Have you heard of "net pollution"? If not, you soon will, because it's a term being pushed by Arts+Labs, the new group backed by AT&T, Viacom, NBC Universal, Cisco, and Microsoft. Arts+Labs wants to be a sort of Internet plumber, using its Roto-rooter to clear all that caked-on nastiness from the tubes, allowing nice, clean—and most importantly, "safe"—content to flow. And, what's more, the biggest beneficiaries of the group's effort will be consumers; the press release even says so.

Everyone hates pollution

So, this idea of scrubbing the tubes. We're in favor of it. You're in favor of it. Everyone's in favor of it, right? I mean, no one really wants ISP bandwidth choked up by "viruses, malware, hack attacks, [and] spam." This is "net pollution" in its truest sense: nasty, clog-inducing gunk that is not requested by Internet users.

But Arts+Labs has one more item to add to the list of pollutants, and if you can't guess what it is, you might consider taking a remedial class in How Corporations Think. That's right—the last item on the list is "illegal file trafficking."

Illegal file trafficking is bad—and if you're doing it right now, please stop—but it's a curious item to lump with spam, viruses, and malware. These truly do pollute the Internet, taking up valuable bandwidth even though no 'Net user requests the delivery of such material. But illegal file trafficking is quite a different item; clearly, this is actual 'Net traffic being requested by users. It's only "pollution" in the sense that it's illegal, not that it's unwanted or that the files are too large.

Net pollution threatens to "degrade consumers' Internet experience," says the group. One of its key principles is "robust networks" that give operators "the flexibility to manage and expand their networks to defend against net pollution which threatens to congest and delay the network for all consumers."

So the issue here appears to be congestion. The Arts+Labs solution? Stop all that illegal trafficking and use the legal alternatives we're pushing on the site: Vuze (which uses P2P), Hulu, Netflix, Fancast, Joost, Veoh, etc. In other words, stop your congestion-causing ways by streaming or downloading copious amounts of video from other sources. Not exactly a solution to the congestion issue, is it, except possibly in the sense that streaming services like Hulu only consume downstream bandwidth and keep uplinks relatively clear (note that Vuze and other legal P2P apps don't even have this advantage, though, and Arts+Labs promotes them).

This is obviously an antipiracy play, not a "congestion relief" plan or a "help the consumer" PR push. Given the groups involved, especially AT&T and NBC Universal (both of which have supported ISP filtering plans), this is not a surprising focus, but one wishes they were a bit more upfront about it.

Is "content" a king or a serf?

Most of what the group wants to do—push "consumer choice," "innovation," and "fairness"—sounds great, as does publicizing the fact that you can watch episodes of The Office online, legally, with few commercials. But one curious aspect of the new campaign is its central claim that "quality content drives the Internet."

Quality content is important, of course, but think about what you use the Internet for. Does your decision to buy home or business Internet access actually turn on the availability of content from major rightsholders? Or is the use of data networks like the Internet actually driven by "communications" (e-mail, IM, VoIP, texting) rather than "content"?

Dr. Andrew Odlyzko, a leading expert on Internet traffic growth, has long been a proponent of the view that "content is king" is little more than dogma. It's a point he made when we talked earlier this year, and he has reiterated in a recent paper (PDF). His comments are worth quoting at length, as content owners really do appear to feel that they drive the Internet and that ISPs, regulators, and legislators must act in defense of their plans.

Although content has traditionally (almost invariably) been accorded special care by policy makers, people have always been willing to pay far more for connectivity. That video already dominates in terms of the volume of traffic on the Internet is not a counterargument. Almost two centuries ago, newspapers (the main 'content' of the day) also dominated the traffic carried by postal services, accounting for about 95% of the weight. But at the same time, newspapers provided only about 15% of the postal revenues. What people really cared about, and were willing to pay top dollar for, was connectivity, in the form of ?rst class mail for business and social purposes. Content (newspapers in that case) is what the federal government decided should be subsidized for public policy reasons with the pro?ts from ?rst class mail. For all the hoopla about Hollywood, all the movie theater ticket sales and all the DVD sales in the U.S. for a full year do not come amount to even one month of the revenues of the telecom industry. And those telecom revenues are still over 70% based on voice, de?nitely a connectivity service. In wireless, there is very rapid growth in data service revenues, but most of those revenues are from texting, another connectivity service (and one that the industry did not design, but stumbled into).

So while the Arts+Labs antipiracy agenda is worthy of comment, the attitude it represents—content is king on the Internet—may actually be the most provocative assertion that the group is now making.

Instant controversy!

Arts+Labs is headed up by Mike McCurry, a former press secretary for Bill Clinton who has been running the anti-net neutrality campaign "Hands off the Internet" until now. The group's apparent interest in ISP filtering, given its membership, has already attracted scathing comment from groups like Public Knowledge.

Gigi Sohn, the president of Public Knowledge, said in a statement late yesterday that Arts+Labs is just the "latest in a string of big-money front groups is nothing more than the most concentrated attack on the free and open Internet we have seen to date. Combining the power and influence of AT&T and the entertainment industry means only that both are going to wage an all-out war for the right to filter every bit of data anyone sends across the Internet... We certainly do not condone online theft of copyrighted materials. At the same time, we similarly do not favor the unwarranted intrusion into the Internet that this group promises for the future."