[lugg]

Really, who is going to challenge the difference between Netflix and torrents.

Both video. Both serve the end user in the same way.

But nobody will challenge it because nobody is in charge of torrents.

This kills neutrality completely. There is no way those ruling over this know where to draw the category lines properly.

[WilliamDhalgren]

Well for one, torrent's not a video format. Let alone a streaming video service.

And anyhow, FCC did exactly that; they went after Comcast for throttling torrents for no reason. And throttling torrents just because they're torrents is clearly not permissable by this clause by BEREC either; all it allows for is temporary and exceptional traffic shaping in case of congestion, provided it's done nondiscriminatorily. Which is a good thing; an ISP needs to have a neutral course of action available then besides a meltdown of its net. And yeah, I'd say latency insensitive bulk downloads would be perfectly sensible to deprioritize then. Now, doing what's reserved for recovery in general instead is certainly an abuse of network neutrality, by this rulebook as by FCCs.

[lugg]

That sounds fine, until you realise there is always congestion at prime time.

Suddenly, you've got throttling allowed against one person's service and not another, because "categories".

This is not neutral.

[WilliamDhalgren]

prime-time congestion is hardly exceptional then, so that shouldn't qualify.

[wiz21c]

torrents are more general than netflix, so it's not the same category

[lugg]

That's exactly my point though.

It's not the same category, but it IS a competing service playing on an unfair playing field.

Leveling the playing field for people playing the same game is all fine and dandy, but it completely fucks over disruptive innovations challenging the status quo in a different category.

How about this one, people watch less TV than they did ten years ago, a lot of that time is now spent using Facebook, what happens when Facebook isn't throttled but Netflix and the rest in their category are?

This isn't net neutrality in the slightest.

[j2ko4r]

> It's not the same category, but it IS a competing service playing on an unfair playing field.

It really isn't. Netflix isn't a protocol, and if you're using torrents as a drop in replacement for Netflix you're breaking copyright law in any case. You can't argue that you use torrents as a competing service without implying you're breaking the law.

[lugg]

That's kind of irrelevant. I was simply using torrents as an example.

The problem with the category thing is that it makes your passtime more important than my passtime. And suddenly the passtime that pays the most is going to get preferential treatment.

This hurts innovation and companies that want to disrupt current services with a different verticle.

Category based throttling sounds like a good idea but it simply is not neutral and will fail us.

[lagadu]

That's not illegal in all European countries though so it's potentially a valid argument.

[WilliamDhalgren]

copyright law is in fact harmonized on EU level, by the EU copyright directive. Not that it could be substantially different already by Berne convention on a global level.

[lagadu]

Curiously enough, Switzerland is one of the two european countries where making a copy of a copyrighted work for private use is not illegal.