A number of musicians have joined together to form Rock The Net, a group focused on ensuring net neutrality online.

Net neutrality refers to legislation to require that phone and cable companies, including AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., will not be able to prefer any Internet site over any other.

Those companies are currently hoping to tap into some of the wealth generated by companies like Google and Myspace by charging them for priority traffic. While this sounds innocuous, this would be akin to your telephone company charging people to receive your phone calls and is contrary to their role as impartial network providers.

The coalition, which counts among its founders a diverse range of musicians including REM, Boots Riley of The Coup, Ted Leo, The Locust, Death Cab for Cutie, and others, join both liberal and conservative political action groups like MoveOn.org and the Christian Coalition in the fight.

While a breakdown of net neutrality would have adverse effects on almost everyone, the bands and labels are concerned that they will be unable to compete with deep pocketed major labels who could receive preferential treatment for their acts which indie labels/bands would be unable to pay.

For more information, you can visit Future Of Music.

For another explanation of Net Neutrality, you can also take a look at John Hodgman on The Daily Show.