Broadband Reports, May 9, 2008

Last summer, NBC issued a statement to the FCC demanding that broadband ISPs be forced employ copyright filters on their networks. Among the arguments NBC tried to put forth was that broadband P2P use hurts the American farmer because less popcorn is sold. NBC demanded the FCC require that all ISPs employ piracy filters (so far only AT&T thinks that's a good idea). NBC also argued that hardware vendors should also be forced to put piracy filters in networking gear. This week Viacom's Sumner Redstone made a similar request:

"It is obviously impossible to check every computer or look over the shoulder of every user around the world to see whether they have a license to use our content -- and we don’t want to do that."

That's good. Oh wait, he wants everybody else to:

"...Solutions turn on enlisting the aggregators -- ISPs, device manufacturers, hosting companies, and site operators -- in this effort. We're not ask for perfection. But we do ask that companies that become aware of piracy using their facilities, do something about it."

Why the engineers at networking vendors should care that the entertainment industry has struggled to adapt to piracy isn't made clear. I understand why AT&T is playing along; they're becoming content creators. But why should say, Motorola?

This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.