• New York Post, Wednesday, October 24, 2007 11:16 AM

The Motion Picture Association of America is now trying to enlist Internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T in its fight to curb rampant piracy on the Web. Now that network neutrality looks dead, the MPAA can bypass Gnutella, BitTorrent and other file-sharing programs by going straight to the source of Internet access. AThe MPAA has already gone to several ISPs to discuss adopting policies that keep discourage users from illegally downloading and sharing movies over their networks.

It's no secret that telecom and cable providers want to manage the traffic on their networks, although it remains to be seen how these efforts sit with consumers. Illegal file-sharing, which weighs down their networks by requiring considerable bandwidth, is the perfect platform for them to experiment with traffic management.

Comcast is reportedly already doing this by slowing down traffic on BitTorrent, a platform used to illegally swap movies and TV shows. Although Comcast adamantly claims it neither blocks users from any sites nor prevents them from downloading any material, a company executive told The New York Times (link: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/comcast-were-delaying-not-blocking-bittorrent-traffic/ ) that the ISP does in fact use data management technology to conserve bandwidth--which means slowing the data flow from programs like BitTorrent.

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