Michel Bauwens:

So far, I have been quite optimistic about the continued progress of participatory, P2P-based social processes, and attempts such as those of the record industry to stop filesharing were not of the kind to keep me awake, I saw them as inefficient rearguard actions.

But the organized campaign of the telco’s and cable companies, and similar plans for paid-for email by Yahoo and AOL, to create a multi-tiered internet that would promote certain content, and slow down or block other types, would be the end of the peer to peer web as we know it. They have not won, and may not be able to put it through, but we do have to be on our toes here, this is a serious destructive entreprise.

A quote from a recent excellent overview article in The Nation,

The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online. Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets–corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers–would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.”