RIAA Asks FCC Not to Block Anti-Piracy Measures; Court Questions Whether FCC Is Legally Entitled to Set Net Neutrality Rules

On January 14, the RIAA wrote to the FCC arguing that they must allow anti-piracy efforts to proceed without obstruction. The FCC is currently consulting on the issue of net neutrality, with January 15 being the deadline for public comments. This would regulate how ISPs should manage their network traffic.

In the RIAA’s submission, they say, “huge amounts of the Internet’s bandwidth are tied up in unlawful traffic.” They also add, “we have a particularly strong interest in ensuring an Internet in which media applications — which, unlike file-sharing applications, have a low tolerance for network delay — can function smoothly and without the network congestion caused by piracy-inflated traffic.” And all at fair prices, right RIAA?

This, of course, all depends on whether the FCC is legally entitled to set rules governing net neutrality anyway. A D.C. appeals court questioned this very matter recently. The FCC proposed net neutrality rules in October 2009, but some reckon “there isn’t anything in the Communications Act, or any other statute, actually giving them power to regulate such things.” The Commission believe they can get around this by citing “ancillary jurisdiction” — where the FCC can take on powers “necessary to ensure the achievement of the Commission’s statutory responsibilities.” Comcast actually took the FCC to court over the fact that the ISP had throttled BitTorrent and the Commission censured them.

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