{"id":6120,"date":"2019-02-15T23:27:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T03:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=6120"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:27","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:27","slug":"could-democratic-control-of-the-house-bring-back-net-neutrality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/could-democratic-control-of-the-house-bring-back-net-neutrality\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Democratic Control of the House Bring Back Net Neutrality?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The House\nJudiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet<\/a>\nChairman Henry Johnson has a lengthy<\/a>\nhistory<\/a>\nof supporting\nnet neutrality<\/a>. Unfortunately for Rep. Johnson, this decision was\nleft in the hands of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. In\nDecember 2017, the FCC voted to repeal Obama-era net neutrality rules, which\nofficially took effect on June 11, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n

Network neutrality \u201cprohibits\nthe owner of a network that holds itself out to all-comers from discriminating\nagainst information by halting, slowing, or otherwise tampering with the\ntransfer of any data<\/a>.\u201d  As it\nrelates to the Internet, the \u201cowners of a network\u201d are Internet\nService Providers (ISPs)<\/a>, which provide their customers with\nconnectivity to the Internet.<\/p>\n\n\n

Repealing net neutrality allows ISPs to institute \u201cpaid prioritization<\/a>\u201d programs where certain entities, such as social networks, can pay for better speeds compared to other Internet traffic. For example, Facebook might pay an ISP such as Spectrum a premium for priority speeds on Spectrum\u2019s network, while YouTube declines to do so. This in turn would result in Spectrum\u2019s internet customers being able to watch videos on Facebook with greater download speeds than on YouTube. While one might not have too much sympathy for Silicon Valley giants waging war on one another, the real losers in this equation are small businesses<\/a>, who cannot compete with the big players when it comes to paid prioritization. The impacts of widespread paid prioritization on innovation could be chilling.<\/p>\n\n\n

While one might not have too much sympathy for Silicon Valley giants waging war on one another, the real losers in this equation are small businesses, who cannot compete with the big players when it comes to paid prioritization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

Earlier this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee established\na subcommittee on intellectual property<\/a> chaired by North Carolina\nSenator Thom Tillis. Hopefully that subcommittee, which shares Intellectual\nProperty legislative oversight with the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual\nProperty, and the Internet, will support the efforts of its House counterpart\nto reinstate net neutrality. Given Tillis’\nvoting record<\/a> on the topic, though, net neutrality might not be on\nthe subcommittee\u2019s radar as far as a way to advance the development intellectual\nproperty rights.<\/p>\n\n\n

It is worth noting how important net neutrality is to\ninnovation, and thus our intellectual property law should be very concerned\nwith a free and open Internet. As ISPs\nventure further into producing their own content<\/a>, the rights of\nother content producers to distribute their products and services across the\nInternet could be severely hindered.<\/p>\n\n\n

Beyond safeguarding innovation, we should also consider\npublic opinion when crafting policy. The majority\nof 20 million public comments<\/a> made in advance of the FCC\u2019s decision\nadvocated against repealing net neutrality. <\/p>\n\n\n

There is also currently ongoing\nlitigation<\/a> in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to determine whether\nor not the FCC has \u201cabandoned its mandate to ensure a free and open Internet.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

It looks like, despite Ajit Pai\u2019s actions, the battle for net neutrality may be far from over. With these ongoing legal developments, and the establishment of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee focused on safeguarding innovation, perhaps federal policy will shift more towards valuing the free exchange of information on the Internet. <\/p>\n\n\n

Alec Mercolino, 8 February 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Chairman Henry Johnson has a lengthy history of supporting net neutrality. Unfortunately for Rep. Johnson, this decision was left in the hands of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. In December 2017, the FCC voted to repeal Obama-era net neutrality rules, which officially took …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6853,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120\/revisions\/6853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}