The MPAA wants to make ISPs their bitch and police the interwebitubes, AT&T submits!

Published on September 21st, 2007

Posted by SN in General

Ars Technica – September 19, 2007:

It’s no secret that US content owners want the “middlemen” of the Internet economy to better police their networks and services for material that infringes copyright.

NBC Universal has been one of the big drivers behind this push to outsource the work of filtering to the ISPs. NBC’s general counsel Rick Cotton recently told the FCC that ISPs should be forced to “use readily available means to prevent the use of their broadband capacity to transfer pirated content.” Otherwise, corn farmers could be harmed.

Rather amazingly, given the money and time that will be required to implement such a system, AT&T has agreed to start filtering content at some mysterious point in the future.

Net neutrality rules, if passed, might throw up some roadblocks. It’s no wonder, then, that NBC and the MPAA as a whole are opposed to such rules.

We’ve written about AT&T’s eagerness to police the interwebitubes previously.

23 users responded in " The MPAA wants to make ISPs their bitch and police the interwebitubes, AT&T submits! "

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# 1 Glenn E said, on September 21st, 2007 at 4:44 am

NBC/Universal’s promised compliance wouldn’t have anything to do with being partly owned by Microsoft. I don’t understand how all these corporate investment strategies work. Just that M$ got part of NBC, and it spawned MSNBC on cable. Plus, I’m sure that M$’s influence leaks over into other parts of the parent company. It can’t just be an amazing coincidence that NBC is the only one to sucome to the MPAA, and its got Microsoft on its back too.

I would have thought that ABC would have been the first, being owned by Disney Inc. Though ABC has been close with Disney for as long as I can remember. Outright ownership was just a formality. So how come ABC doesn’t want to protect Disney’s (their own) content?

# 2 Glenn E said, on September 21st, 2007 at 4:54 am

Oops. Sorry, I read that wrong (just woke up). It’s about ISPs, eh? I can’t say for sure why AT&T is cowtowing to NBC/Universal. But I’d suspect that they have carried NBC programming over its wires and satellites. So it wouldn’t want to upset a major business partner, by not defending its content from piracy. Now what we need is a list of what other ISPs AT&T controls under various names. And avoid subscribing to them, if we think that will discourage their behavor.

# 3 hmeyers said, on September 21st, 2007 at 5:11 am

I think it is disgusting that SBC — a terrible phone company — was allowed to acquire the AT&T name.

Ameritech/SBC/AT&T keeps changing it’s name to obscure information on what a terrible company it is.

The CEO — Mr. “These are my pipes” Whatshisface — is the type of CEO we need the government and aggressive legislation to protect us from.

One of the few CEO’s whose ambitions make Steve Balmer look like a saint.

# 4 ECA said, on September 21st, 2007 at 5:16 am

You forgot something…
SBC also owns Yahoo…

# 5 Mister Mustard said, on September 21st, 2007 at 5:47 am

Is there a difference between “interwebitube” and the last-century term “internet”?

# 6 Cinaedh said, on September 21st, 2007 at 6:58 am

Exactly who is handing these guys ‘ownership’ of the Internet so they can censor what they please? I’m unaware of any individual or organization currently owning the ‘Net so they can give away rights or sell them.

This reminds me of intrepid explorers claiming territory simply because they put a flag on it – and to hell with the indigenous peoples.

# 7 Todd Anderson, III said, on September 21st, 2007 at 7:20 am

Ma Bell surely misses the day when she was the only game in town. Perhaps these moves are designed to bring about her re-emergence as overlord of the American telecommunications industry.

# 8 Bryan Price said, on September 21st, 2007 at 7:34 am

Let’s not forget this years takeover of BellSouth either. Not that I have BellSouth/AT&T DSL, but Comcast, and this isn’t good either:

c:\>tracert somewhere

Tracing route to lb1.www.ms.akadns.net [207.46.192.254]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

# 9 Bryan Price said, on September 21st, 2007 at 7:38 am

Wasn’t that a nice hoot?

c:\>tracert somewhere

Tracing route to lb1.www.ms.akadns.net [207.46.192.254]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 13 ms * 7 ms Comcast
4 8 ms * 9 ms Comcast
5 7 ms * 7 ms Comcast
6 82 ms * 23 ms Comcast
7 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms Comcast
8 12 ms 11 ms 11 ms 12.86.180.241 – Not reported, but AT&T
9 93 ms 93 ms 87 ms tbr2.ormfl.ip.att.net [12.122.106.66]
10 150 ms 88 ms 87 ms tbr1.attga.ip.att.net [12.122.12.121]
11 90 ms 88 ms 88 ms tbr2.dtrmi.ip.att.net [12.122.10.197]
12 87 ms 88 ms 88 ms tbr2.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.10.134]
13 116 ms 88 ms 143 ms tbr2.st6wa.ip.att.net [12.122.10.62]

This should work.

If I want to do anything on my Comcast account, it has to go through AT&T. And no, I don’t believe that what AT&T is talking about is just an end-point. If it hit’s their network, they are going to examine that packet.

# 10 The Monster's Lawyer said, on September 21st, 2007 at 7:49 am

I for one welcome our InterWebitube overlords.
All Hail!

# 11 OhForTheLoveOf said, on September 21st, 2007 at 8:10 am

#4 – You forgot something…
SBC also owns Yahoo…

Ummm… No… They don’t…

# 12 FRAGaLOT said, on September 21st, 2007 at 8:12 am

thank god I switch back to cable from AT&T DSL.

# 13 jdm said, on September 21st, 2007 at 10:10 am

Don’t blame me; I voted for Kodos!

# 14 mbtins01@hotmail.com said, on September 21st, 2007 at 11:01 am

Get used to it folks — you are going to see more and more of this as they all realize there is money to be made or lawsuits to be avoided by doing it.

The Internet as we know it is dying. Did you all really think that governments and big business would let something like it last that long? Too much power to the common man and that is a very scary thing for business and government.

If they want to police the net, why don’t they do a better job of cleaning up spam and porn?

I still remember that AT&T — my isp — pulled all or most of the MP3 binary groups off the servers, but they are more than willing to keep alt.binaries.erotica.teen or whatever else it is.

If we spent have as much time in this country going after stuff that is really illegal and or harmful as we do acting as thugs for the MPAA and RIAA, kiddie porn and crap like that would have been wiped out years ago.

Exploit a child — oh that’s too bad — what a shame. Take a nickel from the RIAA or the MPAA — off with his head!!!!

Mike T

# 15 Lauren the Ghoti said, on September 21st, 2007 at 11:42 am

#13 – kdm

“Don’t blame me; I voted for Kodos!”

You’re insane. Kang is our only hope…

# 16 ECA said, on September 21st, 2007 at 2:52 pm

11,
Yes they do…
do a search on google for SBC, watch the first few listings…
ATT
Yahoo internet, and SBC…
they used to have the SBC in their site…

# 17 hmeyers said, on September 21st, 2007 at 8:24 pm

Yahoo is traded on NASDAQ.

They aren’t owned by anyone. AT&T (formerly SBC) and Yahoo have a DSL promotion agreement.

# 18 James Armstrong said, on September 21st, 2007 at 10:54 pm

Makes sense. They’re already looking at everything for Uncle Sam. Could be a major source of new revenue.

# 19 Glenn E said, on September 22nd, 2007 at 4:36 pm

This story is a smokescreen. It came out the very day that Prez Bush went to Congress to get the “Protect America Act” extended, perhaps made permanent. And get the Carriers (AT&T, Verizon, etc) exempt from any legal actions and law suits, concerning illegal wiretapping and monitoring of emails. AT&T just happen to be the first one exposed as having created a facility for doing this, to the NSA’s specifications.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/307/spy-scandal.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/19/america/NA-GEN-US-Eavesdropping.php

And if Bush wants to exempt all carriers from future law suits, then obvious others beside AT7T are either snooping in on the email, or soon will be.

http://www.standardnewswire.com/news/294761594.html

Note the phrase: “meaningful liability protection”, eight paragraphs down. Trying to sneak a blanket exemption in for the telecoms.

# 20 Glenn E said, on September 22nd, 2007 at 4:37 pm

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/307/spy-scandal.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/19/america/NA-GEN-US-Eavesdropping.php

And if Bush wants to exempt all carriers from future law suits, then obvious others beside AT7T are either snooping in on the email, or soon will be.

http://www.standardnewswire.com/news/294761594.html

Note the phrase: “meaningful liability protection”, eight paragraphs down. Trying to sneak a blanket exemption in for the telecoms. now!

# 21 Glenn E said, on September 22nd, 2007 at 4:38 pm

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/307/spy-scandal.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/19/america/NA-GEN-US-Eavesdropping.php

And if Bush wants to exempt all carriers from future law suits, then obvious others beside AT7T are either snooping in on the email, or soon will be.

# 22 Glenn E said, on September 22nd, 2007 at 4:45 pm

I appologize for the duplicate posting. But if you look closely I had to change it a few times, in minor ways. That was because D.U. kept refusing to confirm it. Only after omitting the “standardnewswire” link did it go thru. But then surprise, the earlier to attempts were also recorded. So John going to have to figure out why that happens. Can’t have this “blacklist” notice popping up for no reason.

# 23 Axtell said, on September 22nd, 2007 at 9:54 pm

Wow using the AT&T logo as the death star…that’s original.

gizmodo.com has been using that graphic for months now.

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