Did Google just save net neutrality?

In case you missed it, Google is launching an experimental fiber internet network. They say that "consistent with our past advocacy, we'll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory, and transparent way". This means that people will get super-fast 1gbps speed without evil throttling. What does this mean for net neutrality? It depends on how far Google goes with this, and what the average user wants.

Since most Americans have increasing access to 10-20 mbps broadband, Google's 1000 mbps is something to be reckoned with, and major ISPs will surely try to at least put on their game face, and say that regular people can't possibly need that much speed, while still further increasing their speeds.

DOCSIS 3.0, which is being deployed to most cable systems, allows cable companies to provide virtually unlimited speeds. VDSL2 gives next generation DSL a practical limit of 100 mbps, but like other DSL specifications, speed degrades significantly the further the customer is from the nearest relay. Gigabit DSL is technically possible, but a long way off. Fiber-to-the-home is obviously the future, as everything from phone to TV is slowly moving into the internet.

Since this post is supposed to be about whether this will happen, I'll stop boring you with network specifications.

Since the sheer speed of Google's network would put them on top of the market, it's unlikely that Comcast would start selling internet tiers while trying to play catch-up. Google has stood their ground on net neutrality in the past, it's unlikely that they would change position now. The only question is if Google is actually going to become an ISP (and if DOJ will allow it).

My take: Google has to protect net neutrality. Their business (advertising, if you didn't know) depends on an open internet, since new businesses buy ads to promote themselves in a web overflowing with sites. If a shortlist of accessible sites were made, or if new services that required huge amounts of bandwidth were blocked, Google would be in trouble.

So, if things look bleak for open internet in the future, Google will be ready to step up and protect it if need be. Otherwise, Google's dark fiber infrastructure, as well as what they deploy this year and later, could be used be other internet providers, while making Google money.

What's wrong - and not wrong - with the iPad

By request, I'm posting on the Apple iPad's flaws. I watched the keynote. I even watched tech bloggers post about it in realtime.

Gizmodo sums up the flaws well, but I have stuff to add, remove, and comment on. I'll start with Giz's listing of not 8, but 11, then add mine:

The "big, ugly bezel"

I think Adam Frucci was just trying to make it 8 things with this one. The bezel actually looks nice to me. Okay, it could be a bit smaller, I guess. Verdict: Not really an issue.

No multitasking

This is the true dealbreaker about the iPad for me. I WANT to listen to music, write this post, and be on IRC at the same time. I can see the need to not let me game, chat, and browse at the same time, but seriously, this thing can certainly do basic multitasking. Verdict: Won't buy one 'till it has it.

No cameras

It definitely needs a camera for video chat, but a photography geek like me prefers a real camera for actually taking pictures. Verdict: Nice to have in iPad 2.0

Touch keyboard

Ok Apple, I know you can't stand anything physical on a device, but typing on that touchscreen will be fairly difficult, especially if I want to use IRC, or any other chat, with messages streaming in real-time. A keyboard attachment is available, but it's a bit clunky. Verdict: iPad 2.0 should at least have a small cell phone type slide-out.

No HDMI out

It would be nice if iTunes movies could be played on a TV without an Apple TV, but it would be un-Apple to let us cheap out. Verdict: Nice to have, but don't expect it.

The name iPad

Ok, Apple was a bit stupid to give us the opportunity to make jokes about it, but it's kinda died down. Verdict: Not a true issue, but kinda annoying. I wouldn't expect a new name.

No Flash

Unless you're a flash gamer, you might find that you really don't need it soon. HTML5 is coming our way, and YouTube is on board. I don't think the iPad Safari works with it yet, but this could be fixed in an update. Verdict: Before I have the money to even think about an iPad, Flash video will be history. Might be a short-term problem though.

Adapters, adapters, adapters

This is a good point, especially if this is supposed to replace my computer, it should let me plug in my iPod without an adapter. Verdict: Hide some USB ports and an SD reader in that bezel ;)

It's not widescreen

I don't actually own anything widescreen, so I don't know, but it sounds like iPad 2.0 should probably be widescreen.

Doesn't support t-mobile 3G

This seems like Apple's way of selling a no-contract device while locking you to AT&T. Verdict: Don't expect it, but a normal SIM slot would be nice.

Closed app ecosystem

The same problem with the iPhone, but I would expect hackers to take care of it soon. Verdict: I don't pray to the Apple gods to change their minds on evil censorship. Leave it to the Cydia people.

Begin my stuff: STILL NO XVID

I would REALLY have LOVED Apple if they had ONLY added native support for plain old xvid video. I'm sure VLC will be ported at some point, but it would be way better if apple would integrate it. Verdict: Looks like it won't happen, but PLEASE!

3G version costs MORE?! (And why isn't it standard?)

So, let me get this straight, you're selling me a 3G tablet so that I can pay AT&T $30 per month, but it costs MORE than the regular one?! AT&T worked themselves out of subsidizing quite well. At least they should pay to get 3G to be standard. Verdict: AT&T are weasels.

E-books aren't fixed price

Apple stood up to the music industry and made them charge $.99 per song, and remove DRM. Now, the book publishers can name their price and murder us with $30 books if they want to. Verdict: So much for cheap textbooks.

can haz netflix?

What would really make the iPad totally, 100% worth it would be a netflix streaming app. It just makes you want to drool. Verdict: Since Apple sells movies, I kinda doubt it. But I totally want it.

Is it really that bad?

So, my overall verdict on the iPad? Despite all of the above stuff, I'd probably buy one if it had multitasking. The rest can be considered a wish list for future models and OSes. The iPad, if done properly next time, could truly change personal computing.

What do you think about the iPad? Is multitasking a dealbreaker for you? What about the rest? Please comment, the silence makes blogging feel like prayer again ;)

Why DRM is working - But not for long

Anyone who has ever discussed intellectual property with me on IRC or elsewhere knows that I am 100% against DRM. That's the disclaimer to the title of this post. This is not a "Case for DRM" or anything like that, this post is meant to further expose how bad DRM is and why it should be dumped ASAP.

One of my biggest arguments against DRM is that it doesn't do what it claims to - protect nice old grandpa hollywood from the evil movie pirate conspiracy. And it doesn't (source).

What it does do is protect Hollywood from the plague of the music industry: Friend-to-friend sharing. Who hasn't cut a CD or to for friends, or even grabbed a USB drive and gave someone your entire collection? I get an album from my favorite band (or whatever my aunt knows I liked last time she saw me) twice a year, my birthday and Christmas, cut onto one of those colourful Memorex CDs, with "To Sam: Coldplay - Parachutes" written in sharpie.

Despite being just as illegal as uploading it to the internet, it's normal, undetectable, unstoppable, and most importantly, uncountable. The music industry can peg $9.99 on every Bittorrent tracker download stat, but how can they say that giving your friend a mixtape is costing billions a year?

So, in case you didn't follow, the real point of movie DRM is to keep my aunt from giving me Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on a pretty red DVD this June. And to keep you from USBing every movie you own to your best friend.

It's not just unethical, it's insulting our consumerism! Seriously, they think I'll never buy another movie just because my friend buys every one that comes out?

There's actually a second reason, and it also involves money: Special devices. Just think how much better it is for various Hollywood folks to make us buy a DIVX certified set-top box instead of letting me use my modded Wii. Or how much it helps Apple when a movie buyer realizes too late that they need an Apple TV to watch the movie they spent $14.99 on on their TV (excuse the awkward grammar).

So, why can't the movie industry get away with keeping is from enjoying movies with our friends and lock us to certain devices forever? Because times change, and filesharing will engulf the internet, and Hollywood, if DRM isn't dumped soon.

Since people are reluctant to admit it, gauging filesharing is difficult, but in this survey by the British RIAA, 61% of respondents, aged 14 to 24, said they use p2p to get music. No equivelant for movies is out there, but this shows how many 14-24 year olds use filesharing.

As p2p becomes more mainstream, friends might start sharing illegally obtained movies, which could spell doom for the movie industry's profits. Removing DRM from movie downloads is the only way for the movie industry to continue making the kind of money they do now.

Thoughts, anyone?

Net neutrality war: Lobbysts have won

The proposed FCC net neutrality regulations may look great under the "Open and Transparent Internet" banner, but in reality, they are just a placebo that gets us nowhere, maybe even giving ISPs more power to regulate the internet.

Anyone who follows American politics knows that lobbyists try, and hardly ever fail, to run Washington with their special interests, motivating politicians with campaign funds, nights out at restaurants to talk policy, and sometimes worse. Although Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to change the way things work, any effort to get rid of corporate interests is futile, especially now that the Supreme Court ruled that companies can run political ads.

The interests at play here are nationwide ISPs like AT&T and Comcast, and the movie industry. The ISPs want the power to block bandwidth-hungry services, slow down competing services (internet phone and TV, respectively), or even sell internet "tiers" like they do cable TV.

Hollywood wants to kill piracy by forcing or bribing ISPs to block P2P protocols and/or websites, saving them the trouble of getting controversial "three strikes" anti-piracy laws passed (Google is your friend here).

So, as soon as the FCC talks about following through on the Democrats' campaign promise of Net Neutrality, the lobbyists kill it in Congress, and pressure the FCC to lighten up on it. And they did.

Here's the problems with it

"Reasonable Network Management"

Here's the definition of "reasonable network management" in the FCC's proposal:

Reasonable network management. Reasonable network management consists of:
(a) reasonable practices employed by a provider of broadband Internet access service to:
(i) reduce or mitigate the effects of congestion on its network or to address quality-of-service
concerns;
(ii) address traffic that is unwanted by users or harmful;
(iii) prevent the transfer of unlawful content; or
(iv) prevent the unlawful transfer of content; and
(b) other reasonable network management practices.

So, in a nutshell, they can try to keep their networks less congested, address traffic that users don't want (explained in a sec), prevent transfer of illegal content, prevent the illegal transfer of legal content, or whatever the hell else they want to do.

Five network management rules, explained

So, here's the loosely worded rules the FCC uses to define network management, on page 65 of the pdf I linked to, better defined and criticized:

(i) Reducing the effects of congestion: This means that if some service is eating their network alive, they can throttle it or block it. This can also be seen as ensuring that they can continue to sell us different speed plans.
(ii) This is actually the only one of these rules that I sort of like. It is also the most abuse-proof, simply because it is all about what the users want to get rid of (ads maybe?!), and what harms them (viruses!). Careful oversight and individual choice will be needed, however.
(iii) This allows ISPs to block blatantly illegal stuff like kiddie porn, instructions on how to murder someone, black market online stores, etc.
(iv) This is the anti-piracy provision, since actually illegal content was covered in number 3. The EFF points to this as one of the major loopholes that would actually make it legal to block BitTorrent like Comcast did. Since this is just "reasonable" efforts, blocking a legal p2p protocol that is used mainly for illegal purposes would probably be legal.
(b) Why (b) instead of (v)? Good question. This is the do whatever the hell you want clause. Well, seriously, it's the do whatever the hell you want within reason clause.

Subject to reasonable network management (some restrictions apply, see store for details)

Head over to page 66 in the PDF to see the promises of the FCC that we can run, use, transfer, and buy anything legal we want without interference from ISPs whatsoever...subject to the above reasonable network management.

That's right, even 8.11, which entitles us to have choice and competition with ISPs, app providers, and media providers, is superseded by "reasonable network management". Even 8.15, "Transparency", which lets us know what our ISPs are throttling, blocking, or "managing", is subject to network management. Can you say, "WEIRD"?!

And remember, none of this would be law. It would be FCC rules that the FCC enforces and decides what it all means.

But wait, there's more.

Why congestion management shouldn't be an issue

Cable industry advocate Michael Willner posted on his blog in response to EFF's criticism of the FCC's plan, saying network management is needed because:

Without it, a small minority of users would dominate the use of shared resources, degrading the Internet experience of nearly all network users.

That seems like an innocent, understandable statement at first glance, but think about it a bit. Hint: Most ISPs are currently net-neutral.

Give up? ISPs already keep a small percentage of users from using all the bandwidth. You're paying for the 1/8/10/20/whatever megabit speed plan. Your ISP promises you lightning fast 6 meg downloads, but it's really a speed limit that keeps you from stealing everyone elses' bandwidth.

It could be argued the Willner thinks that without the network management bit, that would be illegal. The problem is that we're about to give ISPs permission to block a competitor's website if they can reasonably explain it as being network management.

The next argument that will come up is that the cable company can't handle us maxing out our 20 meg connection full-time. I argue that first, it's unrealistic to think that would happen, and second, if they're going to sell us super-fast internet, they should be able to deliver.

What are your conclusions? Do you have a counter-argument? Post in the comments.

Flattr: Digg meets PayPal?

Flattr, currently in private beta, is interesting to me because it claims to be more than a paypal button.

It is billed as a way for content creators to give the music, photos, software, or whatever, away for free, to get popular and still make money.

I discovered it through a link on its creator, Peter Sunde's blog. Sunde is a former Pirate Bay operator who left the intellectual property debate to work on Flattr.

Anyway, by looking at the source code on a blog page with a flattr button, I found flattr.com/api, which was a custom 404 that gave links to the good stuff, a peek at the remarkably digg-like interface that leaves more questions than answers.

Since my tweets about it, the whole site has been password-protected. However, I have one screenshot that shows everything I know from browsing around:


You can basically see digg with different colors. There are categories, a tag cloud, comments, and the flattr button.

Registration was intentionally broken, and I found nothing about how "social micropayments" work (or even what they are). It is possible that each "flattr" is a certain amount of money, but there are of course other possibilities.

The site's about page backed up the launch date for later this month on the public homepage, saying "the first release was in 2009".

Do you think flattr can work? Feel free to comment.

How Netflix and Amazon could kill movie piracy

Many people, including me, think that the entertainment industry is taking the wrong approach to dealing with piracy. They are using old methods to deal with a type of crime (if you even accept calling it that) never seen before.

Unlike physical stealing, there is no limit to the number of "stolen" copies that can be made. It's also much easier to cover your tracks in the online world. A close friend won't recognize your TC/IP "face" under the "mask" of a VPN or proxy. Yet they still try to use lawsuits and threats of criminal action to stop the largest activity in terms of bandwidth on the internet.

So if people will pirate as long as they want to, how can the industry remove that desire?

Easy. Ask any filesharer, Would you rather download a movie on BitTorrent, or instantly stream it with no threat of legal action whatsoever? Chances are, you will get streaming. And it's already partially possible with Netflix and Amazon VOD.

They would never pay, you say? A large number of BitTorrent users use VPN services, as well as the torrent-specific proxy Torrentprivacy, to prevent their real IP address from showing up. These services usually cost 100 USD (around 67 euros) a year.

The current problem is that while Netflix offers unlimited streaming of their "Instant" movies, most titles, especially recent ones, aren't available. And while amazon offers almost all new DVD releases for on-demand streaming, there is no "all-you-can-eat" subscription to please pirates accustomed to unlimited entertainment.

The toughest problems with paid streaming? Cost and release dates. Even with a low price, paid streaming will probably be a tough sell, but I'm confident that if the price is reasonable (I'd pay anything under $20/month), it will succeed. The second issue is obvious to those familiar with filesharing networks.

Usually, a DVD-quality copy will leak out a month or two before the DVD release. And almost DVD-quality releases, knows as R5s, become available even sooner, depending on the movie. R5 releases are ripped from a DVD released to Russia and nearby countries, DVD region 5, hence R5. Region 5 gets early DVD releases thanks to the prominence of bootleg. Since speech is in Russian, prominent pirates replace the audio with the best English audio track out there, which means that quality can be anywhere from pure cr** to pure DVD.

This will be a tough sell with the movie industry, but one possibility is for streaming sites would be to match the shrinking release groups by releasing a streaming copy as soon as a quality pirated version is out.

Another problem is portable devices, but it is my belief that all devices will have reliable, fast, mobile internet by the time the industry accepts any of the above.

As you can see above, I think that the best way to address the problem of piracy without making a painful change to copyright law (two ways that could go), is to give consumers what they want without having to pirate.

Thoughts and alternative ideas are welcome. Don't hold back, even if you think it sounds stupid. I can tell that quite a bit of this sounds stupid, but it's what I think can reconcile Hollywood and the people. And I think the world should hear it. After all, the internet is all about free speech.

Response to Rhett Reese

A few quick notes. The blockquotes are parts of Rhett Reese's statement on the flamewar caused by his tweets on piracy of Zombieland, the move he wrote, posted here. Outside the blockquotes are my reactions to the preceding part. "Art" generally refers to all creative works.

Hi all, since I'm the one who unwittingly started this particular firestorm, here are my thoughts.

You sure did. And quite a firestorm it was.

My two tweet plea (five if you include my three angry tweets to individuals) began after I read tweet upon tweet for hours, days, weeks, in which people mentioned (or often, bragged) openly about having just watched Zombieland at home for free. I largely shrugged this piracy off as inevitable, but it never felt good to read the tweets. Then I saw the 60 Minutes episode on piracy. And then I read an article about the sheer numbers of downloads of Zombieland in particular. Rightly or wrongly, I felt burned. For the record, I may have been over-dramatic, in my emotional state, in suggesting that downloading could kill Zombieland 2. It could. In our case, the greater hope/expectation is that it won't. The movie has done very well.

You were very over-dramatic, and here's the reality: Mininova says the R5 copy of Zombieland was downloaded 67,766 times. That's really not so bad. Many recent films have been downloaded millions of times.

On 60 minutes, nothing on that segment had much to do with what is happening with Zombieland. 60 Minutes talked about CAMs, which are sometimes done by drug cartels, but the R5 DVDRip that most are downloading of Zombieland was simply ripped from DVD by someone in Russia or near that.

Don't feel that burned. Your film did well, as you said.

No, I don’t believe that 1 download = 1 lost ticket sale or 1 lost DVD sale. Certainly, there are many people who both contribute to a movie's legitimate B.O. and also download the movie… including, it turns out, the people I singled out on Twitter. There are also many people who download movies who would never pay to see those same movies in any format regardless. But I do believe that there is a significant, non-trivial population of people who might have (in an ideal world with no piracy) paid to see Zombieland, either in theaters or on DVD, but instead chose to watch it for free, because it was easy and didn't cost them anything.

Unfortunately, as soon as Napster went online, we were past the "ideal world". Piracy is here to stay.

No, I don't subscribe to the Robin Hood argument, which claims that rich, greedy Hollywood studios/actors/writers/etc. have enough $ and don't need more. Nor do I subscribe to the argument that examines positive correlations between downloads and box office and concludes that popularity in the one (downloads) is somehow causing the popularity in the other (box office). Correlation does not imply causality.

If you didn't have the middlemen from the Hollywood studios, you would be a lot richer. They don't need the money.

The downloads /= box office argument is hard to calculate. Which is causing the other to go where it does? To me, it seems like a well-hyped movie does well at both. They are tied together. It is stupid to say that downloads help the box office, since all that is (usually) out at that point are CAMs and telesyncs, which about everyone avoids. But good buzz from downloads can help DVD sales.

Some might argue that an ideal world *should* allow unlimited piracy of copyrighted material. I disagree. And I agree with the reasoning behind copyright law. Copyright law grants the owner of a copyright a window of time within which he/she can make money off the copyright. I hate to say it, but people making money off art, even a lot of money, is a good thing. It’s America. It's capitalism. Copyright law is important because it provides financial incentive for artists to set aside other pursuits and devote entire careers to creating and innovating. Movies. Books. Videogames. Songs. These things bring us joy. And joy is worth paying for.

You say the owner of the copyright has a limited window of time? Do you agree with author's life plus 70 years? And sure, make all the money you want, just not off of lawsuits.

But some indie producers don't want copyright forced on them by greedy studios who rake in most of the cash. They want to pay for the production, no more.

Joy is worth paying for...yeah, but there's this little itch that humans have. We want to share the joy.

I can only assume that lovers of piracy relish the improvements in copying/distribution technology that make pirating all the easier and gradually improve the quality of what is being pirated... to where a pirated copy will ultimately be indistinguishable in quality from an original. But take this to its logical conclusion, and it isn't hard to see why everyone should be concerned. Human nature sadly dictates that few people will pay for what they can get for free. In a world where all art is instantly available for nothing, no one will be able to make a living as an artist. Nor will anyone invest any capital in art. So… no more movies. No more videogames. No more albums. TV shows. Etc.

If you will wait for a month or two before a DVD release, that's already the case.

And please, don't use the "nobody will pay for content, so there will be no more" argument. It makes me want to punch the computer screen, it's so stupid. Why isn't that the case yet? The VCR was going to kill TV. Friends copying cassettes was going to kill music. Has photography killed painting? Stop using that argument, artists want to express themselves, and will find a way to monetize it.

Stay away from human nature too. Modern life has suppressed a lot of human nature. As you said, joy is worth paying for. If people are willing to put money in red buckets for poor people during the holidays, they will put in a bit of money for joy. As you said, it's worth paying for.

I by no means want to be an anti-piracy crusader, and I’m now going to step away from the debate. I’m not a very political person. On a very basic level, my tweets were just the defensive reactions of an artist who hates seeing people brazenly proclaim that they’re pirating his work.

Thanks, now we have time to attack the ones that are serious about it.

I really like the genuine debate that has been inspired by this thread. There are obviously different sides of this issue, and different complexities within it. I've been called a lot of things in the last week, a number of which have been pretty crazy, and I just wanted to make the most reasoned response I could. Paying for art isn’t the most objectionable thing in the world. In fact, it’s a very beneficial thing.

Genuine debate? I call it a flamewar. Anyway...we're not stupid. I pay for art.