Welcome to the first installment of what I'm calling "Imagine That". Essentially this series will focus on many different hypotheticals and how, based on my interpretation, it will affect anime in the long run. I don't intend for this to be some type of weekly series of anything, but it will pop up every now and then if something has got me thinking about the what if of some general statement that not many people have put too much thought into. "Imagine That" -- or the idea of this series -- has been kicking around my head for awhile, but I didn't have much of a first topic to go off of, beside rehashing on older ideas I have already wrote on my personal blog; but will a considerably recent ruling in the United States, I had a good enough inspiration to kick this series off with a bang.
So for this rendition of "Imagine That" I wanted to cover something called Net Neutrality. For those that don't know the essence of what net neutrality is it's a principle -- or even a guide -- for Internet Service Providers (ISP) to follow that insures that they treat all internet traffic the same. All data that comes from some site through their servers and to you will not have any special treatment, in essence making the ISP a neutral agent.
So how in the world does this relate to anime? Well a good chunk of people, outside of Japan, have found out about anime from the internet which has many different services, platforms, what have you. If Net Neutrality gets destroyed out right, it would certainly make getting your hands on anime, old or new, more of a struggle -- if your country don't have any retailers that carrier that anime series, or even anime in general.
Why Talk About Net Neutrality Now?
Very recently, at least from the time I post this, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) rules for anti-discrimination and anti-blocking for ISPs were unjustified. Both are very much the tenet of what net neutrality stands for and the ruling in favor of the ISPs, in this case Verizon, gives them the footing to begin treating data and internet traffic differently depending on where it comes from. And no doubt most ISPs will jump on that because most of them were sitting and waiting to make the internet just like television; it is common place for TV to have something like, you pay for certain packages and get the list of channels that are included in said package, but not the internet. Well this model is exactly what ISPs like Verizon would love to have for websites.
Of course the ruling itself doesn't necessarily affect anyone outside of the United States directly, but the internet is considered a global market so there could be some side effects that many might not notice at first. I did mention services and platforms that could possibly be "nerfed" if ISPs do implement this pay for access type of internet service, but I was rather vague. I'm sure some of you might know what services -- with regard to anime specifically -- I am hinting at, but I will clue other in if they don't follow.
Specifics This Ruling Will Affect?
Of course there are many different services where you can enjoy anime from, just to name a few: Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Hulu -- there are more, but I'm just listing some of the more popular ones. Two of the three are strictly American based, and will directly be affected by the ruling. The other, that being Crunchyroll, is also based in Japan but I'm certain the majority of their customers are from the US. So having to pay each different ISP, that actually want to create this two way market, just to get access to the subscribers of said ISP would certainly put a dent on the growth of Crunchyroll as a company.
Of course not only will it slow progress of existing services, it will also make things more difficult for those that want to enter this type of internet business. This is basically the reason why so many people argue for net neutrality, the internet as a whole is a platform for innovation and freedom. It is the equalizer that everyone wants to be apart of. Putting up barriers like paying extra for better access to customers is something not many startups can do and welcome back to the television market space.
And for those that get their anime from not-so-legitimate means, torrents and the like, the peers in this decentralized protocol will be throttled significantly. The non-technical meaning to this is if any of the people contributing to the torrent are from the United States, it will take longer for not only you, but everyone trying to download the episode in an anime or specific series. Or the worse case scenario being ISPs blocking all connections that are the BitTorrent protocol, making there be less people contributing to the pool of peers trying to get a some new episode.
What Can Be Done?
I can't say for certain that there is a whole lot of options right now, but the best thing to happen is for the FCC to reclassify ISPs as a common carrier. Since the court ruled that the whole anti-discrimination and anti-blocking part of the Open Internet Order as unjustified, making an ISP a common carrier will by definition make those parts justified. And what the status of "common carrier" consists of is on the level of telecommunication, the service provider can't discriminate the transportation of goods, in this case data. Not only will it solve the problem of net neutrality, I think it could push the need for ISPs to finally think about improving the performance of their own service rather than the business model they want to force upon their customs.
So there it is, the pilot for this series. Not all entries in this series will be this serious of a topic -- and net neutrality as a whole spans farther than just anime -- I just wanted to bring attention to this topic because the internet as a whole is very important topic for me; plus, by making that connection to anime it is a bit easier for people to relate to a somewhat complex subject and how it will directly affect them.
Imagine that.
Orginally posted to the now shutdown sekijitsu.com: Archived Page