In a previous post, Disaster Corporatism, I noted that calls to treat "broadband internet" as a "public good" would invariably serve as a pretext eventually for a content enforcement regime.

However, declaring the "internet as a public good" and subsidizing to the extent it effectively becomes non-rivaled and non-excludable good will inevitably invoke a version of the "public airwaves" argument for content-based regulations...

From a press release issued by the MPAA earlier this month:

MPAA Urges FCC Protect Creative Content Online In National Broadband Plan

The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) has urged the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to make the protection of creative content online a core and guiding principal of the National Broadband Plan.

Indeed, if it is to become national policy that the Internet serve as the center of modern society – a digital intersection of Main Street, a town square and a mega-shopping and entertainment complex all-rolled-into-one – it must be a place governed by laws, standards and rules, just like the real streets and communities inhabited all across America. Anarchy and disrespect for the rule of law online are no less pernicious to society than the flouting of our laws would be anywhere else. The government cannot let the anonymity of the Internet become a cloak behind which people think that unlawful conduct can continue unabated.