August 25, 2005
The Future Internet:
Open or Closed?
"Many in America's creative community have assumed that the rapidly approaching Internet of tomorrow -- high-speed, low-cost, and utterly pervasive -- will empower media creators to directly reach their audience, eliminating the corporate middleman distributor...
That hoped-for panacea of seemingly unlimited creative power and freedom on the future Internet may never come to pass as a result of the Supreme Court's June 2005 decision in the Brand X case. Despite its underwhelming name, according to Andrew Jay Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, a public interest law firm specializing in media issues, Brand X "will, quite literally, determine the future of the Internet as we know it." It is nothing less than the opening shot in what promises to be an ongoing war between media goliaths and independent entrepreneurs, including creative media artists, over whether the future Internet will be "open" or "closed." What's at stake is whether a consumer will retain the freedom to access any website, as is the case today, or whether he/she will be restricted to visiting sites approved by – or in business with -- the "gatekeeper" providing his/her high speed Internet access..." From The Future Internet: Open or Closed? by Jonathan Rintels, Cultural Commons, August 2005.
Posted by jo at August 25, 2005 01:32 PM
