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Opinion |
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To share or not to share....
The Advocate
I agree with file sharing. I suppose that’s a bold statement, but then again it is a bold issue. For most people, file sharing is about stealing from the Motion Picture Association of America or Metallica.
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However, to some, the issue is really about net neutrality, that is, keeping the flow of information that we know as the Internet free.
Here’s how I look at it: if the government takes action to stop file sharing, in essence what they’re doing is stopping certain types of data transfer.
However, even in this, the very essence of the Internet is being stripped away. What is it if not a place where anyone can find and access anything, at any time?
As Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Peter Sunde, the owners of popular file sharing website The Pirate Bay put it, “We have, ourselves, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Internets, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.”
The entire idea is concerning, especially as a college student, when money is always an issue.
If Internet service providers or even, God forbid, the government can start to say “you can use the internet for this purpose and this purposes, but not these purposes over here,” it should be very concerning to everyone who uses the Internet, which is to say, everyone.
Most concerning is the news that in some cases, this has already happened. Not only in places like Sweden, where the now famous “Pirate Bay Trials,” took place, but in places like Germany, where T-Mobile was allowed to block the video conferencing software Skype.
Even here in America, Comcast was pinned in August 2008 by the FCC for illegally blocking people from using the file sharing application Bittorrent.
It should be welcome news to American ears then that on September 21st, the FCC laid down ground rules to protect net neutrality and restrict what ISP’s can do to their customers. This is good for now, but it should still be noted that file sharing issues rage on, and until there is a clear line drawn on that front, the net neutrality issue as a whole cannot really be settled.
However, elsewhere, the Pirate Bay has been sunk by the Swedish government and, to many, that signals the end of free information on the Internet.
I suppose in many ways it IS the end of free information, but it’s also just the beginning. The Pirate Bay has become a rallying point all the people that feel as strongly as I do that the Internet should be open, and in it’s place a myriad of other file sharing sites have sprung up in its place.
For many students of Mt Hood, the file sharing issue probably doesn’t affect them.
However net neutrality affects everyone. For now, for us, the internet is open and free. All we can do is pray that it stays that way.
The Advocate reserves the right to not publish comments based on their appropriateness.