Disney Strikes Against Net Neutrality 442
1 a bee writes "Ars Technica is running a story by Matthew Lasar about how Disney's ESPN360.com is charging ISPs for 'bulk' access to their content. According to the article, if you visit ESPN using a 'non-subscribing' ISP, you're greeted with a message explaining why access is restricted for you. This raises a number of issues: '... it's one thing to charge users an access fee, another to charge the ISP, potentially passing the cost on to all the ISPs subscribers whether they're interested in the content or not.' Ironically, the issue came to the fore in a complaint from the American Cable Association (ACA) to the FCC. A quoted ACA press release warns, 'Media giants are in the early stages of becoming Internet gatekeepers by requiring broadband providers to pay for their Web-based content and services and include them as part of basic Internet access for all subscribers. These content providers are also preventing subscribers who are interested in the content from independently accessing it on broadband networks of providers that have refused to pay.' So, is this a real threat to net neutrality (and the end-to-end principle) or just another bad business model that doesn't stand a chance?"
Ooohhh, they have a "Feedback" feature! (Score:5, Informative)
Guess they want some feedback on this topic:
http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/feedback [go.com]
Re:What about going through proxies? (Score:3, Informative)
An option would be to get one of the middle east proxy service accounts that also have exit points in the US and UK. You can pretty much forget about the free proxies though.
Here's what I see (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well, the cable industry should know. (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, especially the more niche ones. Which is why it's actually the cable channel broadcasters who oppose it. A lot of those channels get on there because in order to get a desirable channel (such as ESPN) a cable company is forced to take other channels they might not want and add them to their basic tier. Indeed, most all of them try to force their way onto the basic tier, while wanting to charge premium rates. In the cable companies defense, this is the biggest pressure there is causing basic cable rates to rise.
There was a recent battle between Comcast (I think it was them) and the NFL network... The NFL and other leagues now think that even being shown on sports networks like ESPN isn't good enough and what their own channel. They've since started moving games there that used to be shown by broadcast networks which pissed a lot of football fans off. They are one of the ones wanting to charge outrageous fees for their channel, yet insist it be on basic cable. Comcast agreed to carry the NFL Network but insisted it be on a premium sports tier, which would mean less money for the NFL (but would also mean that subscribers who didn't want it wouldn't have to pay for it). The NFL threw a hissy fit over that. Haven't heard anything about that in awhile but Comcast was sticking to their guns on it.
From Europe seems fine... (Score:4, Informative)
The site in question seems to work fine from Europe. That was actually my guess beforehand: indeed, how could Disney make deals with all the ISP from overseas...
So it seems that Disney has chosen to only close it to 'some US citizins', ie those of certain ISP's.
(Those which are not one of their choosing).
Guess Disney should be glad to be in the States, and not somewhere in Europe where our Dutch Neelie could get at them ;-0
(See e.g. http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/31/1328249 [slashdot.org] ).
Re:Well, the cable industry should know. (Score:3, Informative)
the new ones are worth nothing at all.
I don't agree with that. Not if you include Pixar's stuff.
Re:Well, the cable industry should know. (Score:3, Informative)
The Wizard of Oz. It is, without a doubt, the greatest children's movie ever made.
Uncle Tom's Cabin... (Score:1, Informative)
Take a look at River of Innocents [riverofinnocents.com] once you're done with Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's the modern version, for slavery today. (Which is still a massive problem.)
Re:Campfire stories for your kids... (Score:3, Informative)
Richard Stallman is *not* a genius, but he is much smarter than you.
Re:Well, the cable industry should know. (Score:3, Informative)
Well, the most smoke-spewing, oil-belching 80's car that I know of were the Chrysler minivans.
But that was only when they had...get this...a Japanese engine.
The domestic Chrysler engines ran fine. The 2.6 Mitsubishi engine was a piece of crap that burned oil, blew head gaskets, and overall gave Chrysler a bad reputation.
You sound like someone covering their ears and shouting "lalalalala" when somebody gives you irrefutable proof that you're wrong.
"It can't be right, because it disagrees with my preconceived notions! Go away!"
Re:racism? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, at one time negro was an adjective meaning black. Not meaning a racial group. I think Latin may have been the dominant tongue then...and they spelled it either niger or nigra depending on the gender of what they modified. (It also varied with the case...I gave the nominative.) But pronunciation was a lot sloppier than spelling. And when the adjective became nominalized (negrus: The Black one) it was pronounced negro. (This, naturally, varies with the century and the country.) (Also note the changed spelling...well, spelling wasn't very standardized then. People prided themselves on the number of way they knew to spell a word. And literacy had declined a long way from Roman times.)
If a group of people are persecuted under a name, they are likely to take one of two paths: either they will embrace the name or they will reject it. If they chose the name themselves, they are more likely to embrace it. You rarely find a Zulu rejecting the term Zulu. And Slavs don't reject the term slav, just because it turned into the english word Slave. (But then few of the Slavs that we know of are the descendants of those slaves.)
The term "The black one" is rather obviously a term applied by an outsider. As such, it's not surprising that it is rejected. It's interesting, though, that the term adopted by the American descendants of the Africans also means the same thing. I have my doubts as to it's durability, but for now to accept it seems the only polite thing to do.