Sony would probably buy fast lanes in a world without net neutrality

Sony Pictures executives spent months discussing how they should handle the subject of network neutrality. As revealed in a series of leaked e-mails, executives waffled on whether or not they should file a comment with the Federal Communications Commission to present their view. Ultimately, Sony declined to file because of concerns that it was difficult to get the entirety of Sony on the same page, that Sony may not be able to add much value to the discussion, and that Sony could end up burning some bridges. But during the months leading up to the comment filing deadline in mid-September, Sony executives were still discussing what they would write in a filing, should they decide to comment.

While there was no final consensus, Sony appeared to move more and more toward supporting paid fast lanes as the September deadline approached. Sony Pictures and other Sony units such as Crackle "are in the premium content business and do not want to be on equal footing with a random 'mom and pop' video streaming service," Keith Weaver, Sony Pictures' executive vice president of worldwide government affairs, wrote in early July. About a week later, Jim Morgan, Sony Electronics' government counsel, wrote that he was cutting out comments that touched on fast lanes because "[Sony Pictures Entertainment] or other parts of Sony may want to take advantage of paid prioritization, and so doesn’t want to be constrained by any arguments we make in these comments." Basically, Sony writes that it can see itself wanting to use paid fast lanes to help its many content businesses, be it delivering video games, movies, or something else. "The bottom line," Weaver wrote just over a week before the filing deadline, "net neutrality rules should not apply to content producers."