FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski made a pitch for network neutrality at a Future of Music Coalition policy summit in Washington Monday.
 
He said artists, songwriters and independent music producers “know better than most” why it is necessary to have “fair rules of the road.” That was a reference to his planned proposal to expand and codify the FCC’s network openness guidelines to exclude discrimination of content and applications and require notification of network management activities.
 
“With a free and open Internet, you don’t have to have big-time, star-power leverage over record labels, publishing companies, commercial radio stations, or particular retailers to get your music to the public…Net Neutrality permits independent artists and independent labels to compete on an equal technological playing field with the biggest companies in the space. That’s the American way — letting Internet users, the broadest group possible of ordinary people, decide who wins and loses,” he said.