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FCC to Require Broadcasters to Keep Tapes of Shows
The Importance of writes "Under current FCC rules, in order to make an indecency complaint about a broadcast you have to provide "a significant excerpt from the program or a full or partial tape or transcript of the program." However, broadcasters aren't required to keep a tape of their broadcasts so, rarely, an indecency complaint gets dismissed for lack of evidence. But that is going to change. The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking [PDF] [TXT] that will require broadcasters to maintain recordings of their broadcasts for 60-90 days. The FCC is also considering reducing what you must claim in order to enter a complaint, thus opening the floodgates for indecency complaints by groups like the Parents Television Council, which is already keeping the FCC censors busy. Doesn't the government have better things to do?"
Working for a radio station in Austria, we have about the same rules here (90 days, real airplay), and we saw it as quite a pain originally. We kept the records on mp3s wich got deleted after the "holdtime".
One day we got sued from a company that a moderator had said "offensive things" about them and at court the mp3s were the key to show that this wasnt true. Since then we see this also as a mechanism to be able to show what really got broadcast in situations like this.
I find it difficult to believ that broadcasters aren't already required to keep records permenently for historical purposes.
Just think of the millions of hours of TV that no one will be able to research. Admittedly most of it isn't of the highest quality, but still, some historian might well be interested in the future.
The cost is nowadays minimal anyway. DivX, 400GB HDDs and backup tapes have made it simple to record everything that gets broadcast. Perhaps an archive of broadcasts should be recorded from all stations. I hardly think this affects anyones rights as we could all view it anyway.
As an aside it's also very sad when brief exposures of a naked human breast are considered indecent.
May the Maths Be with you!
P.S. frouth psot.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Agree or disagree with the argument itself, I think that it results to the fact that it is broadcast over "public airwaves." That is in that any basic receiver can pick up the transmission. This is the same as regular network television. While one would hope it would be at the discretion of the viewer/listener, apparently the FCC doesn't see it as so.
( o ) one could say I'm rather baked
how is an individual supposed to make said tape in light of current copyright laws?
So what your saying is that people like howard stern should not be liable for what comes out of their mouths. I am held liable for what I say at every job I have ever had. How is he above that? Because he is a celebrity? Please explain it to me.
Evolution or ID?
Why is it censorship if you require the broadcaster to keep a record of what was transmitted?
And if a broadcaster has something to say, whether contentious or not, why would you not want to keep a record of it?
Why would you impose the burden of indecency enforcement on the overwhelming majority of decent broadcasters? Shouldn't the guilty bear the burden of their misdeeds?
Besides, if the broadcast was so offensive, and had such a nefarious impact on society, shouldn't you be able to find witnesses who saw the program themselves? Won't complainants now have the opportunity to comb over every second of every program on every channel for every word that might have sounded like a naughty sex act? Like "that floor is DIRTY, SANCHEZ, can you stop dropping stuff there"? Or how about "during the medical procedure A WAND IS INSERTED IN THE URETHRA"? "the Chinese restaurant FOOK LONG.."?
For crying out loud, I saw an Oprah show in which a nipple was blurred out during an explanation of a breastcancer self-examination!! You'd think it's fairly important to mention that one bump that's NORMAL to have on your breast?
Besides, the FCC is going censorship crazy anyway at the moment. Profane speech? What's up with that? You have nothing to hide if you're innocent (YEAH RIGHT), but under the FCC's new rules and decisions, who know's when you're innocent, and when you're (retroactively!) guilty?
On the other hand, I'd love it if broadcasters would just hang on to their programs (especially without all the logo's and interruptions and bullshit) on some sort of quality medium, like DVD. I positively hate seeing "old" footage that looks like shit, even though you remember seeing it only a year or two ago in broadcast quality. What do they use to store news footage and episodes of "Friends" anyway? VHS??
In fact, the FCC is encouraging broadcasters to BURN THEIR TAPES after 60-90 days, to prevent costly complaints. Kind of like burning books because you might not like what's in them. Yay for future historians!
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
The FCC is also considering reducing what you must claim in order to enter a complaint, thus opening the floodgates for indecency complaints by groups like the Parents Television Council, which is already keeping the FCC censors busy.
But doesn't the FCC only have power over the broadcast networks? Cable and satellite are pay services unlike the over the air networks. I know the FCC has a lot of power, but can't the cable networks tell the FCC to suck it? Channels like HBO & Showtime can show whatever they want, does this not also apply to places like Comedy Central? I have seen the South Park movie shown uncut on Comedy Central (albeit at 1am). It seems to me that the censorship on cable networks has far more to do with them not offending thier advertisers than the FCC.
Segfault
That was my immediate reaction as well, until I realised that if you're watching a show on tv, or listening to something on the radio, which ends up having 'questionable' material, you wouldn't have had the foresight to record it on the off-chance that the show you are watching/listening to would be 'questionable'. How often have radio DJ's been given formal warnings for inadvertedly swearing on air - it happens, and people phone in and complain, but it's very unlikely that someone is sitting and recording the show just in case the dj says something colourful.
:)
Having said that, I personally am against the rush to censor everything that we see and hear
Criminal court = beyond reasonable doubt. Civil = balance of evidence.
But it's EXPENSIVE to defend a case. In either case, just keeping a simple record (even crappy VHS) of the broadcast allows you to easily defend matters of fact.
True. I could probably write into half the TV channels I have access to about content I don't like, but I don't because I have enough sense to know that many more people actually want to see it, and that I don't have to watch it. I have the common sense to avoid the programmes I know I'll find offensive and I'm quite happy doing so. Do I have the right to dictate to the country what they should be able to see based on my own opinions? No.
I think "protecting the children" is a load of rubbish. Sure, I wouldn't want my kid to see tinky-winky getting-it-on with lala on after school childrens TV, but I wouln't mind them hearing the odd "bad word" in a programme aired after the watershed. Over protecting kids can be just as bad as not protecting them at all, since they'll grow up thinking that so much as a friendly hug is dirty (extreame example). Teach them right from wrong and let them experience the world.
Silly rabbit
... open records laws and sunshine laws for government. Society decided it was a good idea. Commercial Broadcasters have been granted a license, a permission, to monopolize a certain frequency in order to provide programming for their corporations profit, but also to be of the general publics benefit. Now I am against censorship, but I am pro "of the general publics benefit" as well, so this is a dilemma. I have long been a critic, generally speaking now, of broadcasters dismal news coverage,their LACK of honest news coverage to be more accurate, as well as content selection. For instance,and what has been almost universally complained about here, clear channels almost complete lock in, especially with the higher wattage stations across the country. They are already "forced" -it's a joke really- to go through what has turned into a rubber stamped "review" procedure to be eligible to renew their licenses, but that has rarely resulted in any station or network being not renewed. And it's a bear to be able to provide any alternative programming. the review procedure was supposed to be the check and balance on that, but it'snever worked, practically speaking.
So, based on the pros and cons, I tend to think this is a better thing than not. I know a lot here will focus on indecency complaints, personally I haven't seen or heard much of any indecency on over the air radio or tv, although I find it ludicrous that violence is never classified as indecent or x rated, whereas even mild sexuality is. Yes, I know the x ratings are for movies. Just using it conversationally as a descriptor. I am way more concerned about their news covereage, and how they perpetuate outright FUD constantly and keep up their propogandizing brainwashing for the benefit of two political parties and large international corporations, and get away with it completely, year after year. That to me is deserving of a little "censorship" right out of their "licenses".
Now if we had a much more restrictive set of guidelines as it applied to a commercial broadcasting corporation, and a much more liberal first amenment applies approach to how we granted licenses to individuals for community radio and TV, I would have a different opinion, but we don't, so I fall on the need for access to their tapes if you wish to make a complaint. They want the license to print money generation after generation, they can conform to some guidelienes, and keeping a tape is not that restrictive of a guideline. If they profit from the publics trust, there needs to be fees and restrictions applied to them, forcing them to keep master tapes and to provide copies seems reasonable enough as a compromise. Frankly, I'd rather see mandated timeout rules,licenses that do in fact expire with no rubber stamping automatic renewal, so as to give new broadcasters a chance, and for the allowing of many more "legal" low power radio and television stations. In other words, turn over a much larger portion of the available spectrum to not for profit broadcasters, so that real first amendment may be applied to named humans. Phase the transition in over say a 5 year period. Humans need more freedom, corporations need a lot more restrictions and less freedom to keep gouging and avoiding responsibility in providing broadcasts that really *are* in the publics interests, IMO. The *public* is a lot more than a specific common denominator advertising designed set of demographics. A lot of the *public* now feels left out in what's on the air, they are forced by the current restrictions to listen to cookie cutter programming for the most part, and for various reasons, the lack of choice can lead to dissatisfaction and calls for censorship which in reality are just calls for something besides the "standard" formula programming that is there to view or hear.
Back in the '60s, when I worked at a major market station, we taped everything that was fed to the transmitter (it was a very slow-moving reel-to-reel machine). Don't know how long it was kept -- probably a month. I've been out of the business for 30 years or so, but I can't imagine major stations *not* keeping recordings, regardless of FCC requirements.
Just how can seeing Janet's bare breast screw your kids? I mean, a breast is part of a normal woman's anatomy. Showing a bare breast is truly so far away from pornography, but Americans somehow don't know the difference.
I do agree that there's way too much violence on american television, but for some reason that seems more acceptable that simply showing a breast. What is indecent is not the showing of the breast, it's what is being done with the breast. Britney Spears' video clips *technically* don't show any bare breasts, but they are far more indecent than Janet's half time show.
What is so wrong with the woman's anatomy that creates a panic into Americans when they see it?
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
On a side-note (this may be nothing), the RIAA-interpretation of webcasting rules (RIAA Webcasting FAQ, Q7):
So the FCC wants stations to keep recordings (which cost money to make, keep), the RIAA and webcasting rules don't want recording to be kept too long, and extra fees may go into effect for keeping more than one copy for more than a certain period. ??Maybe they could be.... :-) I don't think their proposed requirement says what medium the archive has to be on. VHS on the really really really long run cycle would still be an archive. You could pick a more obscure medium like betamax too if you want in my opinion. I'm still against the ruling but it might be possible to stick it to the FCC with the medium you choose.
I was making an analogy to broadcasters being required to tape and store copies of their broadcast to prove their innocence or guilt. Another analogy would be if everyone who shopped at the mall were required by law to film themselves shopping to prove their not shoplifting. Having documents showing a license for building a house and having to maintain a tape library and be forced to staff it are a bit different though.
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Of course, you cannot legally videotape anything because you would be violating the DMCA, you know, because of that do not copy bit or whatever. So, yeah. I think they should do this:
1. Make a law that everybody must keep videotape copies of everything they watch on television.
2. On the same page, make a law that makes it illegal to videotape anything you watch.
3. Make a law that law enforcement personnel from the MPAA can come to your home or business at any time to audit your videotapes. If they find that you videotape things, you go to jail and all your property is confiscated and made the property of the MPAA. If they find that you do not videotape things, you go to jail and all your property is confiscated and made the property of the MPAA. Then, MPAA law enforcement officials can select random houses to obtain them and the property therein. That would slightly offset the drastically horrendous effects of movie piracy, which sends many people to the theaters because the pirated version looks like shit and they want to see it in the theater to enjoy the full effect of the movie, which they might not otherwise have bothered to go see.