Public access cable doesn't have to be like that. The station referred to in the article is probably the best in the country, they have amazing programming that is much more interesting than what you can find on the hypercommercialized airwaves. In particular, ethnic communities often use public access cable.
Public access cable is a unique place for local communities to take advantage of to put programming on that is civil society driven instead of bottom line driven. You can put anything on that you want, why haven't you done so?
This is for public access cable where you don't have to just passively consume, anyone can submit a show and have it get put on. The point of the project is to make it technically easier for people to submit programming as well as do live remotes.
Don't scoff at the benefits of cablecasting, in Manhattan there's a potential audience in the millions. On the 'net to reaching anywhere over a handful with video is financially out of reach for most people.
Take a look at the Internet Archive. They have terabytes of copyright clear material including mpeg2 public domain video and lossless audio. They are experimenting with 3 different p2p systems with their audio collection.
This project puts nothing online and its not even clear how much audio it will include, the language on the site makes it sound small. Demand that your government make the LOC put all public domain material it has online. Accept nothing less.
I have a hard time understanding this ruling, so can't really tell if its going in the right direction. It says that the spammers must refrain from "further engaging in any of the fraudulent, deceptive and illegal acts and practices". Why does it take a court order to get them to refrain from illegal acts? If they've committed illegal acts then there should be a penalty. Was there a penalty already and enjoining them from ever spamming again is a bonus, kinda like permanent probabtion?
Bicyclists go around that speed in traffic. Most cities don't have bike lanes so riding bikes is less safe and fun than it could be, so you make a good point.
Spectrum is governed by a political process, as it is everyone's not hams exclusive property, not "social convention". In fair political processes the interests of millions usually trump the interests of thousands. Part 15 uses are also backed by major manufacturers and service providers (IBM, Intel, ATT, Apple).
If your only arguement is "whaa! its mine" then you will not likely even get any sympathy when you are booted out of the spectrum.
Again I ask, do you think its in society's best interest to have the spectrum see limited use by an order of magnitude less people? Do you have an arguement that keeps up with changes in technology and a marketplace now occupied by billion dollar players?
I've only heard one arguement advanced so far, emergency services. I see no reason why these can't be located on another frequency. I would not feel secure with emergency services cohabiting spectrum with millions of part 15 users. I think its clear which of part 15 or part 97 users I would relocate.
Let me see if I understand your position. Hams, numbering in the thousands, maintain that part 15 users, numbering in the millions and growing at double digit rates annually, should stand aside. Nascent metro area networks, should be cut off because they may carry traffic which is encrypted, commercial or obscene.
Obviously it doesn't make sense to mix what has the potential to become a mass media service with amateur uses. Why would it be in society's interest to hobble a service on this scale for one as limited in utility as part 97?
The industry is being "forced" to consider doing deals with soft porn? That seems unlikely. As free marketers constantly remind us, companies only motive is profit. They'd be able to make money off of porn no matter what the performance of their non-horny bottom line. They just need to convince the regulators to allow them to provide the service, their massive miscalculation on the value of the spectrum provides good cover.
The title uses the word "delay", the spokesperson's statment saying Tauzin doesn't oppose the d-n-c list is the 2nd sentence, the word "block" is applied to the funding the same as in WP article.
Hmm, interesting. I'm not sure if you're going as far to espouse a historical determinism or not. Counter cultures are often underestimated it is true, but I myself think that control by corporate interests of the mainstream media results in a society that suffers as a result.
I think this can be seen in how the media differs in European countries from the US. Most Europeans I know are shocked at the vacuousness of US news, how narrow the presentation of issues is and how uncritical the reporting is. European nations generally support public media and the arts as well. That has a genuine impact on the quality of life and character of the society.
I don't think we should settle for the margins. Media and a working democracy are very closely linked. Ceding the mainstream media to corporate interests basically cedes government and society to the highest bidder.
Check Open Secrets, they break things down by industry. The media industry has a special relationship with politics because politicians have to pay for advertising time. Its huge money for them, $billions. Off the Record is a great report that looks at the media industry and politics.
I think the point is that fewer players == less competition. Many people would have preferred that ATT and Comcast compete rather than merge.
Deregulation led to lower rates in telecomm because there was competition. Deregulation has also seen cable rates skyrocket and the radio dial go to crap as competition is hobbled in those areas.
That info is pretty old. There is a new legal LPFM service, however it was severely hobbled after intense lobbying by industry which convinced Congress to take the unprecedented step of overriding the FCC on a technical matter. The outcome is hundreds of licenses were made available rather than several thousands, mostly in rural, sparsely populated areas. There are no licenses currently available with thousands more applications than there were frequencies.
For more info see the Prometheus Radio Project, they're former radio pirates that do grassroots organizing around this issue. They helped community groups apply for licenses and travel around helping to setup stations, are connected w/ lawyers and engineers that can help, really a great resource.
Clearchannel is "just" radio and billboards, they own ~1300 radio stations. And all this has happened since 1996! Before that 20 stations was the national limit. I think the change has been very dramatic, the quality of radio programming has gone done so much everywhere nationally I don't even really bother looking for good radio.
The FCC thinks all this has been good and wants to extend this model to all other media that it regulates!
The specific rules which are on the chopping block are the TV/radio crossownership restriction, the TV/newspaper restriction, caps on ownership on numbers of tv and radio stations that one entity can own in a market and nationally. See the Association of Independent Film and Videomakers advocacy page.
The article went on to quote extensively from someone who said why it wasn't like a VCR. I took the passage you site to be illustrative of the difficulty in getting across the benefits you listed to someone who hasn't experienced a PVR.
Slashdot Mirror
Public access cable doesn't have to be like that. The station referred to in the article is probably the best in the country, they have amazing programming that is much more interesting than what you can find on the hypercommercialized airwaves. In particular, ethnic communities often use public access cable.
Public access cable is a unique place for local communities to take advantage of to put programming on that is civil society driven instead of bottom line driven. You can put anything on that you want, why haven't you done so?
This is for public access cable where you don't have to just passively consume, anyone can submit a show and have it get put on. The point of the project is to make it technically easier for people to submit programming as well as do live remotes.
Don't scoff at the benefits of cablecasting, in Manhattan there's a potential audience in the millions. On the 'net to reaching anywhere over a handful with video is financially out of reach for most people.
Why is this a problem? The public domain belongs to everyone, to make shitty things out of or not.
Any healthy conception of free speech includes a way to draw on one's history for things that others may judge shitty or otherwise.
Take a look at the Internet Archive. They have terabytes of copyright clear material including mpeg2 public domain video and lossless audio. They are experimenting with 3 different p2p systems with their audio collection.
This project puts nothing online and its not even clear how much audio it will include, the language on the site makes it sound small. Demand that your government make the LOC put all public domain material it has online. Accept nothing less.
Sorry no 30TB of music, its 30TB of copyright clear material.
Maybe you should talk to these people. They've got 30TB of copyright clear music and have as their goal "universal access to human knowledge".
Someone didn't read /. on Saturday, you missed Tom's Hardware Reviews First Player for DivX Video.
I have a hard time understanding this ruling, so can't really tell if its going in the right direction. It says that the spammers must refrain from "further engaging in any of the fraudulent, deceptive and illegal acts and practices". Why does it take a court order to get them to refrain from illegal acts? If they've committed illegal acts then there should be a penalty. Was there a penalty already and enjoining them from ever spamming again is a bonus, kinda like permanent probabtion?
They released the source for the player a few months back. Go look at the website linked in the article and become more informed than you are now.
Bicyclists go around that speed in traffic. Most cities don't have bike lanes so riding bikes is less safe and fun than it could be, so you make a good point.
Really? Does that mean they can only in the regular street with the cars or does that mean they are banned entirely?
Got a citation handy?
The title should include the word "sidewalk" in it. Many posters think that the devices have been banned entirely.
Spectrum is governed by a political process, as it is everyone's not hams exclusive property, not "social convention". In fair political processes the interests of millions usually trump the interests of thousands. Part 15 uses are also backed by major manufacturers and service providers (IBM, Intel, ATT, Apple).
If your only arguement is "whaa! its mine" then you will not likely even get any sympathy when you are booted out of the spectrum.
Again I ask, do you think its in society's best interest to have the spectrum see limited use by an order of magnitude less people? Do you have an arguement that keeps up with changes in technology and a marketplace now occupied by billion dollar players?
I've only heard one arguement advanced so far, emergency services. I see no reason why these can't be located on another frequency. I would not feel secure with emergency services cohabiting spectrum with millions of part 15 users. I think its clear which of part 15 or part 97 users I would relocate.
Let me see if I understand your position. Hams, numbering in the thousands, maintain that part 15 users, numbering in the millions and growing at double digit rates annually, should stand aside. Nascent metro area networks, should be cut off because they may carry traffic which is encrypted, commercial or obscene.
Obviously it doesn't make sense to mix what has the potential to become a mass media service with amateur uses. Why would it be in society's interest to hobble a service on this scale for one as limited in utility as part 97?
2.4 and 5ghz are regulated by the FCC. However, one can operate on an unlicensed basis in those bands. Big difference.
The industry is being "forced" to consider doing deals with soft porn? That seems unlikely. As free marketers constantly remind us, companies only motive is profit. They'd be able to make money off of porn no matter what the performance of their non-horny bottom line. They just need to convince the regulators to allow them to provide the service, their massive miscalculation on the value of the spectrum provides good cover.
The title uses the word "delay", the spokesperson's statment saying Tauzin doesn't oppose the d-n-c list is the 2nd sentence, the word "block" is applied to the funding the same as in WP article.
What is misleading?
Hmm, interesting. I'm not sure if you're going as far to espouse a historical determinism or not. Counter cultures are often underestimated it is true, but I myself think that control by corporate interests of the mainstream media results in a society that suffers as a result.
I think this can be seen in how the media differs in European countries from the US. Most Europeans I know are shocked at the vacuousness of US news, how narrow the presentation of issues is and how uncritical the reporting is. European nations generally support public media and the arts as well. That has a genuine impact on the quality of life and character of the society.
I don't think we should settle for the margins. Media and a working democracy are very closely linked. Ceding the mainstream media to corporate interests basically cedes government and society to the highest bidder.
Check Open Secrets, they break things down by industry. The media industry has a special relationship with politics because politicians have to pay for advertising time. Its huge money for them, $billions. Off the Record is a great report that looks at the media industry and politics.
I think the point is that fewer players == less competition. Many people would have preferred that ATT and Comcast compete rather than merge.
Deregulation led to lower rates in telecomm because there was competition. Deregulation has also seen cable rates skyrocket and the radio dial go to crap as competition is hobbled in those areas.
That info is pretty old. There is a new legal LPFM service, however it was severely hobbled after intense lobbying by industry which convinced Congress to take the unprecedented step of overriding the FCC on a technical matter. The outcome is hundreds of licenses were made available rather than several thousands, mostly in rural, sparsely populated areas. There are no licenses currently available with thousands more applications than there were frequencies.
For more info see the Prometheus Radio Project, they're former radio pirates that do grassroots organizing around this issue. They helped community groups apply for licenses and travel around helping to setup stations, are connected w/ lawyers and engineers that can help, really a great resource.
Clearchannel is "just" radio and billboards, they own ~1300 radio stations. And all this has happened since 1996! Before that 20 stations was the national limit. I think the change has been very dramatic, the quality of radio programming has gone done so much everywhere nationally I don't even really bother looking for good radio.
The FCC thinks all this has been good and wants to extend this model to all other media that it regulates!
The specific rules which are on the chopping block are the TV/radio crossownership restriction, the TV/newspaper restriction, caps on ownership on numbers of tv and radio stations that one entity can own in a market and nationally. See the Association of Independent Film and Videomakers advocacy page.
Another good resource is at the Center for Digital Democracy.
The article went on to quote extensively from someone who said why it wasn't like a VCR. I took the passage you site to be illustrative of the difficulty in getting across the benefits you listed to someone who hasn't experienced a PVR.