Unlimited Internet for only $44.95 a month!

That's all it took for me to sign up. That's why we all became Internet users. And everything was fine at first. We sent a few emails, read a few Web pages; that was about it.

Then a bright guy named Shawn Fanning figured out that you could actually use the Internet to share stuff with each other. Like music. And then all hell broke loose.

When people actually started to use their Internet connections, and ISPs realized what "unlimited" meant, they realized that they might have a problem on their hands. But that wasn't the only problem.

Record companies used to have a great business model. Take two decent songs by Band X, add 8-10 pieces of filler, put it all on a vinyl record, and sell it for $10. Then, a few years later, sell customers the same stuff on a cassette tape for $10, so they can play it in their car or at the beach. Then, a few years later, sell 'em the same stuff on a CD for $15 a pop, so they can hear the songs without the hiss and crackle. The record companies took $45 from many customers from just two decent songs.

When the Internet and mp3 file format came along, the rules changed. Suddenly people could take the music from their CDs, put it on their computer as a digital file, and share it. With everyone.

Cue the sound of business models collapsing.

Claiming that they were losing money, record companies started adding DRM locks to their music. They made various failed attempts at selling music online. They started suing their customers. None of which did anything to stop the losses, or P2P file sharing, estimated to comprise about 50% of all Internet traffic today.

Finally, U2 manager Paul McGuiness went off on a tirade about how ISPs should be filtering copyrighted content, since they have "built multibillion-dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it" -- conveniently forgetting that even if file sharing stopped tomorrow, the music industry would still be hurting. When people can buy the two good songs they want for a buck apiece on the Web, instead of being forced to buy a $15 CD, revenue is going to fall.

Those multibillion-dollar industries that McGuiness attacked have their own problems. Claiming that the top 5% or their heaviest users consume 50% of its bandwidth, Time Warner is moving away from the unlimited Internet access originally promised to customers, and is testing consumption-based billing using a per-gigabyte scale. AT&T is talking about filtering content. Other ISPs simply throttle bandwidth for certain types of content.

ISPs want to be more than just dumb pipes. They want to be content providers, delivering services such as Voice over IP or IPTV services. So blocking copyrighted content is in their own best interests.

So, record companies and ISPs seem to want the same thing -- a halt to copyrighted content being distributed over the Internet outside of their control.

And what's going to happen next?

Suppose ISPs filter copyrighted content. Music sales won't actually increase. People will just stop listening to that free music. Because of consumption-based billing, people will think twice about legally downloading music or movies. Internet traffic will drop by 50% without that P2P traffic, so the ISPs won't see an extra dime. And innovative use of the Internet as a medium for communication or information-sharing will be reduced, or perhaps cease, because of the higher cost and lower availability of bandwidth.

The US leads in the use of information and communication technologies, precisely because of the economy and pervasiveness of broadband, but I'm sure we're willing to give that up so that record companies and ISPs can make a bit more money -- for a little while anyway.