The Importance of Net Neutrality

During the last decade, the Internet has had a far-reaching democratizing effect on the music industry, allowing thousands of musicians to break away from major label contracts and reach their fans directly. In large part, this leveling of the playing field is a direct result of the Internet's openness: the Web allows anyone to send and receive any content using any application. However, this openness, which we currently take for granted, is in danger of being compromised. The principle that stands to ensure this openness is called "network neutrality"—or "net neutrality," for short.

What is Net Neutrality?

The guiding principle of net neutrality is the idea that any company that operates a telecommunications network—for example, telephone and cable companies that sell Internet service—should not play favorites with the content that travels over the network. To borrow an example from the Future of Music Coalition, Sony Music should not be able to cut a deal with Comcast to have myplay.com load faster than cdbaby.com or the iTunes Store. Why? Because if Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were allowed to do this, they, not consumers, would decide what services get delivered at what speeds. It would be all too easy for an ISP to allow a service in which they have a financial/business interest to run faster than one in which they have no vested interest.

The concept of net neutrality originated with the Communications Act, which forbade telephone companies from playing favorites. While this provision originally extended to Internet services, in 2005, the Supreme Court upheld rules changes made by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which said that Internet services were no longer covered under these consumer protections.

Why Should Musicians Care?

The importance of net neutrality for professional musicians cannot be overstated. The ability to connect directly with fans has freed many artists from a dependence on record labels. As Future of Music Coalition co-founders Jenny Toomey and Michael Bracy note, a non-neutral network would allow large content providers, such as the RIAA labels, to cut deals with large ISPs that would effectively shut out independent artists. In that sense, a closed Internet would have a lot in common with the current payola-tainted radio market.

Examples of Discrimination

Naysayers argue that there is no imminent danger to the Internet and that net neutrality is a “solution in search of a problem.” However a few examples of discrimination, of which there are several, might help counter this perception.

In 2005, a North Carolina telephone company, Madison River Communications, admitted to blocking its Internet customers from using Internet telephone services that would compete with its traditional phone service. Madison River was fined $15,000 by the FCC, and had to agree not to block Internet telephony, but the agreement doesn't prevent the company from other sorts of blocking.

On September 14, 2005, Verso Technologies Inc. introduced a new product that would allow network operators to “selectively disable undesirable traffic,” such as VoIP (Skype, Vonage, etc.), P2P applications, streaming media and instant messaging. Verso’s CEO, noted that his company's services should be attractive to Internet Service Providers.

On August 4, 2007, AT&T cut out portions of a Pearl Jam concert from a webcast. The segments in question contained speech that was critical of President George W. Bush. AT&T’s explanation was that a junior content manager had mistakenly edited the concert incorrectly. Despite this, the fact of the matter is that AT&T was blocking content it deemed inappropriate even when the law did not require it to do so. If AT&T can choose to block "inappropriate" content at will, then the company can easily do the same to content that competes with other AT&T offerings. If we look at AT&T services like Uverse (an IPTV service), we can easily see how AT&T products compete with existing web content providers (for example, streaming video services like YouTube, Vimeo, Hulu).