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MPAA draws heat over net neutrality stand - March 14, 2008

Media Wonk has been wondering when someone was going to bring this up in the Net neutrality debate and now the Independent Film & Television Alliance has: The major studios' emerging position on maintaining ISPs' freedom to discriminate against certain kinds of traffic amounts to anointing a small number of strategically placed gatekeepers with the power to determine which content does and does not get access to the networks most consumers use to connect to the Internet. While that may be fine for the major studios, who would likely be able to pay any toll that gets erected, it enshrines a principle that could work to the detriment of smaller content creators without the same wherewithal.

In a sharply worded letter sent Thursday to MPAA head Dan Glickman, IFTA president Jean Prewitt forcefully criticizes the major studio group's opposition to Net neutrality on grounds that sacrifices independent film and TV producers for the sake of the studios' anti-piracy crusade.

"The Independent Film & Television Alliance was astounded to read that the MPAA and the six major studios who are its members have taken the step of denouncing the principle of 'net neutrality' and its advocates," Prewitt wrote. "I would like to take this opportunity to lay out why this issue is so important to IFTA and the independent industry that we represent and why we strongly disagree with the position you and your members of taken."

Two paragraphs later she nails it:

That openness [of the Internet] is threatened by the power of a small number of broadband providers to discrimniate unilaterally against some categories of users or types of traffic or to accord preferential treatment to certain content providers over others, all under the ambiguous claim of "network management." While these providers may have some legitimate issues related to the technical management of their networks, there have already been cases of different treatment of users and it is clear that there must be transparency, equal treatment and an avenue of redress when the providers' private decisions trespass fair rights of others and the public interest. Thus, the issue is not whether government should regulate the Internet, but whether there will be effective oversight to prevent a handful of corporate giants from imposing their own version of private regulation to the public's detriment [sic].

That last part is a reference to Glickman's ShoWest speech earlier in the week, in which he dismissed Net neutrality as pernicious government regulation of the Internet.

"Comcast's recent throttling of peer to peer traffic illustrates how easily piracy concerns and network needs can become excuses for private vigilantism to the detriment of legitimate users and innovative service providers," Prewitt wrote. "Copyright enforcement is crucial to our industry but that cannot be the rationale for abandoning the principles of open and competitive access, which are critical to ensuring a vibrant films industry and diversity of programming."

Media Wonk wouldn't go so far as to call what Comcast was doing "private vigilantism;" more like a clumsy effort to deal with the limitations of cable operators' shared network architecture. But Prewitt is absolutely correct that the major copyright industry groups' myopic fixation on "piracy" has distorted the public debate about technology, telecommunications policy and intellectual property.

Piracy is a serious issue. But it's not the only serious issue.

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