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Venezuela's Contrarian TV Station Survives on YouTube
carlos_J writes "Ars Technica is running a story about RCTV, a Venezuelan television station whose broadcast license was refused renewal by the government. In response, the station turned to YouTube to get its message out. Says Ars, 'El Observador clips have been seen 175,000 times since May 28, and the channel is currently the most-subscribed channel of the week. While putting the station's shows on YouTube is an excellent idea, YouTube still lacks anything near the reach of over-the-air broadcasts. But the use of the site to avoid censorship is growing, and it's not hard to imagine a day in the near future when the site (or sites like it) becomes as essential as local TV stations. As that happens, YouTube will come into even more conflicts with governments that have an interest in controlling what their citizens see, It's already happening--Thailand's king, for instance, has a thing for iPods but isn't too keen on YouTube. Will Hugo Chavez show more tolerance? '"
"Communism is man's exploitation of man. Capitalism is just the opposite."
Okay, I think that refusing to renew the license of this broadcaster was a bad move. BUT, under the legal theory that controls this sort of thing, it's pretty much a no-brainer.
i n_Venezuela#Events_leading_up_to_the_coup
Those broadcast licenses are *supposed* to be held in the public interest. This TV station supported a military coup against the democratically elected government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Attempted_coup_
That's a pretty unambiguous abuse of the public trust. Can you imagine what would happen to NBC's affiliate broadcast licenses if they supported a military coup against our government? If they weren't tried for treason and shot, they certainly wouldn't be allowed to keep broadcasting.
Which brings us to the subject of restraint - actually, Chavez has shown a remarkable degree of restraint so far against those who tried to overthrow him militarily. They haven't even filed charges against the military officers - the man that the coup tried to install as President was Chavez' opponent in following last Venezuelan election.
I seriously doubt that he's going to try and block Youtube.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The Bush Administration wouldn't get away with shutting down CNN. The best they could do is stop cooperating and making life hard for CNN, but not shut it down because we here in America still love our freedom. I live in the state with the highest approval rate for Bush, and even here I haven't met anyone who thinks that his wiretapping moves are good, just that they're bearable and he's done more good overall. If one of our leaders touched the press, maybe people in Utah wouldn't support his removal, but he would surely be impeached as fast as you could make a cool name ending in "gate".
p.s. (this isn't flamebait, I'm describing others opinions, not my own, and I'm certainly not trying to offend or pick a fight).
I wish that were true, but it's a bunch of crap. Barring the use of fairly extreme measures on your part to preserve security, it's easy enough for the government to find you and send some men around to cart you off to someplace highly pixelated on google maps.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, what a dictator. He was overthrown in a coup, and what did he do to the *lead organizer* of the coup (Pedro Carmona**) when he got back into power? Kill him on the spot? No, even worse: he was put under *house arrest*. Such strict, brutal house arrest that he was able to flee to Colombia. What a brutal dictator Chavez is!
Imagine how the US would react if Bush was overthrown in a coup and then got back into power. What do you think would happen to anyone even remotely related to the coup?
** By comparison, what was that great icon of freedom, the US-backed coup leader Pedro Carmona doing shortly after overthrowing the government? Why, his first acts were to dissolve the legislature, the judiciary, and abolish the constitution that was overwhelmingly approved in referrendum. But, in the strange world of the Right, he's a democratic hero, and Chavez is an evil dictator.
"Now," she thought, watching the dolphins adjust their bowties, "might be a good time to up my medication."
You must be skeptical, this tv station was just part of the opposition fireworks, If anyone can fake videos are them, specially if it is for self-defense.
Of course, for an European or American citizen this wouldn't make sense but in Latin America the media are just part of the good old corporative empire that was always allied to corrupt governments (aka the owner of the stations were family with the leaders OR even the leaders themselves) it is not hard to find a TV station owned by a political party in LA, seriously.
Of course, this doesn't mean Chavez is a saint, he is just moving his country's media from an over biased right to a biased left, both of which are very bad.
But seriously, this is not about freedom of speech, it is about corrupt media corporations battling a corrupt government.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"