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Net Neutrality Reality for Artists
Let me be crystal clear about two things, up front, before I dive into this topic:
1. I'm a 100% Pro net neutrality. I would support a real law to protect net neutrality.
2. The article that follows reflects my understanding and opinion of the current situation. I could be wrong.
SYNOPSIS: In late 2017 the FCC reclassified ISPs in a way that switched them from being HIGHLY regulated to LOOSELY regulated. It reverted regulation to how it had historically been from 1996-2015. While I originally thought the change meant the "end of net neutrality", and was very upset, after researching the issue, I've come to the conclusion that it does not mean the end of net neutrality and everything seems to be "business as usual." I don't see any issues with artists and their websites stemming from the FCC's reclassification and, in fact, as additional internet bandwidth infrastructure is built going forward - this reclassification might actually be a good thing. If you only want to know if this change will affect you and your artist website, you can stop reading if you wish. The answer is no: your website will not be affected, blocked or throttled in any way. If you wish to know all the gory & complicated details of how I came to this conclusion then please read the whole article. Please do not comment on this issue unless you read the whole article. Thank you.
What is "Net Neutrality"?
Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring, blocking or bandwidth throttling particular products or websites.
The End of Net Neutrality?
In late 2017 social media went crazy with the idea that the FCC was going to "end" net neutrality. Many people, including me, were upset, Many people posted fake news. People were encouraged to contact their congressmen. The FCC eventually voted and, as expected, "ended" net neutrality. We've since had a number of worried artists ask us what this means for their artist websites. People are upset and scared. Some artists are worried that their websites will be slowed down, or even blocked by ISPs.
This article attempts to clarify what has happened and what you can expect.
First off: Relax. Everything is fine. I explain why in the following missive. It's quite detailed and a bit long, so you can skip to the bottom line for my conclusions if you don't want all the gory details. I only ask that you read the entire article if you plan to comment.
I've done a lot of research into what has actually happened and the situation is not as grim as the Tweet storms made it seem. Indeed, the situation isn't even bad and, by some arguments, the situation is actually good.
A Real Problem Brewing
As an aside, net neutrality repeal isn't the big current threat. The current problem, I've come to realize, that we should increasingly worry about, is not so much the power of ISPs and net neutrality, but the huge, and growing, power that Facebook, Google and Twitter have over the public's attention. And the way these platforms allow fake news and inflammatory ideas to rapidly spread and scare people. I'm not alone in this concern. Due to the increasing inflammatory power of modern social media people have become increasingly easy to scare. Part of this is sort of intentional. These platforms are designed to maximize engagement and how much time you spend on the platform. Inflammatory content keeps people engaged.
Anyway, I think that's what happened in late 2017: people were rightly worried about preserving net neutrality, but the facts and real debate got pushed aside as social media blew up and made everyone scared and anxious. The bottom line of this quick aside is this: be skeptical and level-headed about what you see on social media. With that in mind, let's dive in to what actually happened and where we are with net neutrality.
Net Neutrality History
Since 1980, the FCC has divided communication services into "basic" and "enhanced" categories: phone lines, with their "pure" transmission, are basic, while services like web hosting, which process information, are enhanced.
Here's the important difference: Only basic services are subject to what are known as "common carrier" laws, which stop carriers from discriminating against or refusing service to customers.
As such, basic services are highly regulated under Title II of the Telecommunications Act as "telecommunications services," while enhanced services are loosely regulated under the much weaker Title I as "information services."
Got that? "Telecommunications services" are highly regulated and "Information services" are loosely regulated.
When the internet exploded in the 1990s it brought a new type of company into our lives: the Internet Service Provider or "ISP." The government had a decision to make - how should it classify ISPs? Should they be classified as "Information Services" and thus be loosely regulated? Or should they be classified as "telecommunications services" and be highly regulated?
Part of the original reason that basic services, such as phone companies, were highly regulated is that they were mature monopolies. In essence the FCC chose to highly regulate "Ma Bell" because Ma Bell had a monopoly and, without regulation, had the power to abuse that monopoly. This was best explained by the Saturday Night Live skit, We Don't Care. We Don't Have to. We're the Phone Company.
However, high regulation comes at a price: it makes it very hard for new companies to enter the regulated space. And it complicates building out infrastructure in the space. High regulation hurts growing industries. And in the 1990's the internet was definitely a growing industry.
So, in 1996, a new telecommunications act was passed with the stated goal, "to open up markets to competition by removing regulatory barriers to entry." The bill's conference report read, “to provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition". [emphasis added]
In short, the government decided to loosely regulate the growing ISP industry and, given that they wanted to spur the build out of broadband and the future of the Internet, that was probably a good decision. So, starting in the 1990's ISPs were loosely regulated under Title I in the "enhanced" category.
This is how ISPs were classified from 1996 until 2015.
Net Neutrality Violations and Corrections
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the idea of "Net Neutrality" was already floating around and most companies already seemed committed to the idea of "net neutrality." But, since ISPs were classified under Title I, there wasn't much the FCC could do if someone actually decided to violate the net neutrality ethos. Fortunately, there were very few abuses and the internet we all know and love flourished in this environment.
Over the years, there have been a few cases of ISPs blocking or throttling traffic and they have all been resolved quickly due to competitive pressure, public outcry, or even the threat of government regulation. Or, in a few cases, there are even legitimate reasons for ISPs technically "violate net neutrality" and block traffic to protect the integrity of their network. Try running a mail server from your house, or just try to send an SMTP email over port 25, your ISP will block that traffic and they will be within their rights to do so. So, with a few minor exceptions, from 1996 - 2015 we lived in a world of "near net neutrality" that was loosely regulated under Title I and mostly self-policing.
The reason it is self-policing is that the ISP business is cut-throat and brutal. And all ISPs want one thing: more users. If any ISP blocks or throttles a significant number of people, there are many other ISPs more than willing to remain "network neutral" and take those users away. There just doesn't appear to be a significant risk of major, sustained net neutrality violations. The potential cost to a given ISP is just too great.
However, under certain conditions it has happened, although usually not for the reasons people assume. One of the more popularly cited cases of violating net neutrality is Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent. BitTorrent's most popular use case is software, music and movie piracy. The piracy use-case requires lots of bandwidth for both downloads and uploads. It put significant burdens on Comcast’s network. So Comcast temporarily throttled BitTorrent while they built out additional network capacity. The FCC ordered Comcast to stop, but a federal court later ruled that the FCC lacked the authority given that ISPs were Title I providers, as we discussed above. (By the time the court ruled, Comcast had already added additional network capacity and had stopped the throttling, so, again, it really was a non-issue).
The 2015 FCC Changes the Rules
That brings us to 2015. A few net neutrality "violations" like the Comcast one, mentioned above, had happened over the years and, since ISPs were classified as Title I providers, the FCC couldn't stop these ISPs directly through regulation. So, even though in all cases the marketplace had self-corrected the violations, the government changed the classification of ISPs and started regulating them under Title II. All ISPs would now be highly regulated.
And, going forward, if another situation like Comcast throttling bittorrent happened, the FCC would now have the authority to step in and order them to stop.
To my knowledge, from 2015 - 2017, there were no ISP net neutrality violations and the FCC never had to use its authority under Title II to order anyone to stop blocking or throttling traffic.
The big question we have now is this - is the ISP industry mature? Are we finished building out broadband infrastructure in this country? Are ISPs a monopoly that need to be highly regulated?
How Should We Regulate ISPs Anyway?
HIGH regulation makes sense if we are in a mature, stable, monopolistic industry. But, it comes at the price of depressing new companies and more infrastructure investment.
LOW regulation makes sense if we think we want to encourage more new ISPs, more broadband build out, and more bandwidth growth.
The 2015 FCC thought high regulation made sense. The new FCC thinks that low regulation makes sense.
What Actually Happened When "Net Neutrality was Repealed?"
So, believing in low regulation, in late 2017, the FCC repealed the 2015 change that highly regulates ISPs under Title II and reverted to the exact same rules that were in place from 1996-2015. So, once again, starting in 2018, ISPs are now loosely regulated under Title I.
And, that, dear readers is all that happened in late 2017. All the anxiety, all the people screaming the sky is falling, all the hysteria about the "end of net neutrality" was over repealing a rule that was in place for only 2 of the 21 years we've been regulating the internet....and reverting to the same rules, under which the internet thrived, that were in place for 19 of 21 years.
Was What Happened Good or Bad?
Personally, as I look at where we are going in Internet technology: More 4K displays, coming 8K displays, coming augmented reality, coming virtual reality, real time cloud services, real time voice processing over the internet, the internet of things, and a plethora of other as-yet-to-be-invented technologies, there is no doubt in my mind that we will need more bandwidth and a LOT MORE OF IT.
The build out of more bandwidth means we need more infrastructure and more companies building it. We need to continue a low regulation environment to make that happen.
That means, honestly, that what the FCC did late last year is likely a neutral move and might even be a GOOD thing. It restores the environment that has allowed the internet to thrive and grow for a quarter of a century. And it's not like the a future FCC can't simply revert ISPs back to Title II regulation if they need to at some future point. They can.
And I have to eat crow and learn my own lesson here: I thought net neutrality was actually ending. I was not skeptical enough of the things I read on Facebook and Twitter. I was right there on Twitter with everyone yelling that "the sky is falling" and that "net neutrality is dead."
But after deeply studying the difficult details of this situation I've come to the exact opposite conclusion.
The Bottom Line
So, to answer all the artists who've asked what this means for their websites: nothing. Net neutrality isn't dead, ISPs aren't going to block your websites. The rules we have now are the rules that we've had for a nearly a quarter of a century. In short, it's business as usual.
I would like to add, again, that I am a huge net neutrality proponent. I would support a real law that protects real net neutrality and limits ISP ability to throttle or block in a discriminatory way. But, we've never had such a law and we really haven't had any major violations so, for now, we have to pick the best option from the laws we currently have. And I think regulating ISPs loosely works for now.
Sincerely,
Clint Watson
BoldBrush/FASO Founder & Art Fanatic
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Further reading:
https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
