Net Neutrality- What’s the Problem?

Open and Competitive Markets, . . Yeah, Sure.

No need for a long essay, since there shouldn’t be any problem at all- anyone who hasn’t spent thirty years in a cave understands that the internet is an essential utility on the order of electricity and water, and not some optional service like pet grooming or astrology reading. Yet in Washington, D.C., where all too often it’s impossible to reach agreement that water is wet, the FCC under chairman Thomas Wheeler is still bent on regulating the internet as an “information service,” rather than a “telecommunication service.” This makes about as much sense as attempting to regulate nuclear reactors as if they were household appliances, using product safety laws to craft the regulations needed to keep stuff from melting down and going BOOM. My preference, though, would be for the FCC to stop screwing around, and correct its 2002 ruling before any more damage is done.

Oh, that’s right, we’re talking about Washington; what was I thinking? Anyhow, here’s my reading list for getting deeper into the weeds.

John Nichols. Net Neutrality Will Be Saved Only If Citizens Raise an Outcry. The Nation. April 24, 2014

Lee Fang. Former Comcast and Verizon Attorneys Now Manage the FCC and Are About to Kill the Internet. VICE. April 25 2014

Marvin Ammori. The FCC’s New Net Neutrality Proposal Is Even Worse Than You Think. SLATE. April 24, 2014

Mike Masnick. How The FCC Plans Neuter The Net, Even As The FCC Insists Everyone’s Got It All Wrong. Techdirt. April 25th 2014

April Glaser and Corynne McSherry. FCC’s New Rules Could Threaten Net Neutrality. Electronic Frontier Foundation. April 24, 2014

Bartees Cox Jr. FCC To Allow Commercial Discrimination on the Internet. PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE. April 23, 2014

Editorial Board. Creating a Two-Speed Internet. New York Times. APRIL 24, 2014

Copyright Alliance News (3)

Jun12

(NOTE: Originally published June 12, 2013, this post was re-edited for public display, Sept. 20, 2013. The IAG is no longer my interest group at the NYC chapter of the Graphic Artists Guild, and I am no longer an officer, volunteer, or member of the Graphic Artists Guild.)

It’s obvious that most Guild members are far more concerned about those things that provide a direct benefit to their careers, such as creative and business skills training, than about a lot of stuff that falls under the broad heading of “advocacy.” It’s entirely understandable; putting out better promotions brings in more work; enlarging skill sets lands better jobs; sharpening business practices really, really matters to your bottom line. What’s happening in the Copyright law, Trade negotiation, and Tax Policy Jungles of Washington, D.C. is both extraordinarily complex and of indirect and uncertain consequence to your daily survival as a creative professional. Who the heck can spare the time to make sense of it? Particularly time that’s already stretched thin just trying to keep up on all the stuff having a direct impact?

Whether or not it matters all depends on what you think the Guild’s mission should be. If you think the Guild should be your voice and advocate, dealing with what’s happening in the jungle so that you can concentrate on your daily critical tasks, then it does matter.

That brings us to current news and events involving the Copyright Alliance, an organization that the Guild supports both financially and by tacit endorsement as a member of the Alliance. If you can find a few minutes, please read about what the lobbyists for the Copyright Alliance (a.k.a., the Nickles Group, LLC) have been up to.

AT&T’s Deregulation Campaign

As the company moves to Internet-based telephone service, it’s looking to shed regulatory obligations that benefit low-income Americans.
Leticia Miranda, June 10, 2013. The Nation Magazine.

“Since 2010, AT&T has been waging a deregulation campaign in several states across the country while aiming to move its traditional, wired telephone services to Internet Protocol (IP)-based services, which transmit voice communications digitally. With the help of corporate “bill mill” the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and support from companies like AT&T, state legislators have introduced a series of “model” bills aimed at preventing regulation of IP-based services in more than thirty states across the country, from Idaho to Georgia, Texas to New Hampshire.”

How are the regulatory changes that AT&T seeks bad for professional creators? It takes sorting out and understanding a good-sized chunk of the economics and the history of telecommunications regulations. (Sure, like you have a whole lot of time to dedicate to that.) Essentially what’s happening is that AT&T and the other major players in the communications game are questing for that ultimate goal in our not-quite free market system; the one really big principle that you were never taught in Economics 101, and that’s never, ever uttered by the serious people in discussions about economics: Providing the Least Amount of Goods and Services, While Charging the Most Possible.

As creators of content, our interests are served by having a broad and vibrant market in which to sell our products and services. Unfortunately, the major telecom corporations are whittling away at regulations that preserve competition and keep costs under control, harming our base of potential clients and customers. The terms we’ll need to agree to and the rates we’ll receive for our services are going to suffer in a market controlled by only a handful of corporations, who are working hard at maximizing their profits at the expense of service. This is the reason SOPA was such a bad deal for creators; it would have placed legal weapons into the hands of the largest telecoms, enabling them to suppress their competition. Reducing or eliminating net neutrality policies would likewise suppress competition, cut down on the number of our potential clients, and raise costs for the mere transmission of content. Dollars wasted on excessive transmission and access fees to phone and internet service are dollars not going to content creators. Powerful telecoms using their lobbying muscle to rake in bigger profits while being allowed to provide service of lesser quality is not in our interest.

The Nation article points to one element of AT&T’s strategy, which is to shut out many consumers that are in rural or poor regions that are harder to provide service to, and are therefore less profitable. From our standpoint, though, these are potential content consumers that are left out of the marketplace. If you find the AT&T article too indirect and tiresome, however, or you need more background first, I highly recommend that you view the video available online of Bill Moyers’ interview of Susan Crawford, to get a clearer view of what’s going on.

Susan Crawford on Why U.S. Internet Access is Slow, Costly and Unfair.

Moyers&Company. February 8, 2013.

The lobbyists that represent the Copyright Alliance, who are supposedly looking out for the interests of “creative individuals,” are all from the Nickles Group LLC with only one small exception. Simultaneously while representing the Alliance, the Nickles people are also representing: AT&T, COMCAST, and the MPAA, Motion Picture Association of America. Yup, the same interests that are frequently doing bad things to the marketplace you depend upon.

In case you are not familiar with the Nickles Group, LLC, mentioned in other posts, they are a lobbying firm that Sourcewatch.org lists as a supporter of ALEC.

Meeting Recap: The Copyright Jungle

Oct26

(NOTE: Originally published Oct. 26, 2012, this post was re-edited for public display, Sept. 20, 2013. The IAG is no longer my interest group at the NYC chapter of the Graphic Artists Guild, and I am no longer an officer, volunteer, or member of the Graphic Artists Guild.)

If you’ve been around the Guild for any length of time, or are serious about making a living as an illustrator, then you are of course familiar with the basics of copyright. You probably know the drill when it comes to registering works with the U.S. Copyright Office, and likely have attended one or more lectures on copyright such as those hosted by our chapter. If you’ve been around the block as an illustrator, then maybe you’ve even hired an attorney to help solve a copyright-related business issue, and so experienced the thrilling complexities of the law first-hand.

The thing is, there’s a lot more to copyright than just those everyday aspects such as registering and managing the usage of your intellectual property. Of course there is; how could there not be?! After all, copyright law has everything to do with who owns stuff, who profits, and how business gets done around the globe. It is therefore tangled up in many of the other social, economic, and political controversies happening all around us; money in politics and corporate influence; erosion of free speech and other constitutional rights; complex and potentially dangerous global trade policies; control and abuse of technology; and disruptions to both domestic and international labor markets.

The research I did on the Copyright Alliance brought home to me that there are serious and important battles being fought over copyright, going on right now in government offices, corporate board rooms, and in the courts. If you are a Guild member, pay attention; some of your dues money* has gone to the Copyright Alliance, allegedly to help strengthen copyright protections for artists and illustrators. However, since it turns out that the Alliance is a front group for corporate interests, namely big media and telecom giants such as the MPAA, COMCAST, and AT&T, you might not be very happy when I tell you that your money also went to support a few things you’d be less likely to approve of: erosion of the FCC’s net neutrality policies that prevent Comcast and other major service providers from gaining excessive control over the internet; support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which might do further harm to democratic controls on international trade, already damaged by NAFTA, CAFTA, and other treaties; and support for SOPA, that thoroughly disgraced attempt to alter internet protocols for the purpose of increasing corporate control over web content.

The Copyright Alliance is only one of the many species of animals in the copyright jungle that are working hard to alter laws and policies to suit their interests. I’ve assembled below something of a scouting report on the critters and the terrain I encountered while researching the Copyright Alliance, and have also included a few links and resources to help you figure things out for yourself. Good luck with that!

THE CRITTERS.
While way too numerous and nuanced to list individually, they can be divided into a few general categories:

Maximalists. Corporate interests mostly, seeking rock-solid protections for what they currently own, control over the means to access both their stuff (and everyone else’s), the suppression of competition, and the ability to cheaply acquire all the stuff they don’t yet own.

Minimalists. Consumer-oriented interests that would like access to everything at no cost.

Economic Hybrids. Businesses that both use and produce creative works, or have multiple and competing interests affected by copyright: educational institutions, artists and graphics professionals, and a wide variety of companies in industries such as communications, design, and advertising.

Citizens. Everyone and anyone interested or concerned about free speech, corporate influence in government, the rights of employees, social values connected to technology, communications, and other elements affected by copyright law.

THE TERRAIN.
Here are some terms that relate to past battles fought over copyright, are still being fought, or might be coming soon to a jungle clearing near you. While some controversial proposals for copyright legislation have apparently come and gone, such as orphan works, there’s a chance that they could come back to life in the future; it all depends on circumstance and how much money is at stake. Yes, it does appear that this jungle is inhabited by zombies!

Berne Convention
Copyright Act of 1976
Copyright renewal Act of 1992
WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization)
DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act)
Copyright term extension
Orphan Works
DRM (Digital Rights Management)
DMCA takedowns*
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act)*
Fair Use*
Net Neutrality*
Digital / Internet Piracy*
ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)*
TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement)*

* Items you should pay particular attention to.

LINKS AND RESOURCES.

Resources 1. Maximalists

Copyright Alliance
MPAA
RIAA
ASCAP
Chilling Report
Center for Copyright Information
Creative America
Copyhype
Copyright Clearance Center
Global Intellectual Property Center
Book: Robert Levine. Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back.

Resources 2. Everyone Else: Hybrids, Minimalists, Citizens.
(You’ll have to decide for yourself who’s who!)

Copyright Society
Techdirt
Ars Technica
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Public Knowledge
Creative Commons
Chilling Effects Clearinghouse
Book: Peter Decherney. Hollywood’s Copyright Wars: From Edison to the Internet.
Book: Jason Mazzone. Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law.
Book: William Patry. How to Fix Copyright.
e-book: The Sky is Rising. (Suggests that online profit potential is rising, despite digital piracy fears).
Video online: Bill Moyers & Company. Elections for Sale.
(This episode includes a discussion on how non-profit organizations are distorting the democratic process. Relevant when considering the impact that non-profits are having in the battles over copyright).

Miscellaneous Links. Research Tools, Technical and Government Resources to help you find stuff.

OpenSecrets.org Look up data on lobbyists and campaign contributions.
Sunlight Foundation Watchdog on government activities
Sourcewatch Look up data on political groups and individuals.
WhoLobbiesUs Data required to be publicly disclosed by lobbyists to U.S. Senate.
PR Watch Center for Media and Democracy.
Thomas.gov Look up information on specific legislation.
IRS Exempt Organization search Find tax information on specific non-profit organizations.
Columbia University Libraries Copyright Quick Guide. Good summary of copyright law and best practices.
U.S. Copyright Office The official scoop on copyright.

-Chris

(*National officers claimed that this statement is untrue, that the Graphic Artists Guild’s annual $5000 payments for membership in the Copyright Alliance have come from reprographic rights royalty money. However, while I was a member of the Guild’s International Board of Directors, no document was ever produced that separated usage of dues from reprographic royalty funds. This includes the official budget proposal documents presented to the International Board of Directors for the Guild’s November 2012 Annual Convention. See my March 13, 2013 post Reprographic Royalties for some background information.)

Protected: Recap: Debbie Millman Event

Sep24

Objects in Motion

Sep13

(NOTE: Originally published Sept. 13, 2012, this post was re-edited for public display, Sept. 20, 2013. The IAG is no longer my interest group at the NYC chapter of the Graphic Artists Guild, and I am no longer an officer, volunteer, or member of the Graphic Artists Guild.)

After a long summer break, it’s about time to get things going at the IAG again. I’ll begin by providing a few updates; first, I finally completed a report on the Copyright Alliance that I had started way back in March. I originally hoped to have it wrapped up long before now, but unfortunately it took me down a much deeper rabbit hole than I had anticipated, on a journey through labor law, right-wing politics, and the sordid business of lobbying in Washington D.C. I was motivated to write the report while following the progress of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) that died a well-deserved death this past spring, which the Guild briefly supported after maybe taking its cue from the Copyright Alliance. (The Graphic Artists Guild is currently an executive member of the Alliance). My report lays out details showing the Alliance to be a front group for a select clique of corporate interests, that operates out of a Washington D.C. lobbying firm headed by Senator Don Nickles, a staunch conservative from Oklahoma. The conclusion I reached is that the Graphic Artists Guild should not provide either financial or vocal support to the Alliance, and should terminate its executive membership. I just recently sent the report to the national officers and board of directors at the Guild, so we’ll probably have to wait a little to see if anything develops. After the Guild leadership has had adequate time to decide on policy I’ll make the report freely available to everyone.

While my Copyright Alliance report originally started off as guild business, it touches on a number of issues that all illustrators should be mindful of, and which should be discussed at the IAG. I became familiar with a few things while investigating the Alliance: ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement); the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA); the “chilling effect” of DMCA take-down notices; Hollywood accounting; net neutrality; and a few other issues that we should take some time to learn about.

That brings me to my last news item; we will have our next IAG meeting at the Productive on Thursday, September 27, and I will give a presentation on the current political landscape of copyright and related trade issues, and so share with you a bit of knowledge gained by all my Copyright Alliance muckraking. Since I’m not a lawyer I won’t be making pronouncements about legislative details, but I will be able to provide you with a pretty good summary of who the players on the field are, what they are advocating, and point you to some resources that might help you sort things out for yourself. The main idea behind my presentation will be to alert you to a few objects in motion in the business world and in Washington D.C. that may not be making huge headlines, but are still worth paying attention to.

-Chris