Stealing The Internet

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8528

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Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

Steven Rosenfeld is a commentary editor and audio producer for TomPaine.com.



Ever stop to wonder what is really happening to the Internet these days?

The crackdown by the music industry on illegal downloading tells just part of the story. Even with the dot-com bust, the digital boom is here, as high-speed connections, faster processors and new wireless devices increasingly become part of life. But the thousands of lawsuits are not just about ensuring record companies and artists get the royalties they deserve. They're part of a larger plan to fundamentally change the way the Internet works.

From Congress to Silicon Valley, the nation's largest communication and entertainment conglomerates -- and software firms that want their business -- are seeking to restructure the Internet, to charge people for high-speed uses that are now free and to monitor content in an unprecedented manner. This is not just to see if users are swapping copyrighted CDs or DVDs, but to create digital dossiers for their own marketing purposes.

All told, this is the business plan of America's handful of telecom giants -- the phone, cable, satellite, wireless and entertainment companies that now bring high-speed Internet access to most Americans. Their ability to meter Internet use, monitor Internet content and charge according to those metrics is how they are positioning themselves for the evolving Internet revolution.

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Anymore every aspect of everyday life is becoming a situation where you are forced to pay some big business entity big fees for everything. Somehow they need to be made to understand that they don't own this country, we do. We are constantly told that this and that is not a right, it is a privilege. Big business needs to be told that the right to operate in this country is NOT a right, it is a privilege granted to them by the government of the people of the United States of America. WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. The professional politicians in Washington and elsewhere need to be informed that they have their position for one purpose only. TO SERVE THE NEEDS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, not some corporate entity.

I get emailings from Tompaine.com but had not gotten around to reading that. I am so dusgusted with this consumerist, corporate culture that even many of us here at DU seem to embrace in the form of Pop culture threads.

Edited to ad this: I too have loved much that is considered pop culture--but it does trouble me. I am sick of "products."

concerning fundamental infrastructure (or lack thereof) that is the internet. They will be able to control pieces of it, but never the whole, that's the beautiful nature of the internet, and TCP/IP.

so happy to have something to post, and there it was already. Oh well. Thanks for posting. They are trying to control the internet, and I agree with xion they will ultimately fail.
They are old men with old ideas trying desperately to get back to yesterday.

There is a gradual and methodical march being led by the media and telecommunications corporations to divide up the internet amongst themselves, to fundamentally shift the internet from the open market that it is to a divided commodity pie.

This is one reason why I despise the Republican Party to the degree I do...they are the whores who are leading this charge to tear down the internet and rebuild it in their image.

Unfortunately there are also a few prominent Democratic whores who get their votes pimped out their corporate media bosses, although today I can be happier about this than I was yesterday. Why? Because Whore #1, Senator Fritz Hollings, is going to call it a day.

..." It's for the safety of the CHILDREN"... I say watch your damned children...don't park a 12 year old in front of a computer screen and expect them to "chat safely"..

I told my kids ages ago, that the 14 yr old "girl" they were chatting with was probably a 50 yr old cop or a 45 yr old pervert... At least even odds that it was NOT a 14 yr old girl..

Did they look at nudie pics?? Probably... Did they turn our to be wretched creatures?? Nope..


It's odd that the ones who value "personal respopnsibilities" so much cannot seem to control their own kids ...or to trust them to do the right thing.. They must have LAWS prohibiting the things that they should be guarding against :(