Musicians Demand the Internet Stay Neutral 203
eldavojohn writes "124 bands — including R.E.M., Sarah McLachlan, and Pearl Jam — and 24 music labels are sending a clear message to keep Net traffic neutral. The Rock the Net campaign wants all traffic to be equal instead of allowing providers to charge a fee for certain pages to load faster than others. These musicians are the latest to join the Save the Internet campaign, which has the chair of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in its camp. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., spoke at the campaign's kickoff. I think it's obvious that musicians (especially independents and small labels) will find themselves with the short end of the stick if they are asked to pay a fee to have their music streamed as fast as larger bands or even corporations."
Well, if REM (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Well, if REM (Score:5, Informative)
You obviously don't know their history or it would make perfect sense to you. R.E.M. got their start on I.R.S. Records, which was an independent label. It was a large and successful independent label, but this was largely through good management that signed a lot of really good bands at the time. R.E.M. was the kind of band that the majors wouldn't have touched in their early days, but they toured and built up a following on the college circuit and eventually signed a major label contract and became big stars. However, without I.R.S. Records, probably nobody outside of Athens would have ever heard of them.
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So without the backing of a large and successful label, which was being distributed by major corporate distributors (which include a few of the "big four" in the RIAA) and that had a show on MTV, they'd still be known mostly in Athens?
Re:Well, if REM (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember the 80's radio scene. My local rock station was pretty much like this from 1981-85:
Van Halen, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Aerosmith. There was no R.E.M. or U2 or INXS or Husker Du or The Cure any alternative band being played on mainstream radio.
While you may consider these guys corporate now, they were not corporate bands in the early to mid 80's. 1987 seemed to be the breakout year for U2, R.E.M., The Cure, and INXS and alternative music in general to get actual air play. Then Nirvana came along in 1991 and alternative became mainstream.
Sign the Petition (Score:2, Informative)
The article references the Rock the Net campaign, which has an Online Petition [futureofmusic.org] you can sign.
Unfortunately, it appears to be down - I get this stacktrace when I try to sign it:
java.sql.SQLException: [Macromedia][SQLServer JDBC Driver][SQLServer]Arithmetic overflow error converting IDENTITY to data type tinyint.
at macromedia.jdbc.base.BaseExceptions.createExceptio n(Unknown Source)
at macromedia.jdbc.base.BaseExceptions.getException(U nknown Source)
at macromedia.jdbc.sqlserver.tds.TDSRequest.processEr
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Re:Well, if REM (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if REM says so, then it must be a good thing. That really helped me solidify my stance.
I'm waiting until the Pet Shop Boys weigh in.
CNN.com... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:CNN.com... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Agreed - the cable companies have been running anti-neutrality ads trying to convince the public that the average consumer will be the one footing the bill for net neutrality. It's good to see the pro-neutrality camp finally showing up to the public discourse in the mainstream (i.e., non-geek-oriented) media.
But the consumer WILL be footing the bill for net-neutrality. The mis-direction is the implication that the consumer WON'T be footing the bill without net neutrality. Without consumer dollars, the ISP's fold up and go away, as does the infrastructure.
/. - some are obviously plastic people for the Verizons and the Comcasts.But some are /.'rs who've been around much, much longer than that. I wonder how any IDIOT would prefer to have their ISP make
What I don't get are the anti-neutrality personalities on
Absolutely. (Score:3, Interesting)
Something like...
'Uncrippled Internet'
As in...
'Don't support a crippled internet!'
'Stop a crippled internet!'
'Verizon wants to cripple your internet!'
Wait, no, I got it.. (Score:2)
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'Don't support a crippled internet!'
'Stop a crippled internet!'
'Verizon wants to cripple your internet!'
And for those less techie types in DC,
"they want to put some serious kinks in the tubes...."
The definite article (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The definite article (Score:5, Funny)
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Ah well... thanks for this post flow; now I'm going to spend the day in the Straits. =D
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Ah well... thanks for this post flow; now I'm going to spend the day in the Straits. =D
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And here's the Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] that covers it. Good call!
Oh god, only 35 years old and already it's begun.
offtopic
I swear, I completely blame the IT field. Too much crap to absorb and dump on a regular basis has begun to take its toll on the fun stuff. >:|
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> basis has begun to take its toll on the fun stuff. >:|
I'm about 33.3
I totally hear ya.
I can't remember a fucking thing these days
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Where would they be today if they had gotten publicity from such a groundbreaking smash hit?
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That's how I do it, then I go home and conduct a search on the google utilizing the internets!
Because spam and viruses must be allowed... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why shouldn't ISPs be allowed to implement QOS? Do I have to give up decent ping times on VOIP calls solely because the idiots next to me absolutely have to BitTorrent the latest episode of American Idol? Should someone sending spam be given equal priority to the 'net as someone trying to send emails to coll
Re:Because spam and viruses must be allowed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Should someone sending spam be given equal priority to the 'net as someone trying to send emails to colleagues?
Oddly, if you QOS port 25 the spam goes through just as fast as the legit email. Incidentally, this is an argument for quarantining systems, not net neutrality.
Net Neutrality means throwing up our hands in the air and allowing the Internet to become a useless mess of spam and viruses since the power to handle them would be stripped from ISPs. It means giving up on streaming video and audio. It means giving up on VOIP.
Plus it's not giving up on video/audio and VOIP...it's giving up on third party streaming video and audio and VOIP. Why should Verizon allow Vonage's VOIP (yea, i know the patent issues, bear with me) to travel as fast as Verizon's VOIP solution? Without competition, Verizon has no reason to improve their service either.
Net neutrality = competition allowed to exist = better for consumers.
Re:Because spam and viruses must be allowed... (Score:5, Insightful)
To do a real-world analogy, let's say that you have an eight lane highway. Normally, any car can use any of the four lanes in either direction. Now, we're going to do the telco money-grab on the road. I'll pay for "high priority" service on the highway. If I'm traveling down a lane, you, as a non-payer, must get out of my way, no matter what the traffic congestion looks like. This will result in me getting to my destination faster, and it taking longer for you to get to yours. In other words, I would be effectively paying to slow down everyone else while allowing me to go faster.
I have a problem with this, since I pay for my Internet connection. I agreed that I wouldn't always get the full bandwidth I paid for, due to various circumstances beyond my ISP's control. I *did not* agree that the ISP could deliberately tamper with my traffic to make some things slow, and some things fast. I would imagine that my ISP did not agree to that with their upstream provider, and they with theirs. It is a radical change in the way the infrastructure works, and makes it a different beast.
If a company wants to charge more for a connection that tends towards lower latency (a T-3 instead of a cable modem), that's fine. If someone wants to charge more for 10Mb of upstream bandwidth than for 5Mb, then that's also fine. It is *not* fine to say "we're making other companies' traffic get precedence over your traffic, unless you pay us more".
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If google sends me some packets i've requested, I'm pretty sure that access of Comcast's network is already covered by the Arm and Leg I fork over to Comcast every month for the down portion of my connection.
And considering how much of the theoretical down bandwidth i have but dont use, its complete bullshit for them to even be contemplating double charging for
Your analogy is based on cars (Score:3, Funny)
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Apparently, this is all the FCC requires VOIP providers do: ( http://www.voip911.gov/ [voip911.gov] )
* Deliver all 911 calls to the local emergency call center;
* Deliver the customer's call back number and location information where the emergency call center is capable of receiving it; and
* Inform their customers of the capabilities and limitations of their VoIP 911 service.
In fact, one
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Because, by doing this, you're automatically enabling providers to charge you for a better connection. How much and for what, exactly, is up to them. Not you. This creates a lot of possible abuse scenarios.
Re:Because spam and viruses must be allowed... (Score:4, Interesting)
Google has to pay an ISP for service. now that ISP wants to not only charge google for data coming out of there services but also for giving that data premium bandwidth at the cost of something else.
Net neutrality is to prevent the AOL'ing of the Internet. the ISP's want to nickel and dime you to death to increase their revenue. Just like how when AOL, Prodigy and compuserv first came online you couldn't send email between them, unless you were a premium suscriber if at all. Now ISP's want to do that to IM's emails, videos, file transfers. If you want music from itunes but your ISP only supports Zune-live then your screwed and have to pay more per megabyte for a slower transfer.
That way only the rich companies could afford the bandwidth and premium charges to make them popular. Companies like Youtube wouldn't be able to even get started under such a situation.
The solution (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what I think ISPs should be prohibited from doing:
1.Discriminating or throttling or blocking based on source/destination addresses (and that includes forcing companies like google to pay more if they want full speed over the ISPs network)
2.Applying any kind of throttling based on port number. QOS is fine (that is, giving VoIP packets priority over BitTorrent packets) but throttling is NOT. If a network link is 1.5MBps and no-one wants to send traffic other than BitTorrent traffic over that link, the BitTorrent traffic should be able to use the entire 1.5MBps link (obviously if someone starts sending VoIP packets, then the network link wont accept as many BitTorrent packets and the BitTorrent download will slow down). This would specifically prevent the (increasingly common) practice where ISPs give you 1.5MBps or whatever speed but no matter how perfect the network conditions, BitTorrent or Emule or whatever else is limited so it can never go over 128KBps or 256KBps or whatever. Write in an exemption for cases where there is a direct threat to the network or to another network (e.g. someone spewing out packets as part of a DDOS attack)
These measures would still allow ISPs to completely block ports used by malware as well as measures like blocking port 25 to cut off spam zombies. And it would allow ISPs to apply QOS so that your VoIP packets have higher priority than the BitTorrent packets. But it would prevent ISPs from deciding that if you access CNN.com you can have the full 1.5MBps speed (assuming the rest of the network can handle that) but if you access YouTube.com or download something over BitTorrent, you cannot ever get more than 256KBps unless you pay extra for it (or google pays extra for it in the case of YouTube)
Re:Because spam and viruses must be allowed... (Score:4, Interesting)
You can choose to pay more for a faster connection right now. In our area, you can still buy dialup, multiple flavors of dsl, cable, t-1's, t-3's, fibre, WiFi.... and other choices that I have forgotten about. Each come with different prices and speeds. More remote situations are limited in connectivity choices, certainly. But in all cases, the contract between me and the provider involves connection speeds. I don't have to, and do not WANT to, have to pay more to use iTunes or BMG music, because it's not on the favored list.
Why the big fuss? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why the big fuss? (Score:4, Insightful)
Situation #1: providers oversell "priority access", leaving the "critical" applications fighting it out for bandwidth just like they do now (and the "non-critical" apps wishing they had their 56k back)
Situation #2: Providers ration "priority access", which keeps speeds high for "critical" applications but drives up the price of that access via the laws of supply and demand. Providers realize that therey have no incentive to use those higher profit margins to invest in better infrastructure, as the poorer the infrastructure, the more they can charge for "priority access". (Think Enron pulling plants offline to make electricity rates spike and California brownouts)
Situation #3: Government, quasi-gov't (ICAAN), or NGO control of access. Does ANYONE think this is a good idea?
Here's another thought - maybe telesurgery isn't that good an idea.
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Here's a novel thought: The internet was never designed for mission critical (lives depend on it) type services. ALL packets you send across the internet get delivered on a "best effort" type of basis. If you are doing anything as critical as telesurgery where lives depend on it, just buy dedicated lines to
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Cat and Mice (Score:3, Funny)
Yawn.
Re:Cat and Mice (Score:5, Funny)
This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. Mice couldn't have made this statement as they don't have opposable thumbs to grip a pen with.
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Musicians? (Score:2)
This "threat" is nonsense. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it's obvious that musicians (and too many other people) don't know how the Internet works.
Nobody "owns" the Internet. If some ISPs or backbone companies decide to limit bandwidth to certain sites, then they will simply lose business to the service providers
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And then you have the people that only have a "choice" of 1, maybe 2 ISPs. If that one ISP, or both ISPs do the throttling, then the user doesn't have the ability to change service providers. That theory might work if one realistically had a choice of a multitude of service providers. It doesn't work in a mon
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
"Let the market sort it out
Not to mention collusion between competitors. (Score:2)
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I think you are forgetting the primary reason Corporations exist - to strip money from those that have it on the pretense of giving a service.
The schemes suggested by the ISPs and backbone companies are int
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Experts weighting in... (Score:2)
I'm so glad, musicians — the real experts — are finally weighting in on this issue. Why are the FAG [wikipedia.org] still quiet, I wonder?
Rock The Net (Score:2)
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"brands" (Score:2)
Which actually made more sense to me.
Jury's still out here... (Score:2)
Re:Well then it's settled (Score:5, Insightful)
-Mohandas Gandhi
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Re:Well then it's settled (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember; just because you're not stupid, doesn't mean the rest of the world isn't.
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You should make that your sig. Or put it on CafePress as a bumper sticker.
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Which I guess proves his point.
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Re:Well then it's settled (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course their opinions matter. They are well known people with large followings, they can help get the message out there. What matters more is that more and more people speak up.
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I'm not saying anybody should do anything. People often like to hear what their favourite artist has to say about things. Also, how do you know that they know nothing about the subject?
Re:Yeah, because gov't regs will "save the interne (Score:4, Interesting)
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we aren't asking the government to do any more regulating, we are just asking them to make permanent (via legislation) and enforcable (the FCC enforces laws, it doesn't create them) what the FCC was doing prior to selling out to AT&T and SBC. net neutrality isn't a new way of doing things. it the way things were always done in the past. the tiered internet is the new way of doing things.
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Oh dear lord I hope they never make a connection between road service and internet.
Legislation for "Wide/Long load" bitflags, mandating which side of the tube american packets must flow on, crosswalks in routers for dialup, IP address clearly visible in the front and end of the packet, speed limits based on state borders (or even better, a national speed limit set to 55kbps)
Re:Yeah, because gov't regs will "save the interne (Score:3, Interesting)
it won't make it better, it will keep it the same as it was, which i personally feel is a good idea, as it just works.
Re:Well then it's settled (Score:5, Insightful)
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But I'm not cynical.
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Please don't insult dead voles, at least they know how to decompose gracefully
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The RIAA counts... which is really way too bad.
Good grief the RIAA is for Net neutrality... I feel like I need to take a long shower and scrub really hard now..
BTW the record companies want to sell you music with DRM and music videos with DRM. They don't want to pay Verizon and or AT&T the extra fees they want to charge the content providers for using their tubes.
It is all about the money.
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Everyone here has read the comments/AskSlashdots about how to explain technical issues to people who do not understand and, more importantly, who do not care.
This provides a way to get those indifferent people to care. Now they will think, "What is this issue of Net Neutrality? Why does $MYFAVORITEBAND care so much to join a coalition supporting it?"
Re:Well then it's settled (Score:4, Funny)
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> You've got to be kidding, right?
Just to put your mind to rest: yes, I am kidding. The campaign against voter apathy has obviously been as (un)successful as the last 5 decades' worth of campaigns against poverty, drugs, terrorism, etc etc etc. My point being, they'll raise awareness a bit, but they won't be the thing that wins or loses this battle.
For more sarcasm, see my comment here. [slashdot.org] (Read the parent/thread/article for context.)
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I have an idea: Why don't you go ahead and do that with your art and stop trying to tell everyone else what to do with theirs. Lead us by example.
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Kinda stupid if you stop to think about it...
It's about concerts. (Score:2)
What you're saying is a bit like me expecting to not only go to work and get a paycheck, but also to videotape myself working (typing at my computer all day, not very interesting) and sell that to millions of people. I'm already getting paid.
I realize this isn't the case for everyone, just pointing out that some bands on that list (Pearl Jam?) could give their CDs away and still make obscene amounts of profit.
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re: time to stop earning? (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite a few bands were hugely successful for years, only to become completely irrelevant if they stopped putting out material and decided to live off their past success. Maybe R.E.M. and others like them feel that they need to keep
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But in our capitalist society, it doesn't matter enough to change anything. If companies (the RIAA included, despite their inability to cope with technology) can make more money by destroying the net they'll do so in a heartbeat. The only thing that has stopped them is the uncertainty of whether they really WILL make more money or not. It's entirely
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Of course I can only speak for myself, but when I participate in a protest, I'm not there to change people's minds who don't agree with me. I'm there to make my voice heard, show solidarity with others who do agree with me, and most of all to educate people who might be curious about whatever issue inspired us all to show up and protest. If someone sees me pro
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Hence the "in my eyes." Ask 47 activists why they do what they do, and you'll probably get 47 different answers. That's one of mine.
This is very true, and this is why it's important for people to be willing to discuss this stuff and openly exchange their information, and be willing to back up their beliefs with more than "my
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You bring up a great point though. If your favourite band works for the RIAA then you are not their top priority, money is.
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Uh, this is a story about a band losing money because people don't want to pay for the ticketmaster fees.
Pearl Jam cares about their fans insofar as it is necessary to keep them spending money.
If it was really about the fans, they wouldn't charge for their music, givin
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However, I agree with you 110% that if a musician really cares about his
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Actually, many of the bands referenced have been publically telling the record companies that consumers should be allowed to use their music in whatever way they see fit.
I seem to recall that very recently bands like the The Barenaked Ladies [canada.com] have been saying they really don't agree with the practice of suing music fans, or the use of DRM.
Many arti
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By "keeping issues separate," as you suggest, I fear that I could slip down the slope of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." (i.e., "I support your stance on issue X, regardless of your position on A, B
Shut Up And Code (Score:2, Insightful)
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Bang and Blame
Bittersweet Me
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No, that's what it meant to you. What it meant to record labels was MONEY. If it didn't look like it would make money, they wouldn't put it out there.
The only musical movement I can think of that died before it was commercialized was hardcore punk. It was a creation of youth and came from a point of ignorance which frankly was one of its strengths - punk didn't involve acceptance of what people told you that you co