vice president of media relations at Verizon, said the fears of the Internet community were overblown.
“Net neutrality is clearly a solution desperately in search of a problem,” Rabe said. “As people talk about this they sort of describe a world in which a few large companies would have a stranglehold on everybody’s use of the Internet. That has not happened, isn’t happening today and isn’t going to happen in the future.”
Competition guarantees that if a company decides to “choke out” some particular traffic, customers have the option of going somewhere else, Rabe said.
Paul Chavez is an asap reporter based in Los Angeles.
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