Scott McNealy, Chairman of Sun, draws the connection in the WaPo:

It's kind of like patents as an issue. People say, are you for a patent? I am for appropriate patents. If there were no patents on drugs, then nobody would spend the $5 billion it takes to bring a drug to market. . . . . If you don't get the drugs, we all die sooner. . . . [T]he same is probably true on network investments. We probably want those who are making the big multibillion dollar network investments to have a way to monetize their investments. If they don't, who is going to build the networks? People aren't just going to build them to let everybody else use them and to not make money.

I’ve always felt Net Neutrality is a concept that expropriates the property rights of carriers in order to allow media and content companies a free ride on their infrastructure. . . . [M]edia and content companies lack ownership of a layer-one digital right of way to the consumer — so the easiest approach is to legislate the theft of it.

Anyone who thinks this is a reactionary opinion should consider what Rep. Ed Markey said about the failure to pass the bill . . . :

There is a fundamental choice. It’s the choice between the bottleneck designs of a…small handful of very large companies and the dreams and innovations of thousands of online companies and innovators.

What if this debate was over a privately owned road? Would Mr. Markey feel the same way?

[T]here are laws that cover the taking of private property rights – if you determine the greater good requires that the few forfeit their deed of ownership, then you should compensate them for it.

When it comes to “fundamental choice,” I’ll go with property rights over government re-appropriation any day.

posted by James DeLong @ 7:21 AM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

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