Sars 37 60 In response to COUNCIL TECH COMMITTEE HEARING: OPEN THE INTERNET Eyebeam is the leading not-for-profit art and technology center in the United States. Founded in 1996 and incorporated in 1997, Eyebeam was conceived as a non-profit art and technology center dedicated to exposing broad and diverse audiences to new technologies and media arts, while simultaneously establishing and demonstrating new media as a significant genre of cultural production Eyebeam has supported more than 130 fellowships and residencies for artists and creative technologists; run an active education program for youth, artists’ professional development and community outreach; and has mounted an extensive series of public programs. Today, Eyebeam offers residencies and fellowships for artists and technologists working in a wide range of media. New projects and work are openly disseminated through online, primarily open-source, publication. Eyebeam challenges convention, celebrates the hack, educates the next generation, encourages collaboration, freely offers its contributions to the community, and invites the public to share in a spirit of openness: open source, open content and open distribution. Our current program includes Student Residencies, a school-year long digital arts and technology program for New York City high school students who are interestedin experimenting, learning, and creating with new technology tools. Spencer Brown, a current student resident, represents a large proportion of current internet users; those that have grown up with this open and unrestricted resource and tool. One of the most important tools at Eyebeam is access to fast unrestricted internet. Its use is both a tool and a medium for the creation and innovation of not just art works but creative tools. There is already discrimination based on access to technology and without a law to preserve net neutrality the technological divide will become greater. ‘As we advance further into the technological age, the issue of control of the internet, and its assets has grown increasingly paramount. As a current student, Spencer Brown, having never been alive without the Internet, brings a necessary point of view to the discussion because like him a growing number of people have not experienced life or education without it. From the prospective of a teenager and student the Internet is priceless. This is due to muttiple reasons. The first of which is its connectivity. Although it is necessary to pay an access fee, once connected to the Internet it is possible to feach the millions of other users without extra communication fees. This means as a student, the ablilty to share with a community that otherwise would be in-accessible. It allows for an active membership within the internet society where all opinions have weight. The internet has given young people a voice and has become a equalizer in society, allowing a even playing field in terms of socialnetworks and access to information. As a technologist and artist, the ability to create content and not just be a content consumer allows for an unparalleled creative expression which is one of the main differences between cable tv and the internet but if the law to preserve net neutrality is not passed the internet will become another cable tv content provider. Earthify, (http://earthify.org/) a recent project conceived and created at Eyebeam is a mash up of craigs list apartment listings and google earth. It uses google earth's ‘open application programming interface to place apartment listings on a map. Without open access to both the internet and other applications that exist on the internet this would not be possible. The current companies controlling the delivery of content should not be able to discriminate, by either quality of service or price based on the content of the material. Common carriage should be preserved, for example the postal service does not open and scan the content of letters before delivery and has an price system that is the same for everyone who posts a letter. To conclude an open and non-discriminatory network is the very heart of the internet. It's why we have the internet we have today, why the culture of “innovation without permission” allowed the internet to turn into the distributed network in which anyone with an idea can try it out without kowtowing to the telephone or cable company. If this is not preserved the internet as we know it goes away. It's thatsimple. The control over what consumers and creative individuals see and do online would pass from the consumer to the telephone and cable companies.