Slashdot Mirror

Once upon a time, search was an expensive, high-end service, sold by companies like Nexis/Lexis and Mead Data Central. Then it looked like search might be something you paid for with your ISP bill, like premium cable. Then it was free, supported by ads, but users had go to to the search site. Search engines competed on search result quality, which is how Google beat Lycos, Yahoo, and AltaVista. Now Google has to pay cash for traffic flow. Search now has negative market value.

This is striking. TV networks have never had it that bad. US cable networks pay for their channels, at the rate of $0.03 to $0.25 per subscriber per month for most of what's on basic cable. Some channels do pay for access to cable networks, but that's for ad-heavy junk like the Jewelry Channel.

This may be an indication that search results are now too ad-heavy. That's a bad place to be. Myspace went there, and crashed from hero to zero in three years.

"It's only censorship when the government does it."

Common mistake. Here's the argument that you're trying to have:

Party A: "Apple is violating my 1st Amendment rights by censoring me!" Party B: "The 1st Amendment only protects you from government censorship, not censorship by Apple."

Anyone can engage in censorship, not just the government. For example, all television networks have staff positions referred to as "network censors".

Do they have any of Ozzy's old DNA?

If they didn't cremate him..

It never worked that way before, so you working with an ideal that would never happen in reality. Please wake up to humanity's flaws before we repeat history!

I have a distinct warning to all frothy-mouthed Liberals that love the idea of a "Fairness Doctrine" which was used in the past to remove Communist influences in the media

[citation needed]

When was the "Fairness Doctrine" ever specifically used to remove any influences in the media, much less "Communist" influences, as opposed to, for example, give an author the chance to reply to an attack by a right-wing broadcaster who had accused the author of "[having] been fired by a newspaper for making false charges against city officials; [having] then worked for a Communist-affiliated publication; [having] defended Alger Hiss and attacked J. Edgar Hoover and the Central Intelligence Agency, and [having] now written a "book to smear and destroy Barry Goldwater.""

Now, in practice, there were concerns raised that enforcing the "Fairness Doctrine" might cause stations to avoid saying anything that might trigger "Fairness Doctrine" enforcement, having a "chilling effect" on free speech.

Just a clarification. I used the term "networks" in the last sentence meaning the large conglomerates that now control both television programming and distribution like NBC/Universal or Disney/ABC. It wasn't always so.

Of course you'll need to make sure you've got a license to present the broadcast! Oh and if you choose to use a PC relaying a broadcast (from the internet or from a TV signal) then you'll need to purchase "secondary transmission" rights ...

In the US 17USC111 (a)(5) appears to give a publicly funded school a pass on this. But it does say under ibid (a)(2) that you must comply with 17USC110 (2) which at (2)(D)(ii)(I)(aa) [!] requires that any digital copy is deleted before the end of the classroom session. Oh and you'll need to "[provide] notice to students that materials used in connection with the course may be subject to copyright protection".

Sounds like you need a good lawyer. I hope the TV stations band together and sue all the schools! Justice must be done!!

US law: http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/111.html
US law: http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/110.html
Worldwide situations: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/copyrightlaw/copyrightlaw.htm
UK licensing: http://www.gla.ac.uk/copyright/video.htm

Liar. Even if the Fairness Doctrine is reinstated (and Obama has made no statements to support that) it wont force Limbaugh or Savage or Hannity or Hack $X off the air, it will just force the stations to carry an opposing view. It's telling that wingnuts are terrified of the prospect of a level playing field.

Apparently you're not aware of the history of the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine was once in effect, and there was a very good reason it was discontinued. It didn't work.

Rather than broadcasters spending time and money trying to dredge up opposition pundits & viewpoints and risking possible expensive legal actions being brought against them for some perceived "unfairness" (Hey! My guys' reply to that other guys' point got cut off in the middle of his last word because of an engineering error! I'm suing!) or having to cancel and reschedule shows last-minute because one of the pundits couldn't/wouldn't show up last-minute, they simply didn't have controversial discussions, effectively silencing controversial issues from being broadcast.

From the Museum of Broadcast Communications: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm

"In order to avoid the requirement to go out and find contrasting viewpoints on every issue raised in a story, some journalists simply avoided any coverage of some controversial issues. This "chilling effect" was just the opposite of what the FCC intended."

So, I guess if you're in favor of squelching the broadcast of opinions that you don't like but are popular, the Fairness Doctrine sounds pretty good. I wonder if the liberals in the Democratic Party would be so anxious to re-instate the Fairness Doctrine if the positions were reversed and Air America dominated the AM radio talk stations and Rush Limbaugh et-al couldn't attract enough listeners to stay afloat? I thought being liberal meant welcoming diversity of opinion? Or do they only welcome diversity of opinion (or any opinion) only so long as it's diversity of liberal opinion?

Cheers!

Strat

Sorry about the cheesy link, was too lazy to look for the original document, this one will do ;)

Guess you weren't there. Hollywood went broke in '76.

The broadcasters didn't sue Sony in the Betamax case; the studios did. (The original suit is Universal, et. al. v Sony.) It was their product that was allegedly being infringed by taping. The broadcasters either didn't care, or quietly supported taping since it would ultimately expand their audience reach.

Of course, today NBC and Universal are both owned by General Electric, so their interests are now aligned in a way that was legally impossible in 1976. Now that we've abolished the "financial interest" rules, the sharp divisions between content and conduit in US television have dissolved.

How do someone a get a "+4, Informative" when the information being presented is wrong?

Great, so you do that. You also have to print any other candidate's letter to the editor.

You also seem to not understand the "equal airtime" clause. Such one-sided coverage has resulted in lawsuits, and you wouldn't own your papers/stations very long. (Don't forget, all broadcast stations are under revocable and expiring charters)

Here's some links to help you understand how binding the equal time laws are. Then note that I'm not advocating changing any of this, except making the purchase of time illegal, because we're removing campaign funding - the entire premise of this thread.

So your strawman argument falls flat on almost every count except for this: yes, media can slant coverage they are required to provide. But, the core issue is whatever coverage they provide must be provided for all, and thus more coverage can only help the "smaller" individuals by making them known.

You do know that the "Universal" in NBC/Universal is Universal Studios, don't you?

From Jeff Zucker's bio at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Zucker):

"Chief Executive Officer of NBC
On December 15, 2005, Zucker was again promoted by NBC, to Chief Executive Officer of NBC Universal Television Group behind Robert Charles Wright, vice chairman of General Electric and chairman & CEO of NBC Universal. Zucker was responsible for all programming across the company's television properties, including network, news, cable, and Sports and Olympics. His responsibilities also include the company's studio operations and global distribution efforts [emphasis mine]. Zucker reports to Bob Wright."

I bet you drink a lot of Maalox in a job like that.

In the "old days" the FCC's "financial interest and syndication rules" (quick history) made it unprofitable for the big-three networks to own the content-production side of the business as well. The rules prohibited the networks from selling "reruns" of programs they produced (e.g, The Johnny Carson Show) to local television stations, a practice called "program syndication." Since all the risk capital in program development is upfront, a program's profits are not made on its initial showing but in "reruns" to cable networks, local television stations, and overseas distributors. By prohibiting the networks from profiting in this aftermarket, the "fin-syn" rules made owning the production studios uneconomical.

Nowadays, anything goes. CBS created Viacom and sold it off to comply with the FCC. Now Viacom owns CBS. NBC has merged with Universal Studios, and Disney bought ABC/ESPN by first buying a multi-market TV station owner. Australian-owned Fox has interests in newspapers, movies, satellite TV, US local television stations in the US, and many more outlets I'm sure. What were once strict divisions between media production and distribution have long since fallen by the wayside. In large part these pro-business changes reflected the opinions of new FCC commissioners appointed by Republican administrations. They also represented a change in the structure of television from a world where three networks commanded 90% or more of the viewers to one where they fewer than half that number. (http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2007/10/16/cbs_network_scores_another_ratings_win/)

Deliberately dumb? Not really, just baiting. Don't think the Xerox copier hasn't been considered in copyright infringement litigation. The main point is the MPAA and RIAA are so bent on driving a crowbar between the consumer and the media they control, they'll do anything necessary to limit our historical rights. Part of this is threatening manufacturers with litigation if they don't apply copy protection systems to ordinary items under threat of violating some imaginary clause of the DMCA. Unfortunately, the DMCA is being used to drive out all notions of "fair use" and the eventual "public domain" status of any copyrighted work. Fortunately, the public can supply feedback to the Government on how the DMCA is going.

The granddaddy of this litigation in the modern age was the Betamax Case where Universal and others accused VCR makers of being part of a copyright infringement mechanism. That was struck down and the ruling was later challenged by MGM v. Grokster. That allowed the Betamax ruling to stand but failed to define the limits of what is legal or illegal in the Internet age.

Meanwhile, the MPAA and RIAA were very busy trying to lock down all technical avenues of distribution. They even tried to get copy protection applied to analog audio systems (apply a phase rotation at several frequencies which triggers copy inhibit). I can't find a current link to that but the RIAA gave demonstrations to Congress on how this would reduce the problem of tape copying and off-air recording. Artists countered with their own demonstrations to Congress on how it trashed the audio. The goal was to enact a law to make copying music illegal under any circumstances, including "fair use". The INDUCE Act proposed by Orrin Hatch gives a glimpse into how far this could go.

I have no idea how they let the CD slip out the door without protections but the content controllers (I hesitate to call them providers) have been trying to retrofit restrictions to the CD ever since the CD-R came about for consumers. The MPAA made sure the DVD wouldn't be in the same boat as the CD or the Betamax. The DVD, obviously designed for recording movies, was not to be released in any form without controls approved by the MPAA members. I work with some of the people who were in the room when the first DVD was made in the U.S. What a mess - the MPAA had teams of lawyers ready to sue you for trying to create a mechanism to pirate movies. That's how the DVD was viewed.

Now, there's no shortage of ways to recognize content and disable equipment from use which displeases the MPAA or RIAA. Fortunately, several watchdog groups are pushing back on the laws just as hard to keep some of these historical freedoms and "fair use" alive. Otherwise, we'd get sued for copyright infringement by walking down the street and whistling a song.

Here are a few other things worth reading:

• The MPAA's attempts to lock down media and eliminate our legal rights.
• Janis Ian's excellent view from the other side of the RIAA.
• How the RIAA is using technology to limit rights.

(For this, pretend that I am "Hawkeye" from M.A.S.H. The whole thing will sound better.)

The only choice you have made that I really like is the Paris Hilton one.
I'd watch all of the newscasts she appears in, and not listen to a word she says, although she is a thoughtful and fairly intelligent young woman to be so good looking. Did I mention "Good Looking", good, I'm glad you noticed, as visions of her loveliness float in your head.
In case you don't exactly remember what she looks like, here she is.
Thank you.

I believe these are the rules the Kuchinich is trying to bring back? From what I can see...these rules only were from the FCC and applicable to broad casters...it appears along the lines of that ruling, that many exemptions were introduced, and finally about 1987, these requirements were dropped.

I haven't seen in my short searches where this was ever required of print media.

THIS seems to be one article alluding to this as well as THIS ARTICLE . This was just from a quick search...

"You are utterly ignorant. The Fairness Doctrine had existed, in one form or another, since before most Americans had television in their homes (pre-1050). See: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairness doct/fairnessdoct.htm"

"It is a great idea, for many reasons. One of the best is that the airwaves are a limited public resource that are the most effective means in history of reaching people and molding their attitudes and opinions. Remember that crucial fact: it's a limited resource that is vital to our continued existence as free human beings in the United States. There is no reason that anyone should be allowed to "own" it with impunity, any more than someone should be allowed to "own" the airspace over Illinois or the Mississippi River."

"There are exactly two choices:

1. A small oligopoly of for-profit companies decides what is acceptable, with day-to-day choices made by "journalists" who only care about propaganda and shouting matches.
2. The people decide what is acceptable."

"It should be a no-brainer. The only people that can honestly consider the subject and still be against it, are the delusionists who think "the market" will fix everything."

"Also, if you are going to extrapolate from Barbara Boxer to all Democrats, I'm going to extrapolate from David Duke to all Republicans."

You are utterly ignorant. The Fairness Doctrine had existed, in one form or another, since before most Americans had television in their homes (pre-1050). See: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairness doct/fairnessdoct.htm

It is a great idea, for many reasons. One of the best is that the airwaves are a limited public resource that are the most effective means in history of reaching people and molding their attitudes and opinions. Remember that crucial fact: it's a limited resource that is vital to our continued existence as free human beings in the United States. There is no reason that anyone should be allowed to "own" it with impunity, any more than someone should be allowed to "own" the airspace over Illinois or the Mississippi River.

There are exactly two choices:

1. A small oligopoly of for-profit companies decides what is acceptable, with day-to-day choices made by "journalists" who only care about propaganda and shouting matches.
2. The people decide what is acceptable.

In case 1, this oligopoly controls the airwaves and does everything to advance the corporate agenda (which is not always, but often, harmful to individuals, and is always harmful to a free government by consent of the people);

In case 2, the people, through their elected representatives, can say "everything is acceptable except propaganda with no counter-argument". That is the Fairness Doctrine.

It should be a no-brainer. The only people that can honestly consider the subject and still be against it, are the delusionists who think "the market" will fix everything.

Also, if you are going to extrapolate from Barbara Boxer to all Democrats, I'm going to extrapolate from David Duke to all Republicans.

Grow up and read a book.

Actually it has. Remember the Betamax case?

from the article:

"Handing down its decision in October 1979, the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Sony, stating that taping off air for entertainment or time shifting constituted fair use; that copying an entire program also qualified as fair use; that set manufacturers could profit from the sale of VCRs; and that the plaintiffs did not prove that any of the above practices constituted economic harm to the motion picture industry."

I'm no legal expert but technically speaking, a broadcast constitutes a format. By taping that broadcast, the consumer (or device) is performing a format shift. Fair use, it seems to me, has already been decided. Congress also addressed fair use of audio recordings in 1971. From the EFF Copyright and Fair Use FAQ:

House Report on the Sound Recording Amendment of 1971 H.R. Rep. No. 487, 92d Cong,. 1st Sess. 1-19 (1971) at pages 7-8:

Home Recording

"In approving the creation of a limited copyright in sound recordings it is the intention of the Committee that this limited copyright not grant any broader rights than are accorded to other copyright proprietors under the existing title 17. Specifically, it is not the intention of [Congress] to restrain the home recording, from broadcasts or from tapes or records, of recorded performances, where the home recording is for private use and with no purpose of reproducing or otherwise capitalizing commercially on it. This practice is common and unrestrained today, and record producers and performers would be in no different position from that of the owners of copyright in recorded musical compositions over the past 20 years."

It's all about the money, folks.

You guys are both a little off. Since Fair Use is an ambiguous concept it helps to look at precedent. Here is an excerpt from an article on the Sony Betamax case.

Handing down its decision in October 1979, the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Sony, stating that taping off air for entertainment or time shifting constituted fair use; that copying an entire program also qualified as fair use; that set manufacturers could profit from the sale of VCRs; and that the plaintiffs did not prove that any of the above practices constituted economic harm to the motion picture industry.

So time-shifting of entire works is protected in some situations and for personal use. Unfortunately, a case specific to format-shifting will enventually be needed to put that one to rest.

article link

You are a moron.

Read about the "Fairness Doctrine" here:
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairness doct/fairnessdoct.htm

While the "Fairness Doctrine" was not passed as a law by congress, it was enforced by the FCC, who had the power to revoke licences and throw people in jail. The "Fairness Doctrine" was a law... It was a law put in place in a non-democratic manner (i.e. it was a law by executive decree instead of of being properly voted into law by congress), but any time the government sets out rules that must be obeyed under the threat of legal penalties, those are laws!

As the article above will show, the "Fairness Doctrine" had a "chilling effect" on the reporting of controversial issues, and was considered by most journalists to be a violation of their First Amendment Rights.

The FCC is a part of the executive brand of government, and it's head is appointed by the President of the United States... While a President does not micro-manage all aspects of the FCC, the President has ultimate authority over the FCC. (Hence, the recent crackdown on anything "obcene" by the FCC since the Bush administration took over). The Fairness Doctrine clearly gave the President of the United States absolute power to decide what was "fair" and what wasn't "fair" in broadcast media.

Examples of how the Fairness Doctrine would be used today if it was still in effect:

1. All documentaries on Global Warming would be required to provide equal time to those who claim Global Warming is a myth.
2. All information about evolution would be required to provide equal time to creationism and intelligent design.

The only people who would support something like the Fairness Doctrine, are people like yourself, who worship the institution of government as your religion. You believe that the institution of government is inherently holy, and infailable, and that a simple decree by the holy masters in Washington to make things "fair" (whatever the hell "fair" means), will eliminate all bias and corruption in the media as if God ordered the Red Sea to part. Anyone who doesn't attribute mystical powers to the state, who believes that governments don't always act in the best interests of their people, or understands that concepts like "fair" are purely subjective, would of course be highly sceptical of giving the government the right to tell people what they can or can't broadcast. However, for you, to show any doubts whatsoever that a decree from the President of the United States is not tantamount to the will of God, is sinnful and incomprehensable.

For one, I will welcome my $9.99 pricing overlord since Steve Jobs/Apple's views on value and pricing will change the culture of excess and decadence that is the Hollywood system of film production.

Since he is schooled in traditional business operations, he is aware about direct acountability, dealing with shareholders maintaing smooth operations, and foster profit by making smart business decisions.

I am tired of the whole idea Residual Payments dragging technology down because some guy apeared for 2 minutes of a TV show. I do not get paid for my work writing reviews/previews during my gig at PSXNation even though my stories has been used in various websites and I do not care if I even get paid at all.

It just does not make business sense to earn money for the physical labor you have performed previously. It is called working to earn a living. You stupid actors should realize this. If you had no say in owning the intelectual property in the development stage or front any money to support the production, you just deserve your wage while work.

Bring on the $9.99 era and just keep prices as what they are truly worth.

That is where Bob & Doug McKenzie on the old SNL show came from

For the uninitiated, the pilot episode of Max Headroom told how new high-speed advertisements were overloading people's brains. Max was, well, kind of a cyborg, when a reporter suffering a terrible accident was recreated in a computer.

For the full spoiler, read TV Museum

Well, hopefully it will be fixed in metamoderation.

Okay, let's see if this works: I'll explain things as comprehensively as I reasonably can, and if at any point you disagree *stop reading and disregard this entire post*.

The music corporations care about one thing and one thing only: they want to make money. Music is merely the means to an end, and the artist/band serves only as resources to be exploited to that end. This is true for any corporation, regardless of the nature of business it is involved with, and in spite of any ethical issue, popular concern, or public hazard. (Think General Dynamics, Enron, Halliburton, etc. ad nauseum.)

Music companies wish to sell music to the people. As I noted in an earlier post, however, people don't buy music they don't like, and they don't like music they don't hear. How then do music companies make money off of people?

One word: EXPOSURE.

This is why music blares in every supermarket, in every retail store, in every shopping mall, in every goddamn elevator lobby, and all over the airwaves. Exposure breeds familiarity, and familiarity fosters enjoyment (though some people find certain kinds of music more enjoyable than others do -- natural variance).

The same "saturation technique" is used by music companies regarding radio stations. They literally bombard the broadcasters with a flood of free CDs on a regular basis, enough so that the station and its program director *plus every DJ and his/her SO and the receptionist and the janitor* get a free copy, complete with jewel box and liner notes. Pretty generous for an industry that claims to be losing billions in lost sales due to downloading, no? No, because the recording companies only care about getting their music over the air. They want to increase the odds that *someone* at the station will like their product, even if it is total shit -- because they want EXPOSURE.

(What if *nobody* likes their music? Believe it or not, many companies will try to bully the station into playing the music anyway, even to the point of threatening to cut off all future shipments of CDs! My program director got a good laugh when some music rep tried this on him, since that would mean the record company would be cutting itself off from a publicity outlet -- which would then exclusively receive material from its competing labels! Not a very intelligent threat at all!)

Still with me? Good. Now let's look back at the dawn of videotape machines, where TV interests tried to outlaw the first VCR:

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/betamaxc ase/betamaxcase.htm

The Betamax case was filed in the U.S. Federal District Court of Los Angeles in November 1976 and went to trial on 30 January 1979. In its defense, Sony asserted that a consumer had the absolute right to record programs at home for private use. It drew an analogy to the audio cassette recorder, which was introduced in the 1960s and had made music tapers out of millions of American teenagers. Although the practice had not been tested in the courts, Sony believed a tradition had been established.

Feeling a little deja vu? Here we had content providers (producers of TV programming) claiming that the act of recording shows off of TV was a violation of copyright law! However, the court wisely ruled that idea to be patently ridiculous, stating that the use of TV recording equipment for personal use qualifies as permissible practice under a certain provision of copyright law. What was that legal provision?

Two words: FAIR USE

This was based directly on the example of audio-only sound recorders, which had (amazingly!) failed to bankrupt any of the music companies. Read on:

Handing down its decision in October 1979, the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Sony, stating that taping off air for entertainment or time shifting constituted fair use; that copying an entire program also qualified as fair use; that set manufacturers could profit fro

The name "This Hour has 22 Minutes"is actually a play on "This Hour Has Seven Days", a very popular news/public affairs show in the mid-sixties.

It also references the fact that a half-hour tv slot is 22 minutes plus commercials.

Currently the only reason PBS is even on most cable networks is due to the "Must Carry" ruling.

When first passed in 1972, the must-carry rules required that cable companies provide channels for all local broadcasters within a 60-mile (later changed to 50-mile) radius of the cable company's service area.

So in a nutshell, your local PBS station is still on the free portion of the networks, even with a-la-carte programing.

Depending on the stations business model (money from comercials vs. subscribers and how much) some stations may be eliminated and some wouldn't have a problem under a-la-carte. Anyone who gets no moeny from the cable networks and is fully funded by comercials won't have much of a problem. Anyone who is completely subscriber funded (paychanels such as HBO) shouldn't have a problem. The fuzzy area is going to be those channels that are in between relying on both comercials and subscribers.

Personally, I don't think the packages are going to go away anytime soon. I think we are still going to have tiers that are cheaper as a whole than buying them all individually.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/mustcarr yru/mustcarryru.htm

(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!)

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I remember watching Ms. Tomlin on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In way back in the day.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/R/htmlR/rowanand mar/rowanandmar.htm/

...we'll start seeing more shows fade into the advertisements, as opposed to "We'll be back after these"->fade to black->show ads, to reduce the effect a bit. We may even see the ads alpha-blended in the show in a subliminal way.

Since there's already been ads within shows themselves for a while, I won't be shocked. Things like camera rental, host salaries and the occasional CG effect aren't bargains...right?

Okay, but what you're complaining about here is not "the media" but a subset, i.e. "television news and magazine shows".

It's this type of use of blanket terms, which conflate all media into a monolithic entity that I'm unhappy with. Just as geneticists get annoyed at having to deal with the fall out from some people running around trying to set up reproductive cloning clinics, so I, as a print journalist, get annoyed when I'm tarred with the same brush as some lightweight passing off some prepackaged newstainment as journalism.

Incidentally, the shift you're describing started not with CNN, but with 60 Minutes in 1967. Why? Apart from the instantly-imitated pre-packaged magazine segment format, 60 minutes was the first news program to make a profit. Previously, television news organizations were not expected to make money: they were seen as a public service, part of the cost of maintaining the station's license to monopolize part of the public airwaves. Before long though, TV news organizations were expected to make money too, and this led to changes in format and content, and to spiraling cost reductions.

Interestingly, this has meant a return to having the news agenda set, not by TV, but, by and large, by print publications. TV news organizations rarely have the resources any more to go out and find new stories, but must wait until stories are broken in print. This is especially so with local news: manys the time I'll see a story pop up in, say, The Daily News, and two or three days later the same story will appear on the local news. Even in the heyday of US journalism, generally considered to be the early and mid 1970s, most of the action was driven by newspapers.

"No" to get rid of Juncker ;-)

Or, more seriously, "No" to protest against section II-77-2 ("intellectual property shall be protected"). Contrast this with the US constitution, which is much more measured in this regards and states: "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". As compared to the US clause, the European one seems to be a huge step back. The EU constitution will protect intellectual property regardless of whether this will promote progress (...software patents, wink, wink...) and potentially for an unlimited time. (Yes I know: US currently has software patents, while EU has not (yet). But potentially, SCOTUS could strike down software patents at any time, once a sufficiently motivated party brings suit).

Considering the amount of US case law that used both limitations (must promote progress, limited time) to protect the citizens interests against the content industry ( Betamax case, etc.), this seems like a huge blunder. Or, more likely, a deliberate choice to give more power to the media conglomerates. And that's why I make a deliberate choice to vote no. Clauses protecting lobbies that are already overpowerful do not belong into a constitution.

(besides, shouldn't your handle be "ArsèneLupin"... That is without two "n")

ArseneLupin (with one n) exists, but has huge negative karma ;-)

Cool... Google is your friend:

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/wildking dom/wildkingdom.htm

From the link:

Unlike Zoo Parade, Wild Kingdom was shot on film almost entirely in the field, and featured encounters with wildlife in their natural habitat. Indeed, one of the program's signature features was the footage of Marlin Perkins, or his assistants Jim Fowler and later Stan Brock, pursuing and at times physically engaging with the wildlife-of-the-week, whether that meant mud-wrestling with alligators, struggling to get free from the vice-like grip of a massive water snake, running from unexpectedly awakened elephants or seemingly angered sea lions, or jumping from a helicopter onto the back of an elk in the snows of Montana.

You are correct. I was thinking only of the decision in the U.S. District Court.

The U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Sony in October 1979. Next, the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the decision in October 1981. Finally, the Supreme Court reversed the appeals court decision on January 17, 1984.

(Source)

You're thinking of Spitting Image. The famous "I'm an actor" sketch can be found here: http://www.80snostalgia.com/classictv/spittingimag e/movies.html

Bill Nye was a bit after my time, but does anyone remember Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon? Apparently he was around even when my parents were growing up, on NBC.

Check out this site: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/watchmrw iz/watchmrwiz.htm
for some good history on Don Herbert, the real name of Mr. Wizard.

Here is his official page, which says Don operates the site himself! Cool.

This is DVD Jon we're talking about. He has a lawyer. He already hacked DVD's, got arrested, charged, sued, and won.

For the unfamiliar: His DVD hacking software (DeCSS) was deemed illegal because it allowed you to bypass the protection put onto DVD's (so that you could store the digital content onto a hard drive or make a backup copy). He ultimately won that case. This was HUGE for the rights of YOU AND ME, akin to the original case that allowed us to use VCR's to record TV shows!

So I guess you are going to tell me HL Mencken, Walter Cronkite, etc, etc, aren't journalists? Right. I think just about everyone is going to disagree with 'your' definition on that one.

Before you go yelling once again that Cronkite has a school named after him. Yes, he does. That doesn't mean he want to school. Now you are going to yell about all his degrees. They are all honorary degrees. He NEVER went to school for them. Link: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/cronkite wal/cronkitewal.htm

"WALTER CRONKITE. Born in St. Joseph's, Missouri, U.S.A., 4 November 1916. Attended University of Texas, 1933-35. Married: Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, 1940; three children. Newswriter and editor, Scripps-Howard, also for United Press, Houston, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; Dallas, Austin, and El Paso, Texas; and New York City; United Press war correspondent, 1942-45, foreign correspondent, reopening bureaus in Amsterdam, Brussels; chief correspondent, Nuremberg war crimes trials, bureau manager, Moscow, 1946-48, manager and contributor, 1948-49, CBS-News correspondent, 1950-81, special correspondent, since 1981; managing editor, CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, 1962-81. Honorary degrees: American International College; Harvard University; LL.D., Rollins College, Bucknell University, Syracuse University; L.H.D., Ohio State University. Member: Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (president, national academy, New York chapter, 1959, Governor's Award, 1979); Association Radio News Analysts. Recipient: several Emmy Awards; Peabody Awards, 1962 and 1981; William A. White Award for journalistic merit, 1969; George Polk Journalism Award, 1971; Gold Medal, International Radio and Television Society, 1974; Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award in Broadcast Journalism, 1978 and 1981; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1981."

He started college, but never finished it. He dropped out of college in his junior year, to take a job as a full-time reporter for The Houston Press.

Link:http://www.nndb.com/people/313/000022247/

"High School: San Jacinto High School, Houston, TX (1933)"

"University: University of Texas at Austin (no degree)"

Got proof he did? Let's see your sources.

Carpentry also doesn't compare to being a doctor, yet you can't get insurance on a new house unless your carpenters are bonded and licensed. If you don't believe me, call a contractor and ask.

My uncle built his own home. He has insurance. You can get insurance if you had the house well inspected during the building process and look around for insurance companies. Many insurance companies don't want to assume the risk of insuring a house with unknown quality of workmanship. The insurance company is the one who decides what risks they want to take or not. The government is not involved, and you don't have to be a bonded/licensed carpenter to build a house in most jurisdictions (some local zoning regulations may insist, but those are strange local regs, not national laws or regulations). You just need to get everything inspected. Don't believe it? http://apps.irs.gov/businesses/page/0,,id=7006,00. html "The license/registration requirements for carpenters and their business entities (that is, sole proprietorship, joint venture, partnership, or corporation) vary from state to state. Most states, however, do require those in the carpentry/framing business to register or obtain a license." Most states require a license if you are going to do it for a business. Others don't. There is no national law for it.

Ahem. Walter Cronkite has a school of journalism named after him, earned five media degrees from the University of Texas and recieved almost a dozen honorary degrees. Edward Murrow had media degrees from Stanford, U.Washington and Washington State.

So yes, they were journalists. Why? Because they went to school for it.

Ahem. Walter Cronkite has a school of journalism named after him, earned five media degrees from the University of Texas and recieved almost a dozen honorary degrees. Edward Murrow had media degrees from Stanford, U.Washington and Washington State.

So yes, they were journalists. Why? Because they went to school for it.

Not impuning Al-Jazerra; as you point out they (and many other journalists) have been killed bringing us news from the Middle East. I'm amazed at how poorly the American media covers this war. Ed Murrow must be spinning in his grave.

Divx sucks, nobody has used that crap in a long time. If you use compressed content then xvid is current

If you use compressed content then xvid is current. Since DVD burners have gone sub $100 and 3mbit connections are common, actual dvd-r images are becoming vogue.

Fortunately, the algorithms used are good enough that it's not usually noticable. (Note that I said `not usually' -- there are certainly cases where you can notice the compression artifacts.)

If you want video that's not compressed, get a Video Disc player. They're analog, though some do have a CD quality digital soundtrack. Or a VHS tape deck.

The USA has an Equal Time rule when it comes to TV broadcasters. It came into being because the Gov recognized that the power of TV could be abused to promote only one side and is used to help counter it. Essentially, in some cases they "can" be required to broadcast it.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/E/htmlE/equaltim eru/equaltimeru.htm

One can write state secrets on a paper napkin with a #2 pencil too. Should the Government take over production and distribution of napkins and pencils now?

You whippersnappers! Mr. Wizard was cool when Bill Nye was but a pup.

Frankly, were I a lawyer, as soon as these things started being sold to the channel, I'd try to put together a class-action lawsuit claiming harm to the class of people who previously purchased recording devices that were being legally used that now had to go out and purchase new units.

Also, the fact that these new units would cost more due to the implimentation of this copy-protection scheme creates additional actionable harm.

I would add, for the benefit of karlandtanya that the term fair use also refers to the permission to exhibit or broadcast copyrighted material due to a news event, like the death of a person connected with the material, a photograph of a person and so on. Fair use in the United States exists for a period of 48 hours and then it expires. In that event, one might be able to use one's home-digitized material on a blog as long as the link was removed in 48 hours, though this has certianly not been tested.

What he is referring to is home copying, which is legal as a result of the Sony Betamax Case that specifically allows home recording and copying and storing of material for personal use.

Of course it's blindingly obvious, we have seen it for 50 years. The question is, was that interface obvious before it got invented? Remember the golden rule that intuitive == familiar.

The policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission that became known as the "Fairness Doctrine" is an attempt to ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station be

balanced and fair. The FCC took the view, in 1949, that station licensees were "public trustees," and as such had an obligation to afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance. The Commission later held that stations were also obligated to actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming that addressed those issues. With the deregulation sweep of the Reagan Administration during the 1980s, the Republican-controlled Commission dissolved the fairness doctrine.

The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine harkened a new age in media and journalism. News outlets were no longer forced to adopt middle ground positions when covering issues; editorial no longer need be confined to narrow areas, and the airwaves exploded with thousands of heavily polarized pundits broadcasting 24 hours a day their agendas, without any concern for fairness or covering alternative viewpoints.

Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and thousands of other partisian pundits were free to spew their slanted take on the world without ever considering the need to offer anything but a wholly one-sided tale of the issues. Left un-regulated and therefore un-challeneged, their hubris expanded to epic preportions as evidenced in statements like, "Fair and Balanced, "No Spin Zone", etc.

And thus began the modern propaganda wars. Unfortunately it's more of a massacre than a real war.

Yes, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine also gave liberal entities the same freedom. The problem is the platforms for these pundits were mostly commercial radio stations, and the conservatives took the role of spokespeople for the agenda of corporate America, unarguably the true political power in the nation. Liberals, representing the moderate voice of the mainstream didn't have the resources that mouthpieces for big-pharma, insurance, finance, oil and defense contractors, and as a result, found themselves literally drowning in a sea of pro-big-business propaganda, with no way to get equal airtime and thus, no comparable method

(1) ... The Kerry campaign trying to stop the broadcast through legal and procedural actions. How does this enhance free speech?

Interesting issue. Are there any limits on the freedom of a broadcaster? Just ask Howard Stern!

A TV station or a radio station uses a public resource, the RF spectrum, essentially for free. That's a big government subsidy (think how much cell phone providers pay for a few MHz of spectrum.). Not only that, but the FCC polices the spectrum -- if I try to set up a 50KW RF amp and broadcast in any Sinclair licensed frequency/area, the FCC will come down on me like a ton of bricks, shut me down and throw me in jail.

In return for exclusive use of protected spectrum, broadcasters agree to certain conditions. For a long time they had no choice, but now there's cable, and satellite, neither of which has exclusive use of a public resource, and on those media broadcasters are much more free to define content (Howard Stern will be moving to satellite radio, and I've heard that Michael Moore is trying to present a cable pay per view event before Nov 2).

What are the FCC conditions? Here's the FCC's brief description. In particular there's the FCC Fairness Doctrine and the Equal Time rule. I think a fair application of equal time might be to broadcast the anti- Kerry movie one night, and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in the same timeslot the next night. Somehow I doubt Sinclair Broadcasting is devoted enough to free speech to do that.

Actually, your free speech question may be a red herring here. Sinclair doesn't have a great track record on free speech. Last May, Sinclair censored Ted Koppel's Nightline broadcast of the names of our Iraq war dead. Check out this story quoting John McCain:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) sent a letter to the president and CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group, David Smith, about the broadcaster's decision to pre-empt Friday night's broadcast of "Nightline.

"I write to strongly protest your decision to instruct Sinclair's ABC affiliates to preempt this evening's Nightline program. I find deeply offensive Sinclair's objection to Nightline's intention to broadcast the names and photographs of Americans who gave their lives in service to our country in Iraq," McCain wrote.

"I supported the President's decision to go to war in Iraq, and remain a strong supporter of that decision," McCain continued.

"But every American has a responsibility to understand fully the terrible costs of war and the extraordinary sacrifices it requires of those brave men and women who volunteer to defend the rest of us; lest we ever forget or grow insensitive to how grave a decision it is for our government to order Americans into combat," he wrote.

. . .

"It is, in short, sir, unpatriotic. I hope it meets with the public opprobrium it most certainly deserves," he concluded.

My conclusion: these Sinclair folks are hardly paragons of free speech.

(2) I would suggest you see the broadcast before protesting. Maybe it isn't what you think it is -- who knows?

Great idea! Will you babysit my kids while I'm doing that? I'm willing to let the marketplace decide this issue too. Fahrenheit 9/11 was a for-profit venture that has earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000,000. I'd say th