Larvatus Prodeo

That’s an explanation of what the Internets are from the Republican chair of the Senate Commerce Committee (and longest serving GOP Senator), Ted Stevens of Alaska. And why he thinks net neutrality is a bad thing.

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.

It’s a series of tubes.

The venerable Solon delivered this down home wisdom in debate over a bill which goes against the principle of net neutrality.

In an echo of Australia’s own Helen Coonan’s potential politicisation of the net through nutty regulation, in the States Rupert Murdoch and other media proprietors are using the excuse of porn on the nets to try to commercially colonise the nets.

So, since Rupert’s a player in these “debates”, there’s no surprise that a song recorded by musician Andrew Raff which set the powerful Senator’s words to music was canned from myspace and the account of the TedStevensFanClub cancelled (though it was later reinstated). Raff, a law school graduate, didn’t breach any copyright laws. Now I’m sure that there’s another explanation other than the champion of open source media, Rupert Murdoch, might have pulled something to curry favour with a Senator whose decisions could potentially benefit News Ltd mightily. Isn’t there?

Note: You can watch part of the Senator’s speech here on the Daily Show [Thanks to Shaun for the link].

Elsewhere: Read David Tiley for an explanation of what’s wrong with Coonan’s “media reforms”.