The Internet Power Grab

And so the Tauzin-Dingell bill, a blatantly pro-RBOC piece of legislation that granted the Baby Bells the more or less exclusive right to build out DSL access, passed the U.S. House of Representatives this spring by a comfortable margin. This success came on top of an FCC regulatory ruling that favored the RBOCs on building out DSL access. Tauzin-Dingell will probably not pass the Senate in its current form, but when and if it gets to a House-Senate conference committee, the betting among political professionals in Washington is that something favorable to the RBOCs will emerge.

This outcome would have seemed unimaginable three years ago, when Internet technology seemed like a tsunami. But today, the outcome seems almost predictable. After all, the last-mile logjam hasn't been broken. Voice calls are still not free. And the companies that will build out the high-speed-access system to most homes will be the very companies that did so little to make it available (at an affordable price) for so long.

The other empire striking back is the entertainment industry. Bad as Tauzin-Dingell might be, it pales in comparison with what Hollywood is proposing. Threatened by companies such as TiVo and Napster and copying technology that essentially Napsterizes everything from movies to television to live programming, the entertainment industry called in all of its chits and asked for passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was enacted in 1998. It is now asking for passage of the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, introduced by Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC). That would require computer makers to build copyright-protection technology into all personal computers. It could also make illegal all software that enables copying. The target of the latter piece of legislative legerdemain is the Free Software movement itself.

The Hollings bill is breathtakingly far-reaching legislation, but it is a measure of Hollywood's clout that California senator Dianne Feinstein -- formerly the mayor of San Francisco -- has cosponsored it. If it passes both houses of Congress, the Hollings bill will likely be vetoed by President Bush. But that's not the point. The point is that legislation that would effectively devalue Apple Computer (whose new iMacs are capable of copying music and video and sharing those copies over the Internet) may well pass both houses of Congress. That's real power. There aren't many industries that can cut themselves that kind of deal.

With free content heading toward extinction, free telephony on hold, free sharing of private property under attack, the design of personal computers in question, and the Free Software movement in the gun sights, you might think that Silicon Valley would be organizing itself to fight back on the political front. But they're late to the game. And remarkably, they still haven't appealed to the public for support. There is no widespread public campaign to defeat Tauzin-Dingell. There is no widespread campaign to defeat the Hollings bill. And there are no grassroots efforts on the Web. The Internet army, which is enormous, hasn't been engaged or conscripted.

There was a time when Silicon Valley could ignore politics. But that was then. These days, their business depends on it. Either they get a mitt and get in the game, or they lose. And if they lose, we -- the Internet army -- lose big-time.

John Ellis (jellis@fastcompany. com) is a writer and consultant based in New York. Read his weekday musings (www.johnellis.blogspot.com) or find a catalog of his columns, here.