MPAA head: Filtering is in ISPs' best interests

Found on Ars Technica on Tuesday, 04 December 2007
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As befits a man who has spent years in DC, the MPAA's Dan Glickman has polished his share of folksy analogies to a shine.

His words yesterday revealed that movie execs are thinking about one thing in particular: the technology that can be used to halt film piracy, and that they expect ISPs to implement it.

The MPAA needs the support of those companies best in a position to implement filtering technology: ISPs.

ISPs that are concerned with being, well, ISPs aren't likely to see many benefits from installing some sort of industrial-strength packet-sniffing and filtering solution at the core of their network. It costs money, customers won't like the idea, and the potential for backlash remains high. Should such a system work, it could lower overall bandwidth usage, but whether that would make up for the cost and PR headaches of a filtering regime is unclear. It won't do much for liability issues, since ISPs are already protected under "safe harbor" provisions.

Another good reason for net neutrality. ISPs are nothing but access providers. Asking them to start a global filtering would be like asking a Telco to do the same, just because some people are fed up with telemarkters. Traffic is chear these days, and most IPSs have peerings with others so traffic costs nothing. A fine example of the **AA tactics: whine and moan. And all that even though more and more labels are going away from DRM. Plus, recent studies show that those "$6 billion losses" are nothing but a number without any basis.