Editorial: It’s The Only Sensible Thing To Do
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Since the end of last week, news has been trickling out of Comcast’s apparent blocking of file sharing services such as BitTorrent from its Internet users. You may have seen the stories here and there, and like many of our readers, you may very well not care. Depending on where you stand on the music-should-free issue, Comcast’s behavior plays to a host of present-day hot buttons on the nature of art, commerce and information. We’re not here to change your mind about any of that today; the way will be clear soon enough. However, we would like to bring to your attention the way in which Comcast restricts its customers, because that is something that will no doubt affect many, be it today or tomorrow.
Comcast is in the midst of firing its first shots across the bow in a growing corporate war against net neutrality. Net neutrality, for the uninitiated, is an ugly can of worms with a lot of corporate and political interests packed in, from people who don’t want you looking at porn to people who want there to be tiered Internet, where those who pay go or load faster than those who don’t. Comcast obviously wants to protect its interests, and then some: Consider last week’s publicity flap the first in a series of testing-the-waters to see just what they can get away with, both in the court of public opinion and, eventually, in courts of law. Given Comcast’s behavior in its TV markets, it’s pretty safe to say that Comcast doesn’t like to play nice. (In fact, they like to play nasty, especially if there’s loot to be made from compromising your privacy.)
At the heart of last week’s unpleasantness — and frankly, the thing that should put all this on your radar — is the underhanded way in which Comcast went about blocking P2P traffic, essentially by impersonating its own users much like a virus or spam would.
When you add this up with the company’s long history of awful customer service, high prices and, depending where you live, near-monopolistic practices, you begin to understand why we might want to, uh, Fuck Comcast. Sure, Comcast brings a lot of jobs into the city, and will continue to do so. (With staggering tax breaks and government assistance, we should add.) But for Comcast to ever be truly embedded into the culture here, Comcast has to become more like Philadelphia and not the other way around. Comcast needs to embrace the open source age in the same way Philadelphians embrace freedom and scorn that which seeks to limit it. So here’s the ways in which you can best Fuck Comcast:
- Be aware. Add a news alert on Comcast via Google so you’re apprised of the company’s practices and press.
- Let them know how you feel.
- And if you’ve finally decided you can’t take it anymore, take your dollars elsewhere. Comcast is the only cable broadband provider in the city that we know of, and that’s only part of why this all sucks so badly. But there are other services out there. Fuck Comcast, lest Comcast fuck you.
Related: BoingBoing: How They Did It
Isen: How They Denied It
ComcastMustDie: For All Giants Eventually Do
October 22nd, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Well, dang it all those open source musicians out there can’t distribute their gifts to humanity … oh wait, that’s not what we’re really talking about here, is it? That’s the problem, if the bulk of P2P traffic was indeed being used legitimately EFF and would have pro bono lawyers looking to make David v Goliath names corded like wood outside its offices.
Unfortunately, since P2P is used as a bypass against the music and other entertainment industries to access those industries’ products, as opposed to actually disseminating a music culture outside the copyright claims of the industry, we get Comcast throttling, some torrent sites not dealing with U.S. IPs because DOJ letters are starting to actually get teeth to them, and the stifling of the technologies needed for a true free culture to flourish. You want a free music culture? Make it. You’re not entitled to the idols CMJ and Pitchfork hand down to you.
Show me someone legitimately using a P2P system getting hurt by the meanies at ComCast, then you actually have a point.
October 22nd, 2007 at 4:40 pm
I have a grand total of 11 signatures on the Anti-Comcast petition drive I started…
send me an address and you can add these to yours.
http://autoacne.blogspot.com/2007/07/food-stuff-consumption-and-miscellany_02.html
http://autoacne.blogspot.com/2007/06/food-stuff-consumption-and-miscellany_28.html
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:20 pm
CTI, I mostly use BT for downloading and trading commercially unavailable live music by bands that have no problem with said trading. So yes, there are those of us who are doing nothing illegal who are still getting boned here.
October 23rd, 2007 at 3:36 pm
http://comcastmustdie.blogspot.com/
October 23rd, 2007 at 3:41 pm
That’s a fair point, Nate. I use torrents myself to exchange work with people too. Unfortunately we all know what the bulk of the P2P traffic is, and whatever good use we may be using BT for is lost in that avalanche of traffic.
I also can’t help but wonder exactly what Comcast customers are entitled to. I’m only familiar with Time Warners’ cable broadband from a few years ago, so things may be different, but I remember Cable networks degrade, or at least used to degrade, with use. That is, two people on a network will suffer diminished speeds if a third person gets on. What the network is being used for also affects the efficiency of a network, and we all know BT and other P2P apps do demand more from the network than say watching Jon Stewart archives on ComedyCentral.com. Comcast’s current approach to traffic mgt is heavy handed, and seems more designed to hassle p2p users into just giving up rather than simply impeding their activity, but I see no reason why “power users” shouldn’t either be throttled or convinced to opt for some sort of heavy user tier. The idea that the internet is de facto “free” just isn’t true. Everyone has the same right to post office too, but someone mailing one letter doesn’t have to contribute to the maintenance of the system to the same degree as someone who’s mailing out 1,000 letters. Electrons are part of the material world too, so what goes for parcels of paper does seem to work with packets of information here too. Or we the people can just outright reject commercial control of the ‘net and come up with something else. Or just wait for Google or other benevolent God to buy some of the VHS spectrum on the auction block.
Lastly, is it just me or did the AP’s description of how Torrent’s actually work sound a bit off?