{"id":1049,"date":"2008-01-29T10:04:49","date_gmt":"2008-01-29T17:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/wp\/?p=1049"},"modified":"2008-01-29T10:04:49","modified_gmt":"2008-01-29T17:04:49","slug":"medias_next_tar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=1049","title":{"rendered":"Media’s next target: ISPs"},"content":{"rendered":"

With digital rights management (DRM) and other copy-protection schemes in tatters, media companies and other content producers appear ready to take their battle to restrict the trading of copyrighted goods up the ladder of control: from the customers to the middlemen, in particular the ISPs. It’s a bit similar to one theory of combatting illegal drugs: trying to change the behavior of users is futile; so target the dealer and his supply network.<\/p>\n

In a speech yesterday, Paul McGuinness, the influential manager of turgid rockers U2, told a conclave of record industry execs, \u201cI suggest we shift the focus of moral pressure away from the individual P2P file thief and on to the multibillion dollar industries that benefit from these countless tiny crimes. The ISPs, the telcos, the device-makers.\u201d He particularly urged the application of pressure on ISPs, according to a report<\/a> in the Financial Times:<\/p>\n

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He said that such companies could help if they wanted to. Their ability to block various kinds of activity, for example visits to controversial websites, showed that they also had the ability to target the P2P offenders who used their services.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe must shame them into wanting to help us. Their snouts have been at our trough feeding free for too long.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a column<\/a> today on the BBC News site, law professor Michael Geist takes a broader look at what he describes as an attempt to “lock up” the Net:<\/p>\n

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The Internet locks approach envisions requiring Internet service providers to install filtering and content monitoring technologies within their networks.<\/p>\n

ISPs would then become private network police, actively monitoring for content that might infringe copyright and stopping it from reaching subscribers’ computers.<\/p>\n

The support for locking down the Internet revives an old debate – the appropriate role and responsibility of ISPs for the activities that take place on their networks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Geist points out, the ISPs’ traditional defense against calls that they block certain content – “don’t look at us; we’re just dumb pipes” – has become less compelling as they’ve sought to introduce their own tiered services that draw distinctions between different sorts of content:<\/p>\n

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As the content owners were promoting legal protection for digital locks in the 1990s, the ISPs were supporting legal frameworks that treated them as the equivalent of common carriers that transferred data across their networks without regard for the content itself.<\/p>\n

While that approach ensured that ISPs did not take an active role in monitoring or filtering Internet-based activity, the recent move toward a two-tiered Internet – one in which the ISPs themselves dream of distinguishing between different content as a new revenue source – revived the notion that ISPs could be called upon to play a more active role in monitoring and blocking content.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To Geist, this all represents a “dangerous” trend that could end up “creating a locked-down, censored Internet.” His warning is well taken, but it ignores the real rights of the artists who create the works that are being pirated on such a massive scale today. I don’t think we should dismiss out of hand the scenario McGuinness sketches out: “For me the business model of the future is one where music is bundled into an ISP or other subscription service and the revenues are shared between the distributor and the content owners.” That may be anathema to the ideologues of the free ride, but it may well be the best way to ensure that both the creators and the consumers get a fair shake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With digital rights management (DRM) and other copy-protection schemes in tatters, media companies and other content producers appear ready to take their battle to restrict the trading of copyrighted goods up the ladder of control: from the customers to the middlemen, in particular the ISPs. It’s a bit similar to one theory of combatting illegal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}