Last summer, NBC issued a statement [1] 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 [2] 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 [3]:

"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?