There is no doubt that this is good cause. Yet, there is much to be pessimistic about it. First off, it will be excruciatingly difficult to produce a documentary of decent quality, comparable to ones such as "Inside Job", with only a budget of 150,000 USD. You definitely need to look to acquire a budget of at least 300,000 USD. Secondly, this documentary is extremely vulnerable to being thwarted by the "big six" media corporations. The only thing that stands in the way of corporations having complete power over the American people and their government is pro net-neutrality regulations. We will of course witness the perhaps the most determined onslaught on a small organization than we have ever seen taken by the corporations. Finally, creating and releasing a documentary presents the challenging fact that the current political situation concerning net neutrality changes at a rapid rate. A couple of examples would be how Obama campaigned on net neutrality, yet when he came into office his administration had corporations make a law that protected their interests over individual citizens. The other example is how Meredith Baker approved the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal and then resigned from the FCC to become the leading lobbyist for Comcast. This ever changing nature of net neutrality would make it necessary to release the documentary shortly after it has been filmed.
The internet must remain free and unrestricted by the ISP's. I dont want the governement to take the place of corporations in regulating the internet, but I would be fine with the governemnt passing laws ensuring that the interent remains open as it is now. This must be done so that no one group or company can "own" the internet and redesign it for their own benefit. I am a strong believer in capitalism and I believe it to be the most effective, however it isnt perfect. If the corporations are allowed to take over, their primary goal, no matter how damaging it is to society, will be to make money. nothing else is really important to companies.
I was somewhat concerned that this film would promote government enforcement of net neutrality. In an email conversation I had with him, the writer of this film compared Thomas Jefferson's view of the necessity of an affordable, reliable postal service with the current necessity for affordable, reliable internet access. That seemed like a pretty good point to this skeptic.<p>If you think this is a film worth making/seeing, send to a couple friends. Currently 93 backers, $14,999 pledged of $150,000 goal, 17 days to go.
Either (a) we crowd fund this great project and fight corporate greed together or (b) we individually bury our heads in the sand and say "goodnight" to our free internet! I'm going with option A!!!!