Re: WORTH REMEMBERING djf AT&T says there is no duopoly, net neutrality is bad

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Edward Almasy <ealmasy () axisdata com>
Date: October 26, 2007 10:37:39 AM EDT
To: "Matthew Tarpy" <tarpy () tarpify com>
Cc: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:  AT&T says there is no duopoly, net neutrality  
is bad

On Oct 25, 2007, at 8:20 AM, Matthew Tarpy wrote:
> Should network providers not be able to react to the
> usage of their network to increase stability, limit activity that is
> theft at worst, and in a gray nebula of legality at best?

I know this has been said before, but given the questions at hand,
I think it bears worth repeating:  BitTorrent is used every day for
legitimate purposes that are not at all gray or nebulous.

Every single one of the torrents on the BitTorrent trackers listed
below is 100% legal.  bt.etree.org currently has more than 3,300 active
legal music torrents, and it's not just Phish and the Grateful Dead;
you don't hear about it much in the popular media (for obvious reasons),
but Radiohead, Pearl Jam, My Morning Jacket, Ryan Adams, and hundreds of
other very successful artists allow and encourage free sharing of
recordings of their work online.  linuxtracker.org has thousands of  
legal
torrents available, and it's not just software -- they're also using
BitTorrent to distribute educational videos and podcasts.  Even clearly
suspect sites like The Pirate Bay offer many gigabytes of legal content
(e.g. http://thepiratebay.org/user/meetthegimp/).

Traffic shaping or blocking like that practiced by Comcast affects
more than just the downloading of illegal MP3s -- it also hinders
the rapidly-growing community of people using the technology for
legitimate tasks.  If this is representative of what we can expect
without net neutrality, then I can't help but think that some legal
protection for that neutrality is needed.

Ed


http://bt.etree.org
http://linuxtracker.org
http://kickmedown.com
http://torrent.fedoraproject.org
http://www.tapers.org



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