The Contrarian

Protecting the Internets.

Brooke is in San Jose, CA, at a Media Access Project event about the interwebs. We're both going back out next month for another MAP-sponsored net thingie. Then we'll swing over to San Fran and bug the boy from Blammos.

Speaking of net neutrality, my org, Future of Music Coalition, is gearing up for the release of a CD to benefit our Rock the Net Campaign. The record comes out on July 29, via our pals at Thirsty Ear Recordings. It'll be prominently positioned at Coalition of Independent Music Stores shops, so you Pure Pop shoppers have no reason not to pick it up. Artists who kindly donated tracks include:

Wilco
Bright Eyes
They Might Be Giants
Aimee Mann
The Wrens
DJ Spooky
Vernon Reid
Matthew Shipp
David Bazan
Palomar
The Classic Brown
Portastatic,
BC Camplight
Guster

So yeah, it's a pretty big deal. I've been super-busy project managing the release, writing the liner notes, securing the artwork and putting together a neat download card promotion to coincide with the National Conference on Media Reform — which takes place in Minneapolis on June 6-8.

It occurs to me that I haven't really explained net neutrality here at The Contrarian. At its root, net neutrality is about choice, freedom of expression and access to information. And  tubes. A whole series of 'em, even.

Net neutrality ensures that everyone has the same level of access, and can upload and download the legal content of their choice. The Internet grew up with these principles; indeed, they're its lifeblood. But Big Bad Telecom wants to charge content providers a fee for the faster delivery of their sites, which could cripple innovation, inhibit free speech and move us that much closer to a monoculture where music is all Nickelback all the time and Brawndo is the beverage of choice. Sorta like now, but worse.

This issue is incredibly important for musicians and fans. Imagine going to your favorite band’s website, only to have it take forever to load because they weren’t able to cut a deal with their Internet service provider. Or maybe you’re redirected to a totally different site, where the artist only gets a fraction of the revenue from your purchase.

The internet has made it so entrepreneurs, innovators and artists can do business without unnecessary bottlenecks and gatekeepers. There's  low barrier to entry, and you can reach people around the world. We need to preserve our open access to the most powerful communications tool in history.

I do need to make something clear: all you freetards out there should just get off the net neutrality bus right now. It's not about protecting your right to steal music. Or video. Or software. You people are jerks, and I don't like you.

Net neutrality doesn't prohibit copyright holders exploring ways to prevent piracy. It's a separate issue — NN is about access, "filtering" is about enforcement. Net neutrality only preserves the public’s access to lawful content, applications and online services, which leaves the door open to discuss strategies to combat illegal filesharing — something the ISPs have every right to do.

What the ISPs wouldn't be allowed to do is discriminate against legal applications and/or competing services, like Comcast did by  delaying BitTorrent traffic. You see, there's a perfectly legal company called Vuze, that offers audiovisual content using BitTorrent technology. As it happens, they compete with Comcast's own audiovisual service. Which makes the whole "managing traffic" argument that much flimsier.

Filtering or watermarking, which net neutrality allows, is a whole 'nother ball of wax.

Of course, many believe that filtering would spark an encryption war with no end. And there's doubt about how "smart" the pipes need to be to tell the difference between legal and illegal material. These are valid points. But they should not stop us from adopting a set of guidelines that will allow the internet to function as an open platform to all, and not just the big corporations. Or else we'll be throwing the baby (and American competitiveness, and innovation, and culture) out with the bathwater.

More on this subject later, I'm sure.

Flame On.

The internet is a curious place. I'm equally fascinated and repulsed by the reply comments I read at various sites, mainstream and otherwise. Depending on the temperament and medication intake of those who feel obliged to mark digital territory with their grammatically-challenged offal, such comments can either provide a chuckle or make one pray for a planetary collision with a colossal meteoric object.

[An aside: Godwin's Law states, "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." I find this to be mostly irrefutable.]

I usually enjoy the comments on Idolator. This is because the readership is, by and large, comprised of snarky musical elitists, which means I'm in good company. Sometimes I go against my better judgment and chime in myself.

The other day, Idolator scribe Dan Gibson posted an out-of-the blue diatribe against The Doors. Now, I understand that for many, appreciating the band is merely an adolescent rite of passage. Others, like myself, revere them for the giant permission slip they gave to rock 'n' roll to indulge its lusty, metaphysical urges. (But if you don't find humor in the band's stylized nihilism, you're totally missing the point.) Some, including people I respect, absolutely abhor the group. This doesn't prevent me from occasionally rushing to their defense, especially when I've passed my productivity point at work. (You know, like now.)

So if you have some time to kill, you should check out this Idolator post and its attending comments. Not only did yours truly get firsties, I also managed to land a couple of zingers. If you make it through that thread, you might wanna read today's (somewhat) pro-Doors retort from Idolator's Anthony Miccio.

Or you could just skip the whole thing, and listen to this genius song from Bruce McCulloch of Kids in the Hall fame. I'm not asking here. This is an order.

In other news, my brilliant, beautiful wife and I are taking a long weekend in San Francisco in June. Well, one day will be work-related. But after that, we're gonna visit with Arthur and enjoy us some California dreamin.' Maybe we'll even have a Democratic nominee by then. We'll definitely have a house. Did I tell you we close on May 23 — my birthday?

Too Busy to Blog. . .

But hey, Bill's too busy to eat! Come to think of it, I haven't been fed today, either. . .

Was up on the Hill with OK Go (the treadmill guys), who actually rocked out on acoustic guitars in the Senate in support of Net Neutrality.

Tomorrow, the band's frontfella Damian Kulash testifies on the subject before the House Judiciary Committee.

I'm taking a ton of candid pictures; if you peep the next issue of Rolling Stone, you might even see a couple.

On Wednesday, we're off to Austin for SXSW. All I know is I wanna see Enslaved. Man, I'm gonna be tired by the end of the weekend.

Still looking at houses.

Free Is The New Lame.

Taking a break from arguing with Ben (hard to do — he's got a fascinating mind) to wish everyone a happy weekend.

Brooke and I are gonna look at houses tomorrow with a realtor. Whee!

There's an article in Wired by Chris Anderson (The Long Tail) about how everything in business is destined to be "free." (Does this apply to gasoline and groceries?) Here's two takes on the piece: the first is by Future of Music Coalition's kick-ass intern Alexei Painter (that's his real name!); the second from ex-radio honcho and current music-media whiz Jerry Del Colliano.

For the record, I think Anderson is off the mark here. Believe me, I understand how the internet has undermined certain long-standing business models; I deal with the fallout every day at work. But I don't want to live in a world where recorded music has no value other than to get people to your live show, where they might buy a t-shirt. Mostly because I abhor playing live.  (It's got nothing to do with stage fright, just good old fashioned misanthropy.)  Yet I live for the studio, where I can tweak and experiment to my heart's content.

I've said it before: you wouldn't expect Da Vinci to recreate the Mona Lisa from scratch in one after another dive bar, so  why should musical artists be compelled to regurgitate their songs night after night? Unless they want to, that is. And not all of us do.

Stuff White People Like.

Highly amusing, scarily true.

Thanks to Highgate for this one.

Up to the Hill. . . catch ya laters.

Phew!

Crazy-ass day. So busy my head was spinning. But at least it wasn't boring.

Part of the afternoon was spent up at the Senate for a briefing on the FCC's 700 MhZ auction. Basically, the government is following through with a 2005 deficit reduction bill that set a date of February 17, 2009 to finish the transition from analog to digital TV. This means broadcasters will be vacating a chunk of the spectrum in the "700 band."  The cool part is that signals on this band are able to travel long distances and penetrate buildings and concrete walls — perfect for high-speed internet and WI-FI.

One chunk of the 700, called the "C Block," has been put up for anonymous auction. There are provisions for maintaining "open access," meaning consumers could have more control over which devices they use with which carriers. At present, a few powerful telecoms control which phones work on their networks. They make deals with hardware manufacturers, and then lock you into contracts. Even after the contract expires, you're not typically able to bring your device to another provider. Of course, by then you've already bought the next shiny gadget.

Here's a useful analogy I heard: you don't have to buy a new computer when you switch ISPs, so why should it be any different in the wireless world?

Anyway, the auction is exciting, but there's doubt about whether it'll result in new entries to the field. Odds are, an incumbent like Verizon will win the bid. On the bright side, that company recently announced plans to make its entire network open. We'll see what the fine print looks like. Head to SavetheInternet.com to learn more about what you can do to preserve the public spectrum for YOUR interests, and not Big Telecom.

Oh, and OBAMA WON THE POTOMAC PRIMARIES! WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!

Comcast is The Devil.

Crappy service, high prices, anti-competitive market dominance, misleading broadband claims, poor technical support, annoyingly high-volume advertising, secretive (and possibly illegal) traffic "shaping," weak-ass On-Demand selection, piss-poor packaging structures, useless website.

And they can't even get someone to my house to add a service within the 4-hour window they quoted me TWO WEEKS AGO. You start to understand why Mona "The Hammer" Shaw took such drastic action.

People, I implore you: do not vote Republican (or even Libertarian). There needs to be stricter Federal regulation of all corporate entities doing business with the public spectrum. Sorry, but the the "market" can't "decide" this shit. Or else you get our current situation, in which consumer choice is strangled by profit-hungry monopolies and US broadband penetration is the laughing stock of the rest of the free world.

Your next President is gonna decide how the FCC is staffed. Let's make sure it's not with cronyist douchebags.

Oh, and FUCK COMCAST.

UPDATE:

The technician never came. He was supposed to be here at 11 AM. I called Comcast a total of 11 times. With each call, there was approx. 30 min. hold time. With each call, I was told that the they'd contacted dispatch and the technician would be ringing me directly within fifteen minutes. He never did.

On my 8th call, at 5 PM, I was on hold for around 20 minutes. The customer service rep came back on to tell me that the technician had come to my building at 4:45, and asked the concierge to be let up. The front desk supposedly called us but "we didn't answer." So the technician simply left.

I checked in with our wonderful concierge, Clyde, who told me that no one from Comcast came to our building today. They lied! When I called back, I was told a supervisor would ring me in a few minutes. Never happened. When I called back again, I was told that there was no way they could send back another technician, 'cause it was quittin' time. Nice.

On my 11th Comcast call, I finally spoke to a woman who actually gave a shit. She told me they could simply FedEx the DVR to us. Wow. And only after 8 hours and 11 calls!

It is my fondest wish that the new Democratic administration (preferably Barack Obama's) will put pressure on the FCC to revoke Comcast's franchise license. At the very least, Congress should hold hearings to investigate the company's monopolistic hold on the cable industry.

I encourage anyone who has had similar experiences to log them at www.ComcastMustDie.com, and to write your representative to alert them of the company's fraudulent and anti-competitive behavior. You can also file comments with the FCC urging Chairman Martin to take Comcast's neutral net violations seriously.

Thank you and goodnight.

Report From the Front.

Hey there.

The new cat, who we've taken to calling Cornelius, has had his male reproductive organs truncated. I assure you this was, in fact, on purpose. He's now convalescing on his beloved kitty jungle gym.

Tomorrow is the big "State of the Net" Caucus here in Washing-town. I can't wait to mingle with the eggheads and tech-policy wonks. A thorough digital debriefing will surely follow.

Bye-bye, Giuliani! I guess 911 isn't enough to hang a campaign on, particularly when you look like a cross between Nosferatu and Montgomery Burns and you're running against the Plastic Fantastic, Mit Romney. Oh, and that old dude from the 'Nam.

Back in McCain's day, vacuum tubes were the hot new technology. Now they've just invented a transistor radio smaller than a grain of sand. No shit — it's made out of nanotubes!

Wold you be interested in downloading a half-million (17GB) photos stolen from MySpace profiles? If you answered yes, you're not alone.

Longtime U2 manager Paul McGuinness hates broadband, and thinks tech pioneers are "hippies." That's essentially what he said in his speech at MIDEM, the world's largest music industry conference. I agree with a lot of his points, but he did kinda come across like a blowhard. Here's the full text. It's definitely worth reading, as is Bob Lefsetz' predictably cranky response.

Remember a while back when I posted a link to a page cataloging various Presidential candidates' stances on tech issues? Well, here's an even better one, that also analyzes their views on related issues like intellectual property and copyright reform.

All Google wants to do is sell ads to the candidates. Well, besides controlling the world, bwah-hah-hah.

OK, that's all for now. Gotta watch those Florida returns.

PS: Sean, if you're reading this — I'm sorry I haven't yet returned your call. I'm a tremendous ass.

Cats & Sundry.

So this little fella is doing swell. We took him to the vet this morning and they tested him for the bad nasties, which thankfully came back negative. Of course, this got us worried about one of our other cats, Nadja, so I just brought her in for some tests. We find out in about a hour.

Nadja came to us from the wilds of Mississippi, courtesy of a co-worker whose parents found a litter of abandoned kittens. We had previously lost a cat to leukemia, and Nadja arrived at the perfect time. Our big bear of a cat, Brando, has been tested for everything, but he's Strong Like Ox anyway. And we just found out his breed! He's a Chartreux, which is French for "beautiful blue-grey  feline." Well, not really. (Molly, we really think Brando is a Chartreux — this isn't like the time your ex-friend pretended to be Native American.)

The good news is that Brando and the as-yet-unnamed new guy are starting to get along. As a matter of fact, they're both flanking me on the couch as I type this.

MacWorld 2008! Too bad we only recently bought a MacBook Pro —  that MacBook Air looks incredible. I am pretty pleased that there's finally another iPhone firmware update, though. But still no flash or javascript, dammit!

What else is going on? I'm going to a very interesting conference on Capitol Hill on July 30 called "The State of the Net." It's gonna be a long day of wonky tech talk, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Speaking of tech issues, the New York Times' Bits blog is hosting a debate about whether or not the telecom and cable companies should block the traffic of copyrighted works on the net. You may have heard about AT&T and ABC canoodling at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, which led many to believe some kind of ISP-end "content management" was in the cards. You know, 'cause the whole FCC investigating Comcast thing isn't enough to put them off.

On one tiny Southern Italian island they're putting that wacky internet to good use. To crush the Sicilian Mafia!

UPDATE: Nadja is FEL-V free! We still need to find a name for the new kid, tough. Please chime in.

The Dump.

Found a few things worth linking to. . .

British Lord talks about copyright, P2P and Klaxons. Wish I could be a Lord.

Net Neutrality: FCC probes Comcast; AT&T pals up with NBC to create anti-pirating filters.

Speaking of Comacast, the company claims it's going to unleash 100 mbps broadband in 2008. So how come my connection is only slightly faster than dial-up? It's Comacastic!

Here's one made just for me: Company unveils bed with web, iPod, DVR.

Short article about the end of DRM, with a good analysis of how Apple actually benefited from proprietary restrictions.

It remains to be seen whether or not the MP3 is actually good for rock 'n' roll. The verdict on the vinyl 45, however, is in.

A group of hackers is vowing to destroy P2P, “one step at a time.” Has the RIAA launched a covert op against filesharing sites and apps?

The writers strike is making people watch more video on the web. Say, isn't that what they're striking about?

I really like the new Magnetic Fields record, Distortion. Now I just gotta find a way to write about it.

Nick Cave's website is awesome. Check out the video for the new Bad Seeds song, "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" RIGHT NOW!