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Comcast Proposes Self Regulation and P2P Bill of Rights
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Apr 16, 2008 09:43 AM
from the no-conflict-of-interests-here dept.
from the no-conflict-of-interests-here dept.
Torodung writes "In a recent move, Comcast has proposed a 'P2P Bill of Rights,' joining the ranks of every great monopoly when threatened by government regulation for alleged misbehavior. They have instead proposed comprehensive industry self-regulation and cooperation with major P2P software vendors as a lesser evil: 'Comcast is looking to further position itself as proactively — and responsibly — addressing the issue of managing peer-to-peer traffic that traverses its network, announcing Tuesday it will lead an industry-wide effort to create a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" for users and Internet service providers.'"
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Meanwhile... (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or answer this: If Comcast really is willing to cooperate, why are they so terrified of government regulation? Why is a legally mandated "Bill of Rights" worse for them than what they are proposing?
The obvious answer is, if it was a law, they couldn't simply violate it.
Next question: Why is Comcast working with BitTorrent, the company? Why do they need to "work with" any P2P corporations, rather than simply dropping their packet shapers and letting P2P protocols work well? Smells to me like Microsoft cutting a deal with Novell -- Microsoft obviously can't cut a deal with Linux itself, as it's a completely distributed, fault-tolerant community, so there's no one CEO to buy -- so they make a deal with Novell, while leaving everyone else out in the cold. Smells to me like Comcast is trying to do the same with P2P -- they can't make a deal with every single filesharer, everywhere, and they won't accept simply falling back to net neutrality, which is what we really want -- so they make a deal with some company which does filesharing, leaving everyone else out in the cold.
Gotta love the smell of bullshit in the morning.
Parent
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
CC: "Is there anything we could provide you that would allow you to reduce your impact on our network?"
P2P Author: "Multicast please."
CC: "We don't do multicast because no applications support it."
P2P Author: "If you build it, they will come."
Parent
Parent gets it. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Exactly. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually it is a form of multi-casting if you think about from the right perspective.
Consider a web server X hosting file-x:
"Multicasting is where the packet is only sent once, and multiple receivers get it"
From web server X, we have "multi-casting". It sent file-x only once, and multiple receivers got it.
Its true more locally to the ISP it had to replicate that packet for each receiver that got it. But then again, isn't that what a router does if it multi-casts to different subnets?
I agree its not really 'multi-cast' but it does deliver a lot of the same benefits, and its store and forward mode of operation gives it timeshifting advantages. It doesn't have deliver the packet simultaneously, it can deliver them when the clients want them.
The main thing is that from an ISPs point of view, bandwidth goes DOWN because now when people want a piece of something they can often get it from the cache which isn't nearly as 'costly' as getting it from another subscriber (choking the very limited upstream on the last mile) or from another ISP
The trouble with caching though is that it would be a minefield from liability perspective to the likes of the RIAA/MPAA and anyone else who is being 'victimized' by p2p.
Parent
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Interesting)
The baffling thing to me about this whole thing is that Comcast could solve it really easily - just stop advertising "unlimited" bandwidth and publish the monthly transfer quotas. If they want they can even charge more for higher quotas. Then customers can make an informed decision how much they're willing to pay and self-police their own downloading. Instead for some bizarre reason Comcast (and most ISPs) seem to think the word "unlimited" is some holy marketing term which Shall Not Be Touched, and will go to enormous technically challenging and legally dubious methods to protect it.
Parent
What worries me more (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I'm not a Comcast subscriber, and I'm not even a heavy user. Other than Slashdot and the like, and the mandatory gazillion banners on the average web page elsewhere, my biggest downloads are the occasional MMO patches. They're not that big, so actually I'd rather stop subsidizing the heavy downloaders.
But if I'm to look at it impartially, and through the glasses of whatever ethics my education stuck into my head, it smells like pure BS.
It's _not_ some shiny-hippy... err... happy communal sharing scheme. If it were, I could maybe see the point of trying to tar and feather anyone who's used more than his fair share. But that's not it. It's one company selling a service to a person. It's their job to see that they can actually provide the service they charge for.
To illustrate the fundamental difference:
- if me and the neighbours were to have a potluck dinner, then it's ok to be annoyed if someone eats ten times more than they brought to the table.
But if we go to an "all you can eat" restaurant, then it's the restaurant owner's problem to make sure he can provide what he advertised. If a particularly high-metabolism co-worker finishes half the buffet by himself, tough luck, you may even have my compassion, but it's _not_ ok to paint him as some ruthless predator upon the other patrons and kick him out. If other patrons end up hungry, it's not because of that guy, it's simply because the restaurant didn't provide enough food for the bargain they offered.
- if me and the co-workers pool out petty change and buy a Wii and a TV at the office, then it's a communal sharing thing. It's not nice to be the guy who hogs it full time. The others should get a chance at it too.
But if we go to some (hypothetical) arcade that advertises that you can play all day for the flat fee of a ticket, then that's it. It's their job to see that they have enough machines and space for that kind of offer. If I find an old Penetrator machine and hog it for the next 16 hours for nostalgia sake, well, that's what was advertised there. I'm just using what I paid for.
Etc.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they _should_ provide free unlimited anything whatsoever. It's up to them to decide whether they can afford to do that or not. But if they decided to advertise it that way, then it's their problem to have enough of it.
Even briefer, I don't feel any _responsibility_ (since we're talking a "bill of responsibilities") to _not_ use a resource that was sold to me as an unlimited and unmetered resource. The users there paid for a service. They're not pooling their funds to create some communal internet scheme (and indeed ISPs have fought tooth and nail against municipal ISP ideas), they have paid fair and square for a service, and have _no_ duty or responsibility to leave enough bandwidth for the others. The contract isn't with any other users, it's with the ISP.
I honestly don't see why the ISPs are any different from any other service provider. If I buy a monthly ticket for the bus, then everywhere in the world I'd feel free to use it as much and as often as I need to. If I have to make 20 trips in a day, heck, that's exactly what such tickets are for. If the transport company doesn't have enough busses to serve everyone they sold tickets to, then it would be seen as their shortcoming. Not as, basically, "some evil, unscrupulous users use more than their fair share of bus trips, and we must tar and feather them." They don't get to draw up bills of customers' responsibilities, to weasel out of providing the service they sold.
I don't see what makes ISPs that special, basically. In the name of... exactly _what_, do they get to draw bills of customers' reponsibilities?
Parent
To Mod Troll, or reply? That is the question. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course perfection is usually out of reach, but that's never a worthy argument against improvement.
Especially with *limited* goals, and the parent poster stated one that's perfectly achievable. Having a *justice system* that doesn't execute innocent people is exceptionally easy: don't have executions as part of the justice system.
Nature (think the universe, not a forest) has no
BobB-nw (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:BobB-nw (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
P2P bill of rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep up the pressure! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Industry Experts" (Score:3, Insightful)
Catch (Score:5, Insightful)
And here's the catch:
Which still means that if the P2P "software vendors" (who are these?) pays them, they'll allow it. Great neutrality.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Fool me once, shame on you. jeeze.
Why am I not surprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how long this regulation will actually last before it goes back to the status quo.
Re:Why am I not surprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
* Penalties may include eating cake.
They could do that, sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just move my packets around without f'ing with them, please and thank you.
responsibility (Score:5, Interesting)
So what did ISPs do? They throttled it to zero, rather than to an intermediate level we all could live with.
The end result: Encrypted BitTorrent, and ISPs using drastic methods like spoofing reset packets.
NATCH!!! I don't like where this is going.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or how about a bill of rights and responsibilities for ISO downloading? HTML surfing?
When only one protocol/application is named, we are in for a long line of regulations (self imposed by ISPs or not) regarding every type of use for our Internet connections.
Car analogy? The speed limit is 75 if there is only one passenger, but 55 if there are three or more. 35mph if you have a child under the age of 12 in the vehicle. That is unless they are blood relatives, then the speed limit is 65 regardless of passenger count.
Rights and responsibilities have already been defined by the contract you sign with the ISP in the first place. They have gone to great effort to tell you what you can't do in that contract, and vaguely explained for what reasons your account might be canceled.
This new effort is an attempt to go back on that agreement, to modify it without pissing end user's off, and to get away with throttling in such a way as there is NO government oversight nor any other kind of oversight.
Sorry, sounds like I'm being bitchy, but if you don't push back on each little thing, it will be 'give an inch, they take a mile' and we'll end up with an Internet connection that is little more use than a dial up connection, and the price will continue to rise while service degrades.
No, I'm not wearing a tin-foil hat, I just see the writing on the wall here.
Why Subscribe? (Score:5, Interesting)
You may respond that, they are your only choice. Well unless you choose to go without or you choose to help lobby for better legislation then you're stuck.
Also are you willing to pay more for your internet? I choose to go with a DSL provider who is 1/3 the speed of Comcast and I pay a little more every month to be with them. Why? They don't limit my traffic and they let me have a static IP. To me it's worth it.
Just my two cents. I see a lot of people complaining but most don't want to do more then just that. Vote with your dollar! Donate to lobbies that are fighting for your cause. Otherwise stop complaining.
here's the picture: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds suspiciously like the process the industry went through to re-invent copyright law.
One only needs to be guaranteed "Rights" in the context of Wrongs. Comcast and Virgin and others should get their head completely out of their ass and start providing a real **customer** focused service (instead of profit-driven) and this whole issue goes away.
Bill of what? (Score:5, Insightful)
P2P Bill of Restrictions?
Bill of Rights (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Comcast's customers shall fulfill their obligations (i.e. pay their bill).
2) Comcast shall fulfill their obligations (i.e. deliver any network traffic without prejudice).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If comcast thinks they need to self-regulate, then what harm is there in making it as law?
After all as Bush often claims, why do you worry about surveillance, if you are not breaking the law?
I suggest FCC adopt comcast's sell-regulation, make it as a felony to break it and say to comcast: "If you break this, your CEO and the board would goto jail on charges of perjury and child endargement."
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is clear that companies like Virgin and Comcast and the rest need the force of law and the occasional lawsuit in order to keep them in line. Otherwise they will stray outside their areas hunting for more money. The force of law isn't enough by itself... they have to be spanked to keep them in line. It's rather like raising children. Constantly exploring and pushing their limits and no matter how often you cite the rules to them, they will break the rules and require punishment. When a child exclaims, "I don't need punishment I'll be good!" I doubt anyone actually believes that child. So why should we believe Comcast?
Parent
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Government Monopoly == Bad solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Government Monopoly == Bad solution (Score:4, Insightful)
For what it's worth, I agree that the US government isn't doing what it needs to. I can't say I agree that that failure means that government can't work, it just means that the US government isn't working.
Parent
Re:Government Monopoly == Bad solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Some of those things, like roads are not widely available as a private sector business. So let's look at retirement, Social Security costs 15.3% of every paycheck. [socialsecurity.gov] From everything I've seen, it won't actually be there for me to live off of when I reach retirement age. [seniorjournal.com] However, if I save only $500 a month at 4% interest for my 40 year career life span, at 65 I will have $590,980.66. Granted that's not huge, but it's a nice bit better than the nothing I will be getting from Social Security. And that's only if I save $500 a month, if I could save $1250 a month (15% of a $100,000 a year job) then my retirement fund would be $1,477,451.67. Which in a 4% yield savings account would give me $59,098.04 a year to live on in my retirement. So retirement, as managed my the US government sucks worse than a lemonparty link.
Now let's look at schools, I think the Washington Post has already explained this one nicely. [washingtonpost.com] There is a Snopes discussion of this very topic, but the main point made there is that private schools are selective, they send back the troublemakers and under performers [tlcbootcamp.com], but that is not true of all private schools. [fishburne.org] I would like to point out that the second boarding school I linked to costs less for one year room, board, and education than what DC spends per student on education only.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You call it a "voucher program" I call it immediately inflated prices to cash in on government handouts. No one knows how to cash in on government money like private business.
> Now, I'd like you to cite an example where government services anywhere have outperformed any competitive, private-sector service. Amtrak would
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Market forces aren't working because there's an insufficient amount of competition. Either there needs to be regulation, or there needs to be a breakup of the large ISPs. If government shouldn't do this, then who should? If the market can give no remedy to the consumers, then who does?
Re:Government Monopoly == Bad solution (Score:4, Informative)
Something like the competition we see between UPS, FedEx, DHL? They each own their own roads and airports from point to point, oh wait, hey they are using municipal roads and airports to operate their delivery equipment and provide a competitive service in a free market. What a concept, now lets apply it to the monopolies you just mentioned to they too can compete in a free market.
burnin
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Our public schools were doing just fine until Reagan created the federal Dept of Education
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Free markets are not ideal when there are barriers to competition. Thus intervention is needed to remove the barriers to allow the increase in efficiency, but this would not be a free market.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Interesting)
(I'm a bit rusty on the details, but I've been advised at various times by lawyers that there are situations where a company can be held via contract law to statements made outside the contract itself, if they basically define the relationship between the company and the customer. I doubt Comcast's lawyers are stupid enough to walk into this trap unknowingly, but you never know.)
Although I very much doubt that Comcast is acting in anything approaching good faith here, it's not impossible for them to make the Bill of Rights binding, if they were sufficiently motivated.
What needs to happen is that we, as users, need to make sure that Congress and various state legislatures aren't distracted by any sort of non-binding agreement on Comcast's part. If they want to avoid burdensome regulation, they can come up with a 'Bill of Rights' and then hold themselves to it contractually. But if they don't do that, or if they put it in their contract but then leave in a way of unilaterally amending the contract, it's not worth two squirts of piss.
Parent
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well,never forget that under the law, two plus two can equal five, for sufficiently large values of two or sufficiently small values of five.
Suppose you are an ISP that advertises its adherence to the P2P Bill of Rights. You entice customers to sign up under a TOS that includes the standard statement saying you can change TOS at any time. Then you decide to take away some of the rights listed in the P2P Bill of Rights, pointing to your TOS statement as proof you are entitled.
I'm not sure that works. A "right" after all is just the flip side of a duty. A right held by an individual consists of a set of duties borne by certain others with respect to him. You can't just unilaterally declare one of your duties towards somebody void. You can't change the TOS in a way that absolves you of the duty of providing service, but does not absolve the customer of the duty of paying you. That's unconscionable.
So, you'd have to say in your TOS that you have the right to declare the specific rights in the Bill of Rights to be void. Or you'd have to say in the Bill of Right that "rights" doesn't mean something the service providers are obligated to abide by. Otherwise, you've just enticed customers to sign on with you by deception.
I am not a lawyer, but surely this is at least one of those things lawyers are always telling you not to do, because even if you are certain to win if it ever comes to court you could not possibly hope to gain enough benefit to pay for the costs of fighting and winning.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This brought to mind my experiences raising my 4 year old. He's constantly trying to push the limits and as a result is constantly getting into trouble. Mostly simple stuff like turnin
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporations have learned on a global-cultural level that they can buy laws. They saw it happen and now they are all trying to play the same game. The data updates on OpenSecrets.org has never seemed busier.
That business and government relationship needs to be severed in order to make the government's actions swing in favor of "the people" instead of "the people that hold controlling interest in General Motors."
Finally? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you misunderstand.
Rights are for the ISPs.
Responsibilities are for the users.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whenever I hear this, I always ask: Are you seriously suggesting that there be more than one company in a given area running physical cables to every house? Or are you suggesting more government regulation to force them to share the cables they've got?
It sounds funny, yes, but why
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Any company can buy out competition if the competition is willing to pay. So what? If group A wants to freely trade X amount of property that it rightly owns, to group B in exchange for Y compensation, what right does anyone have to stop them? On the same token, nobody has the right to stop group C from coming into existence and providing a competing service."
This is a non-point and I do not, and never have tried to argue it. The statements were