End of Net Neutrality. For anyone who games online

Uhh people you guys realize this isn't final? It'll either head to the Supreme Court or it'll go to Congress. (Or one then the other.)

Appeals courts have a very low rate of their rulings sticking for the entire nation. (Rightly or wrongly.)

According to previous posts, it went through what amounts to the second-highest court in the country.

edited 15th Jan '14 9:53:39 AM by Grounder

Well, this might be different in the US, but court decisions of a lower denomination than "Supreme" usually don't have that much legal weight.

Doesn't work that way in the US.

The various Circuit and Appellate Courts in the US have direct jurisdiction only over their own region. This ruling is not binding on any other region of the US.

HOWEVER, that having been said, one Appellate court will take into account the rulings of another one if they are called on to deal with substantially the same question, so which way the first one goes can have a lot of influence on the way the others go.

To those of you who have expressed confusion as to what exactly this means.

"Hello and thank you for calling time warner cable, this is Dave, how may I help you today?

"Hey, I noticed that youtube is loading incredibly slowly. Every other site seems to work fine. Is it something on their end?"

"Oh yes, youtube is part of our Video Streaming Plus package. I can add that package to your service for five dollars a month."

"What the fuck? Oh hell no, i'm switching providers!"

"I can send you to retentions sir but I should inform you that our multi-billion dollar deal with google has them shutting down traffic coming from everyone except us. Switching means no access to any google products."

"Bullshit, I'm sure I can find a proxy or other way around that."

"Quite possibly, but then we can just throttle the shit out of that proxy, sir."

"Fine, for fucks sake just give me the package."

"Perfect! It's on your account now sir."

"It's still going incredibly slow and- what's this page say 'time warner cable wont give us more money for exclusivity so fuck them, go to fucktimewarnercable.com to learn more'

"We are currently in dispute with google. They're demaning forty trillion dollars from us and the CEO's first born. How messed up is that? go to fuckgoogleinitonethousandmouths.com to learn more"

"So what you're saying is that the extra services I'm paying for aren't even available?"

"Unfortunately not, until google lets the hostages go we won't be able to give you access. In compensation we are giving all Video Streaming Plus package members one month of free blip!"

"..."

"..."

"I now going to go bitch on your companies facebook page"

"No problem sir, unfortunately I see that you do not have the Social Media Extra package so..."

-hangs up-

edited 15th Jan '14 11:03:10 AM by thatguythere47

Every state has a Supreme Court and an Appeals Court. Since DC's a city, not a state, the only supreme court they have is the highest one.

That said, early on it sounded like this whole thing was just to get the FCC to alter the regulations to fit in with the Constitution more, rather than to completely empower the service providers to bribe people.

I think there's a problem where all the people in this thread talking about what this definitely means aren't lawyers.

I used to work one of those for AT&T(don't hate me)

You don't need to be a chef to tell if the meat is under-cooked.

Or it could be steak tartar.

edited 15th Jan '14 11:42:58 AM by unnoun

It's a metaphor, not a "Haha, I found a technicality to avoid the point"for.

edited 15th Jan '14 11:44:44 AM by Grounder

As I understand, it's not that the ISP will be charging YOU more (at least directly), but rather, that they'll charge companies like Google (due to Youtube) and Netflix more or throttle them. Why? Because Youtube and Netflix together make up about half of all internet traffic.

Assuming that's the case, Google is a multi-billion dollar corporation and Netflix isn't doing too bad either. I don't see how they couldn't afford to pay any fees.

The cost would be passed onto the consumer.

In the form of solidifying the positions of the corporations that can best afford to pay and making things more difficult for their prospective competition, thereby entrenching existing monopolies, at the very least.

edited 15th Jan '14 2:41:29 PM by Noaqiyeum

Appeals Courts decisions only carry national weight if the SCOTUS affirms the ruling in its own decision or refuses the case and lets the lower court ruling stand.

Typically the latter doesn't happen on big issues.

Yeah, I don't really see this carrying over any time soon, to be honest.

SCOTUS probably won't hear this case because its not a constitutional issue, unless they feel that the previous ruling was inherently flawed.

As for Congress... they are bought by these companies anyway so there's no hope on that front for you guys.

Ah, but lots of them are also bought by companies that have a vested interest in protecting Net Neutrality.

No, generally, the computer lobies are just getting into the lobbying game. The big guns like movie and recording industry have a shitload more lobbyists

The big anti-NN companies, last I checked, aren't the copyright holders, but the ISPs.

You have to excuse me if I don't trust the SCOTUS to understand the complexities of Net Neutrality.

" 23 Mystery Man 23, Tue, 14th Jan '14 3:38:43 PM Personally, I think Net Neutrality is nowhere near done for yet. According to this: ...the ruling did affirm the FCC's authority in principle to regulate broadband Internet service, leaving open the possibility for the commission to rewrite its rules within a new legal framework. In fact, the court explicitly said that the reason they struck down the rules was: ...the FCC had previously placed broadband Internet service in a separate regulatory category from phone service, [therefore] it lacked the legal justification to impose the Open Internet rules. In other words, the FCC could easily patch the rules to thwart this particular challenge. And even if that fails, I'm willing to bet that there are a number of corporations who can be convinced to fight for net neutrality in court, simply because net neutrality is actually better for them, for the same reasons it's better for the average user. Don't get me wrong: this is a blow, and possibly a dangerous blow. But this battle is far from lost."

This. This thread is little more than sensationalism. All the FCC has to do is change a few things on its end, and Net Neutrality is back in action. I know I'll just be ignored, since the original post was, but I'm getting rather sick of people getting sensational without even bothering to acknowledge the opposition.

edited 16th Jan '14 10:39:14 AM by Journeyman

This is something that won't be settled for years to come, no need to act like the lone sane voice in a sea of insanity, people can voice their opinions, the worst case scenario is pretty awful. The FCC may not be who you want to define the rules in the end anyway.