Will the internet be filtered/censored in the future?

[Blodrast]

Tim Wu from Slate.com, summed up my thoughts about AT&T's actions pretty well. What are they doing?
Has AT&T Lost Its Mind?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

AT&T's new strategy reverses that position and exposes it to so much potential liability that adopting it would arguably violate AT&T's fiduciary duty to its shareholders. Today, in its daily Internet operations, AT&T is shielded by a federal law that provides a powerful immunity to copyright infringement. The Bells know the law well: They wrote and pushed it through Congress in 1998, collectively spending six years and millions of dollars in lobbying fees to make sure there would be no liability for "Transitory Digital Network Communications"—content AT&T carries over the Internet. And that's why the recording industry sued Napster and Grokster, not AT&T or Verizon, when the great music wars began in the early 2000s.

Here's the kicker: To maintain that immunity, AT&T must transmit data "without selection of the material by the service provider" and "without modification of its content." Once AT&T gets in the business of picking and choosing what content travels over its network, while the law is not entirely clear, it runs a serious risk of losing its all-important immunity. An Internet provider voluntarily giving up copyright immunity is like an astronaut on the moon taking off his space suit. As the world's largest gatekeeper, AT&T would immediately become the world's largest target for copyright infringement lawsuits.

drone, you can't understand what they're doing because you think too small. It's ok, it's perfectly understandable. Yes, if they go down this path, and they lose the common carrier status, there seems to appear a problem. According to the current law, they will be liable for everything that goes over their network. But see, you're focusing on the wrong part of the issue: what will their problem be ? The law. The solution: simple, change the law. See, it all makes sense when you think of it that way.

Like I said, it's understandable that you don't find this a normal train of thought, because you're not a megacorporation used to pass laws in its own benefit.

Even I might be wrong, and it might be easier than that, and they might not even bother to change the law. If they get sued, they can just ask the gov't for immunity.

EDIT: brainfart. In US the ISPs do not have common carrier status.

[drone]

drone, you can't understand what they're doing because you think too small. It's ok, it's perfectly understandable. Yes, if they go down this path, and they lose the common carrier status, there seems to appear a problem. According to the current law, they will be liable for everything that goes over their network. But see, you're focusing on the wrong part of the issue: what will their problem be ? The law. The solution: simple, change the law. See, it all makes sense when you think of it that way.

Like I said, it's understandable that you don't find this a normal train of thought, because you're not a megacorporation used to pass laws in its own benefit.

Even I might be wrong, and it might be easier than that, and they might not even bother to change the law. If they get sued, they can just ask the gov't for immunity.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...14&postcount=4

[Blodrast]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...14&postcount=4

Ah, my apologies then. You clearly have the right mindset.