Month: August 2006
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Hitting the Congresscritters at Home for Net Neutrality
SavetheInternet details actions in 25 cities where folks hit up their Senators to urge support for network neutrality. Apparently there was success in New York, with Sen. Charles Schumer announcing support for net neutrality, and Iowa, where Sen. Tom Harkin did likewise. Now, both those guys are Democrats, which in the Senate, at least, have…
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FCC Chair Says He Wants Public Comment on Media Ownership, But Is Doing His Best To Undermine IT
As Matthew Lasar points out, media activists are wasting no time reaching out to the public at large in order to educate about media ownership and listen to public opinion on the issue. Of course this happens while we wait for the FCC to finally announce the public hearings on the issue that its promised.…
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Mobile FM Transmitters — A Modulator Menace, or a Mountain out of a Molehill?
The traditional radio broadcast industry is getting pretty desperate lately. But while commercial radio has seen its fortunes slowly decline after squeezing out the consolidation profits, public radio has generally faired better. Nevertheless, there’s still some unregulated competition and interference coming from those little FM transmitters people use to pump their portable music players into…
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Macrovision Trying To Plug the Analog Hole with a Suit, Attacking Our Fair Use Rights
I don’t know how I missed this story. The CamcorderInfo blog alerts me that Macrovision has sued Sima Products, which manufactures so-called video enhancers that do a pretty good job of fixing Macrovision’s analog copy protection scheme. Using the Digital Millenium Copyright Act as its weapon Macrovision won a preliminary injunction against Sima back in…
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Wired News on “Get Lamp”
Wired News has a short article on Jason Scott‘s upcoming documentary on text adventures, “Get Lamp.” Jason’s one of the few independent filmmakers really using the communications reach of the internet to his best advantage to create interesting documentaries without bankrupting himself. He knows his subject matter, he knows his niche, and he knows his…
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DirecTV-DishNetwork Spectrum Deal Fails. What Does that Mean for a Merger?
On the Aug. 4 edition of the radioshow I reported on a deal between the nation’s only two direct-broadcast satellite TV providers to cooperatively bid on wireless spectrum during the FCC’s auction. Now that deal is off , with the two companies pulling out of the auction, probably because the prices got too rich for…
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You Get What You Pay For
Well, not necessarily YOU exactly, unless you happen to have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to congresspeople this year. But if YOU are AT&T, then you’ve gotten a pretty good return on the $1.7 million you’ve donated to federal candidates this year. 67% of AT&T’s donations have gone to Republicans, and as a result…
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Quad Cities Pirates Fined Up the Ying-Yang. Is that the Price of Publicity?
John at DIYmedia.net has the dirt on the pirates behind Power 103.3 in Bettendorf, Iowa: Matthew Britcher, self-proclaimed “promotions director” of the commercial-format station, is being asked to pay $17,000 for running the station and refusing an FCC agent’s request to inspect it. Jason Duncan, quoted in local media as a “co-owner,” received a $10,000…
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One Woman’s Film Preservation Journey
Yesterday was Home Movie Day where people attended events all over the country to view old home movies, and have their own films evaluated for damage and to learn about restoration. As local home movie enthusiast Jimi Jones put it to me on Friday’s radioshow, film is one of the best preservation media because you…
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Making Waves at Chicago Underground Film Fest
Michael Lahey’s documentary Making Waves is unflinching look at the politics and personalities behind the pirate radio scene of Tuscon Arizona. If you haven’t had a chance to see it, the film will be making an appearance at the Chicago Underground Film Festival at 1 PM on Aug. 19 and 6 PM on Aug. 21.…