Of course it's all about money

I have posted about this before, but AT&T's dimwitted idea that they can successfully block "illegal" access to copyrighted material is just about as dimwitted as you can get.

On Red Herring they posted some juicy quotes and some even squishier statistics. To wit: "Somebody running a server in their basement on our network and uploading illegal copies movies raises the costs for everybody else and jams the network in ways we’re not compensated for," attributed to Jim Cicconi, AT&T head of external and legislative affairs. Hey Jim, why don't y'all just start charging by the MB, then? Simple answer to that: no one would sign up for your service, that's why. Or perhaps what he's really saying is that they have no way to limit how much can be uploaded from your server in the basement, which on the surface seems like a much simpler problem to solve. After all, it's only about money, isn't it?

The article mentions that in 2005 the movie biz (whoever they are) claims to have lost $2.3 billion in piracy. If they mean that ticket sales were down, I'd guess it's not piracy that's to blame. I haven't seen more than 2 movies in the past 2 years, and it ain't because I download them, either. A suck ass movie is a suck ass movie. This year is the year of the sequel. Probably the only movies I might see are the new Harry Potter movie and the new Die Hard. Yeah, both are sequels and I probably will regret at least one of them. So little time, so many bad movies.

"... A sizable chunk is traffic that is illegal," opined Mr. Cicconi, though I'm sure that's his personal opinion, and not backed by any thing resembling reliable statistics. Jay Samit, a music industry "veteran", replies: "The sizable reason why people bought broadband is to get to that [pirated] content, so you’re making money off that," Mr. Samit told Mr. Cicconi. I call bullshit to that. I have a cable modem so I can surf free pr0n at lightning speed. Oops, maybe that was TMI. I bought my first Windows XP computer back in 2001, and tried to get Windows updates via dial-up. I don't have to tell you how freaking long that takes at 28.8K, which was as fast as good ole AT&T could connect me, most of the time (all right, they were Ameritech/SBC back then, but you get my point). I could not see waiting hours and hours just to keep my computer up-to-date. Less time for pr0n surfing, since you really can't do anything else online while it downloads. I have never nor will I pirate movies or music online. I buy probably 10 CDs a month, maybe 5 movies per year. For what little good it actually does, as a former musician I patronize the accepted channels.

"Having this big faceless entity blocking content could make people nervous," said attorney Kraig Marini Baker, in an interview. Mr. Marini Baker represents media companies, including Viacom, in digital rights issues.

Mr. Marini Baker said he expects media companies to welcome AT&T's entry into the piracy protection space, as long as AT&T eventually comes up with a system for content owners to make some money off their circulating content. [Emphasis mine]

"Content owners are always going to want as many tools and as many people filtering to the extent that they can leverage that and monetize it," said Mr. Marini Baker.

I doubt it's about actually blocking content, but more about how to make money of the content. This plan might backfire, somewhat. Just how willing would you be to have AT&T jump up in your face (via dialog box) to tell you that some piece of content you are about to access is copyrighted, and that you can access it for the bargain price of $2.95, conveniently charged to your credit card? Of course, you have no chance to tell them that what you're doing is legal and you shouldn't have to pay. They have already made the assumption that since you have a broadband account with them, you must be a pirate. Think about it. How many times would this have to happen--piracy or not--before you went shopping for another ISP? Exactly one.

They'd be arguably better off charging by the megabyte, and giving 50% of the overage over ... say, 50 MB (or so) ... to the RIAA and MPAA just to keep them quiet. Of course, we all know how well the pay-per-megabyte plan would work. I mean, if it worked they'd be doing it already, don't you think?