For policy & rights online
EU policy-makers should take note as they contemplate the Telecoms Package and 'degradation of service'
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which oversees telecoms regulation in America, has officially sanctioned the Internet provider Comcast for throttling traffic. Comcast was accused of 'throttling' - that is, slowing down - its users' connections every time they attempted to download video files from the BitTorrent website. Bit Torrent is the company behind the peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing technology of the same name, only in America, it operates a licenced service.
The FCC determined that Comcast "unlawfully" disruputed the transfer of video files, thereby violating an important principle of the Internet, namely the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet and that broadband networks should be widely available, open, afforedable and accessible to all. The decision sets a legal precedent for cases where ISPs are accused of throttling. For European policy-makers and law-makers, it represents a landmark case against the current political will to go along with content industry requests for filtering equipment to be installed.
For the full story, see TelecomTV.
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Published work
- Content responsibility: The looming cloud of uncertainty for Internet intermediaries
- Freedom of Expression, Human Rights Standards and Private Online Censorship
- The Policy Challenge Of Content Restrictions: How Private Actors Engage The Duties Of States
- Internet Policy Review - The Aereo dilemma and copyright in the cloud
- JIPITEC - The Digital Economy Act in the dock
The Copyright Enforcement Enigma 'accurate and absorbing account of the story of the Telecoms Package' -Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology
'...a must read for those interested in knowing in depth about copyright enforcement and Internet.' -Journal of Intellectual Property Rights.
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Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten. She is a trainer & consultant on Internet governance policy, published author& Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics & Political Science. She served as an independent expert on the Council of Europe Committee on Internet freedom (MSI-INT). Most recently she has worked on projects in the former Soviet states. She was shortlisted for The Guardian Open Internet Poll 2012. Iptegrity offers expert insights into Internet policy. Iptegrity has a core readership in the Brussels policy community, and has been cited in the media. Please acknowledge Iptegrity when you cite or link. For more, see IP politics with integrity
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