Ford and Spiwak analyze the proposed new Net Neutrality rule in the FCC’s Proposed Rulemaking for the “Open Internet”. The rule is commonly referred to as the “bright line non-discrimination rule”. The authors argue that this rule does not work with the concepts of discrimination found in “economic literature and established communications jurisprudence”.

Why create content when you can build a profitable Internet business by redistributing the creative wealth of others? It worked for Google, and now it’s working for the video portal Hulu, too. But the future for the studios looks as potentially bleak as the present is for news organizations once television viewers move online.

In many ways, the mobile broadband market may be showing the wired broadband market the path forward towards a digital economy that actually works on multiple levels – both the commons and the market.

ABI Research is has released a report today that indicates that Verizon and Sprint were the big traffic carriers in 2009. AT&T spent much of 2009 under fire for network congestion around the country and specifically in New York and San Francisco. The report claims that 63% of mobile data was transferred by Verizon and Sprint. Verizon carried the most data, followed by Sprint, and then AT&T.

This post inaugurates a regular feature by visiting fellow James DeLong called “The Firehose,” a series of links to newsworthy information, sometimes with a line or two of explanation or quotation. It will showcase items off the beaten path of intellectual property and telecom policy.

Now that Google is factoring in site speed into their search rankings, it is even more obvious that the Internet has never been a place of equal outcome. It highlights the fact that search rankings and content have always been king. With the cost of bandwidth being so low and often paid for by Google, the concern over premium service network connectivity in the debate on Net Neutrality is irrational.

Esbin establishes the argument in her article that the FCC’s Broadband Plan is “a plan for a plan”. Bringing about the notion that there is no real substance, unity in objectives, or singular goal in the plan. She indicates that the plan reads as if it was simply a bunch of smaller plans that the FCC hopes will work in conjunction.

Government subsidies of journalism are such a bad idea that news executives who fear their businesses may not exist 10 years from now still don’t want the money. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism put the question of government-subsidized journalism to news executives, and most of them voiced serious reservations about the idea.

On the whole, Great Britain’s just-passed digital economy bill seems measured. It sets up a system whereby affronted copyright holders can inform Internet service providers of infringements, and the ISPs in turn notify alleged infringers and the Ofcom regulatory agency that monitors the situation. If Ofcom decides technical measures are needed, Parliament must approve their actual implementation.

Rasmussen’s latest poll of Internet users found that 63% of Internet users oppose FCC regulation of the Internet. The polls conducted in 2008 were far more favorable to FCC Internet regulation but support has dropped 22%. Considering how the FCC’s handling of the Comcast case was far more contentious than it needed to be, this new found opposition from consumers seems understandable.