We all agreed that copyright infringement was illegal, didn't we? So what are you SCREAMING about all the time?
"Taking a person's work output without compensating them...."
That's an entirely new subject. We've been talking about copyright infringement, not anything involving taking or even work output. Why change the subject? Attention span problem?
"In truth, the FCC should be about licensing airwaves so that competitors can't step on each others bandwidth... this is the part about the "public" owning the airwaves. Beyond that, they should stay the F out of it."
I also think they should make it easy to get licenses, without denying them for silly discriminatory reasons such as someone thinks you are a "media conglomerate" or your skin color is that of a group that represents a "traditional racist power structure.
"I long for the day when everything is on cable or satellite and these people (FCC) completley lose power."
Fuggedaboutit. They already meddle some in the "closed circuit" media, and plan to meddle more. Look at this page, one of many involving existing FCC censorship and control of closed-circuit media.
"Of course, most Liberals would prefer that FoxNews just go away, as they don't like having thier worldview challenged."
I do not know if "most liberals" is true. In fact, I doubt it. However, there certainly has been an organized effort by some to pressure the government to yank Fox stations' licenses for airing political content that the organizers do not agree with.
"Obviously when you have two guys butting heads over a point, it sometimes turns into a shouting match and no one is heard, but that's the fault of the moderator, not the channel."
That's only an excuse, maybe, if it is the moderator's first day and it is live TV. Beyond that, just about everything in the way the moderators run their shows is with Fox News' approval and direction. You can bet that any shout-out on "Hannity and Colmes" is 100% the fault of the channel. If they didn't like these, they'd easily have put a stop to them.
"I think it's a huge step that the BBC is admitting their bias. I'm tired of commentators, anchors, etc getting on and saying that they're unbiased despite facts to the opposite."
That is a pretty good point. Can anyone find anyone that is not biased?
A few of them. That is, if you measure from the political center. If you are some sort of out-of-touch wing-nut, you'll be one of those who will say that all are conservative, or all are liberal.
Thanks for so clarifying this by bringing a third crime into it, that is neither theft nor copyright infringement (short of pirates selling pirated CD's).
"It sounds like your mind is made up, regardless of the facts"
My mind is made up because of the facts.
"Thats ok, keep watching Fox and listening to O'Reilly. They'll tell you what you want to hear."
What does this have to do with anything at all? Does it have to do with a claim of media consolidation? I could point out that when O'Reilly is on the radio, I can listen to about 20 other radio stations that are not airing O'Reilly. Also, what is wrong with "they'll tell you what you want to hear"? That's merely media being responsive to the public interest. In all honesty, O'Reilly is a Fallafel Sex toad, and I probably watch "Democracy Now" (something that would not exist if "media concentration" claims were true) more than Fox News.
Regardless of men on the moon, the myth of media concentration is easily proven wrong when you look at the actual numbers of distinct media "voices" everyone has access too. The studies get "tilted" into meaninglessness when those who make the claim that there is media concentration basically fake their case by not counting most of the media voices. So EASY to make a case that there are too few voices when you arbitrarily toss out most of the voices from being counted. Using their methodology, I can just as easily do a study that complains about Apple Computer's monopoly on desktop computers once I use whatever trick I want to exclude Apple's competitors from any consideration in the study.
"Media, and the dissemination of information plays an incredibly important role in our Democracy."
Then it is too important to have the government meddle and silence (ahem, hinder speech). Powell has not been generous at all. With friends like him, who needs enemies? The ability to purchase media outlets is part of freedom of the press, not a favor to be granted by the FCC.
"I appreciate that you've come clean with your Corporatist values"
You mean anti-corporatist values. I suppose you support it: one important part of the definition is "in corporatism, certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process." (first paragraph) That's a perfect description of the FCC and its meddling: an unelected body given power by the Government to make decisions that are best made instead by individuals with a channel-changer.
"However, if you and your 10,000 closest friends end up with copies of the artists song and the artist ends up with ZERO, NADA, begging for food on the street corner when they should have rightfully had at least a few grand then something bad happened and all your weasel wording won't hide that fact."
You have to realize that there are a lot more crimes than just theft and that pointing out that a particular crime is not theft is not a justification for that crime. The only "weaseling" here is in calling copyright infringment "theft".
We can use your specific example of the "artist begging for food on the street corner". How can this happen? Copyright infringement is one way. Another way is a violent crime which leaves him severely disabled. Another way is arson (burning down his house and his bestseller novel inside). Why point these out? These are all crimes, which can result in what you describe. However, none of them is "theft".
"Artists *should* be compensated for new works by people who consume those new works"
Speaking of abusing words, I recall a major recording artist who said "If you are consuming my music, you are doing something wrong". Look up the definition of "consume" at
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/consume
There's no way you can consume music by listening to it in an MP3 player unless it has some sort of DRM which makes the song get "used up" after multiple listens. The only time I ever consumed music was when I played a modern LP in an old Victrola. The heavy needle made it a one-play-and-that's-all situation.
"You see it all the time- people do things wrong and rationalize it to themselves that it's not wrong and then they get in trouble because they lose proper caution."
....which has nothing at all to do with pointing out the cold, clear, and simple fact that copyright infringment and theft are different crimes.
"Put another way-- it's one thing to have a joint at a concert surrounded by 20,000 strangers and quite another to have one in the starbucks or casually walking down a major thoroughfare."
This is actually a sort of apt analogy, because smoking a joint is theft no less than copyright infringement is.
"I know that pro-infringers like to argue that and I've got just a few mp3's myself."
If pointing out that infringement is not theft makes one "pro-infringement", I have a question. Is murder the same as theft? If you deny it, that makes you pro-murder!!!!
" Things got ugly enough to entergize the 60s and 70s subculture and press the country towards democratic renewel."
With this counter-culture's explicit admiration for the extremely brutal totalitarian dictatorship in North Vietnam, "pro-democracy" is not a label you could put on them. Real positive change did occur due to related forces during this time. See Martin Luther King Jr.
"I never said I wanted legislation to stop the press from "editorical(sp) content"
So I take it that having you excuse me for a typo was not a fair trade for me excusing you for calling me a Nazi. I could call you a "spelling Nazi", but that would impose a similar Godwin debt upon myself. Anything else I can toss in? I'm sure that there are some periods or spaces you missed in your postings that I could call you on.
"What I want (at least I know) is for the FCC to do their job and regulate the media conglomerates"
As there is no need for them to do so, I want them to not do this job, and instead concentrated on making it easier to get access (licenses, etc) rather than clobbering those who dare to be too popular.
"What objective voices are you referring to? I have supplied many links to analyses of media consolidation"
None of which showed any media consolidation, as there are thousands of "voices.". They intentionally cook or tilt their "studies", doing things like only counting popular voices, etc.
"I think your problem is you don't even understand what media consolidation is, let alone if it's happening."
I understand exactly what it is. That is why I know it is not happening.
"How do you think the fomenters of dissent during the American Revolution got their message across? It wasn't telepathy. It was media, like Thomas Paines 'Common Sense' pamphlet."
How do the "pamphleteers" of today get hindered in any way?
"Nice, pulling a DC Comics analogy to debate media consolidation. Whats next, Optimus Prime for president?"
Not until we have a President who could actually pronounce "Optimus Prime."
"I see you and Ted Stevens are good friends. Can we have Chutes and Ladders too?"
I can see now that you failed to look past this mocking reference and see that I meant expansion of Internet access and "backbone."
"Having one entity account for that large a percentage of what people hear is bad for a democracy."
That is like saying that it is bad for pumpkin pie and makes Baby Jesus cry. Totally unrelated.
"It's not like people can just start up a bunch of competing radio stations -- you need an FCC license (expensive and limited in number), and there's all the usual costs involved in starting a business"
If you go WAY back up to my first post on this, you will see that I identified this as a problem we should work to solving.
"Ok, I'll explain this in simple terms: It's a bad thing for a single entity -- government or corporate -- to have control over the news that a vast majority of the population hears. This is our base assumption, and if you don't agree with it, there's no point in continuing."
Whether or not it is a bad thing (you know, maybe it is!!!!), we are nowhere near getting to anything like this.
"The fact that Clear Channel only owns 11% of all the individual radio stations nationwide has no relevance."
It's around 6%. Unless CC ownership has significantly increased in the last several months and I'm out of date.
"In short, people object to calling it a tax because in common parlance, such a statement would be just as misleading as calling copyright infringement theft."
Except that this meets the definition of a tax. Which zeroes out the analogy.
Don't forget the obligatory versions by Anne Murray (English) and Celine Dionne (French). There is also the one by Cartman to consider. This is the one that was recorded as part of the settlement over the defamation-of-nation lawsuit settled in the wake of the South Park movie.
didn't you read? It really is a tax. The government forces people to pay it so it really is "collected by governments"., like any other tax. Look up the definition of "levy": it is linked on a one-to-one basis with the term "tax".
"You really are starting to sound like a troll. We are talking about the amount of influence a media company has. If you ignore their market share, you are an idiot."
But if you take into account the relative market share that equal voices have, you are in effect making policy that is based on how popular something is. How trollish is that: wanting to censor something because too many people "like it too much"?
"I could print up a thousand different independent newsweekly's that never get distributed past my kitchen and by your standards I guess that would make me one of the worlds largest media monopolies."
Which is entirely irrelevant to this, as the numerous independent radio stations that greatly outnumber Clear Channel/etc each have the same sort of slot on the dial as each Clear Channel station, so they are "getting out" (not stuck in your "kitchen"). And, in considering newspapers and magazines, I am only considering those available in newspaper boxes, bookstores, and magazine stands. There's an extremely large number of these, distributed beyond your example "kitchen".
"what do you think the chances are of them reducing or eliminating the blank media tax?"
My subject line is only quoting the idiots who are going to come along and say that the Canadian CD tax is not a tax, but it is actually a "levy" (which is defined, of course, as a type of tax). Maybe they will read this, and troll no more.
Once you download everything you need, why download any more? Once you've downloaded the good stuff, it is not like there is anything new coming out to make you want to keep downloading more and more.
"Actually in Vietnam it was the Soviets that helped the Vietnamese throw the European colonists out in the first Indochina War"
Nicely overlooked was that the Soviet Union was a European colonial power that took possession of North Vietnam and later South Vietnam.
"So because the Communist bloc supplied aid to these countries the actual military invasion by the US, deaths of millions and displacement of tens of millions is justified?"
The invasion and deaths of millions and the displacement by the USSR (not caused by the US, actually) was not justified. This atrocity actually excelerated once the Soviets controlled the entire place in the mid 1970s. After the US left, you had the "boat people" crisis, and many hundreds of thousands of South Vietnames killed in reprisals.
I'm willing to forgive you calling me a Nazi for my opposition to government censorship of media if you agree to forgive me my "editorical" typo. Fair?
Slashdot Mirror
We all agreed that copyright infringement was illegal, didn't we? So what are you SCREAMING about all the time?
"Taking a person's work output without compensating them...."
That's an entirely new subject. We've been talking about copyright infringement, not anything involving taking or even work output. Why change the subject? Attention span problem?
I first misread this as a horrible English/French hybrid singer. Sort of like the character Jean-Luc Picard. And yes, he sings horribly.
"In truth, the FCC should be about licensing airwaves so that competitors can't step on each others bandwidth... this is the part about the "public" owning the airwaves. Beyond that, they should stay the F out of it."
I also think they should make it easy to get licenses, without denying them for silly discriminatory reasons such as someone thinks you are a "media conglomerate" or your skin color is that of a group that represents a "traditional racist power structure.
"I long for the day when everything is on cable or satellite and these people (FCC) completley lose power."
Fuggedaboutit. They already meddle some in the "closed circuit" media, and plan to meddle more. Look at this page, one of many involving existing FCC censorship and control of closed-circuit media.
"Let us take two ways of writing up news stories, and see if you can spot which one is less biased"
Both of them are. One is just more subtle-looking than the other. Both of them made subjective decisions of what to say, and what not to say.
Using your technique of comparing two headlines about the same event, consider this example, using a historical situation from the 1930s:
1) Regional agricultural administrators predict that Ukrainian harvest will fall below expectations for this 5 year period.
2) MURDEROUS SOVIET-ENGINEERED FAMINE KILLS MILLIONS IN THE UKRAINE.
Now, which one in all honesty tells are more accurate story? Which one has the more venemous slanted looking headline?
" the capitalists themselves abusing the power of their own money and concentrating all their money and power into one monopoly."
At which point they become socialists, since they have met the definition of socialism.
"Of course, most Liberals would prefer that FoxNews just go away, as they don't like having thier worldview challenged."
I do not know if "most liberals" is true. In fact, I doubt it. However, there certainly has been an organized effort by some to pressure the government to yank Fox stations' licenses for airing political content that the organizers do not agree with.
"Obviously when you have two guys butting heads over a point, it sometimes turns into a shouting match and no one is heard, but that's the fault of the moderator, not the channel."
That's only an excuse, maybe, if it is the moderator's first day and it is live TV. Beyond that, just about everything in the way the moderators run their shows is with Fox News' approval and direction. You can bet that any shout-out on "Hannity and Colmes" is 100% the fault of the channel. If they didn't like these, they'd easily have put a stop to them.
"I think it's a huge step that the BBC is admitting their bias. I'm tired of commentators, anchors, etc getting on and saying that they're unbiased despite facts to the opposite."
That is a pretty good point. Can anyone find anyone that is not biased?
A few of them. That is, if you measure from the political center. If you are some sort of out-of-touch wing-nut, you'll be one of those who will say that all are conservative, or all are liberal.
"JOANNA: How's that not stealing?"
Peter: It's called fraud. We'll do a con job.
Thanks for so clarifying this by bringing a third crime into it, that is neither theft nor copyright infringement (short of pirates selling pirated CD's).
"It sounds like your mind is made up, regardless of the facts"
My mind is made up because of the facts.
"Thats ok, keep watching Fox and listening to O'Reilly. They'll tell you what you want to hear."
What does this have to do with anything at all? Does it have to do with a claim of media consolidation? I could point out that when O'Reilly is on the radio, I can listen to about 20 other radio stations that are not airing O'Reilly. Also, what is wrong with "they'll tell you what you want to hear"? That's merely media being responsive to the public interest. In all honesty, O'Reilly is a Fallafel Sex toad, and I probably watch "Democracy Now" (something that would not exist if "media concentration" claims were true) more than Fox News.
Regardless of men on the moon, the myth of media concentration is easily proven wrong when you look at the actual numbers of distinct media "voices" everyone has access too. The studies get "tilted" into meaninglessness when those who make the claim that there is media concentration basically fake their case by not counting most of the media voices. So EASY to make a case that there are too few voices when you arbitrarily toss out most of the voices from being counted. Using their methodology, I can just as easily do a study that complains about Apple Computer's monopoly on desktop computers once I use whatever trick I want to exclude Apple's competitors from any consideration in the study.
"Media, and the dissemination of information plays an incredibly important role in our Democracy."
Then it is too important to have the government meddle and silence (ahem, hinder speech). Powell has not been generous at all. With friends like him, who needs enemies? The ability to purchase media outlets is part of freedom of the press, not a favor to be granted by the FCC.
"I appreciate that you've come clean with your Corporatist values"
You mean anti-corporatist values. I suppose you support it: one important part of the definition is "in corporatism, certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process." (first paragraph) That's a perfect description of the FCC and its meddling: an unelected body given power by the Government to make decisions that are best made instead by individuals with a channel-changer.
"However, if you and your 10,000 closest friends end up with copies of the artists song and the artist ends up with ZERO, NADA, begging for food on the street corner when they should have rightfully had at least a few grand then something bad happened and all your weasel wording won't hide that fact."
....which has nothing at all to do with pointing out the cold, clear, and simple fact that copyright infringment and theft are different crimes.
You have to realize that there are a lot more crimes than just theft and that pointing out that a particular crime is not theft is not a justification for that crime. The only "weaseling" here is in calling copyright infringment "theft".
We can use your specific example of the "artist begging for food on the street corner". How can this happen? Copyright infringement is one way. Another way is a violent crime which leaves him severely disabled. Another way is arson (burning down his house and his bestseller novel inside). Why point these out? These are all crimes, which can result in what you describe. However, none of them is "theft".
"Artists *should* be compensated for new works by people who consume those new works"
Speaking of abusing words, I recall a major recording artist who said "If you are consuming my music, you are doing something wrong". Look up the definition of "consume" at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/consume There's no way you can consume music by listening to it in an MP3 player unless it has some sort of DRM which makes the song get "used up" after multiple listens. The only time I ever consumed music was when I played a modern LP in an old Victrola. The heavy needle made it a one-play-and-that's-all situation.
"You see it all the time- people do things wrong and rationalize it to themselves that it's not wrong and then they get in trouble because they lose proper caution."
"Put another way-- it's one thing to have a joint at a concert surrounded by 20,000 strangers and quite another to have one in the starbucks or casually walking down a major thoroughfare."
This is actually a sort of apt analogy, because smoking a joint is theft no less than copyright infringement is.
"I know that pro-infringers like to argue that and I've got just a few mp3's myself."
If pointing out that infringement is not theft makes one "pro-infringement", I have a question. Is murder the same as theft? If you deny it, that makes you pro-murder!!!!
" Things got ugly enough to entergize the 60s and 70s subculture and press the country towards democratic renewel."
With this counter-culture's explicit admiration for the extremely brutal totalitarian dictatorship in North Vietnam, "pro-democracy" is not a label you could put on them. Real positive change did occur due to related forces during this time. See Martin Luther King Jr.
"Copyright infringement is "stealing" yes"
How are they even similar? Nothing is taken during copyright infringement.
"I never said I wanted legislation to stop the press from "editorical(sp) content"
So I take it that having you excuse me for a typo was not a fair trade for me excusing you for calling me a Nazi. I could call you a "spelling Nazi", but that would impose a similar Godwin debt upon myself. Anything else I can toss in? I'm sure that there are some periods or spaces you missed in your postings that I could call you on.
"What I want (at least I know) is for the FCC to do their job and regulate the media conglomerates"
As there is no need for them to do so, I want them to not do this job, and instead concentrated on making it easier to get access (licenses, etc) rather than clobbering those who dare to be too popular.
"What objective voices are you referring to? I have supplied many links to analyses of media consolidation"
None of which showed any media consolidation, as there are thousands of "voices.". They intentionally cook or tilt their "studies", doing things like only counting popular voices, etc.
"I think your problem is you don't even understand what media consolidation is, let alone if it's happening."
I understand exactly what it is. That is why I know it is not happening.
"How do you think the fomenters of dissent during the American Revolution got their message across? It wasn't telepathy. It was media, like Thomas Paines 'Common Sense' pamphlet."
How do the "pamphleteers" of today get hindered in any way?
"Nice, pulling a DC Comics analogy to debate media consolidation. Whats next, Optimus Prime for president?"
Not until we have a President who could actually pronounce "Optimus Prime."
"I see you and Ted Stevens are good friends. Can we have Chutes and Ladders too?"
I can see now that you failed to look past this mocking reference and see that I meant expansion of Internet access and "backbone."
"Having one entity account for that large a percentage of what people hear is bad for a democracy."
That is like saying that it is bad for pumpkin pie and makes Baby Jesus cry. Totally unrelated.
"It's not like people can just start up a bunch of competing radio stations -- you need an FCC license (expensive and limited in number), and there's all the usual costs involved in starting a business"
If you go WAY back up to my first post on this, you will see that I identified this as a problem we should work to solving.
"Ok, I'll explain this in simple terms: It's a bad thing for a single entity -- government or corporate -- to have control over the news that a vast majority of the population hears. This is our base assumption, and if you don't agree with it, there's no point in continuing."
Whether or not it is a bad thing (you know, maybe it is!!!!), we are nowhere near getting to anything like this.
"The fact that Clear Channel only owns 11% of all the individual radio stations nationwide has no relevance."
It's around 6%. Unless CC ownership has significantly increased in the last several months and I'm out of date.
"In short, people object to calling it a tax because in common parlance, such a statement would be just as misleading as calling copyright infringement theft."
Except that this meets the definition of a tax. Which zeroes out the analogy.
Don't forget the obligatory versions by Anne Murray (English) and Celine Dionne (French). There is also the one by Cartman to consider. This is the one that was recorded as part of the settlement over the defamation-of-nation lawsuit settled in the wake of the South Park movie.
didn't you read? It really is a tax. The government forces people to pay it so it really is "collected by governments"., like any other tax. Look up the definition of "levy": it is linked on a one-to-one basis with the term "tax".
"You really are starting to sound like a troll. We are talking about the amount of influence a media company has. If you ignore their market share, you are an idiot."
But if you take into account the relative market share that equal voices have, you are in effect making policy that is based on how popular something is. How trollish is that: wanting to censor something because too many people "like it too much"?
"I could print up a thousand different independent newsweekly's that never get distributed past my kitchen and by your standards I guess that would make me one of the worlds largest media monopolies."
Which is entirely irrelevant to this, as the numerous independent radio stations that greatly outnumber Clear Channel/etc each have the same sort of slot on the dial as each Clear Channel station, so they are "getting out" (not stuck in your "kitchen"). And, in considering newspapers and magazines, I am only considering those available in newspaper boxes, bookstores, and magazine stands. There's an extremely large number of these, distributed beyond your example "kitchen".
"what do you think the chances are of them reducing or eliminating the blank media tax?"
My subject line is only quoting the idiots who are going to come along and say that the Canadian CD tax is not a tax, but it is actually a "levy" (which is defined, of course, as a type of tax). Maybe they will read this, and troll no more.
Once you download everything you need, why download any more? Once you've downloaded the good stuff, it is not like there is anything new coming out to make you want to keep downloading more and more.
"Actually in Vietnam it was the Soviets that helped the Vietnamese throw the European colonists out in the first Indochina War"
Nicely overlooked was that the Soviet Union was a European colonial power that took possession of North Vietnam and later South Vietnam.
"So because the Communist bloc supplied aid to these countries the actual military invasion by the US, deaths of millions and displacement of tens of millions is justified?"
The invasion and deaths of millions and the displacement by the USSR (not caused by the US, actually) was not justified. This atrocity actually excelerated once the Soviets controlled the entire place in the mid 1970s. After the US left, you had the "boat people" crisis, and many hundreds of thousands of South Vietnames killed in reprisals.
I'm willing to forgive you calling me a Nazi for my opposition to government censorship of media if you agree to forgive me my "editorical" typo. Fair?