Author: Paul

The New York Times reports today on an initiative by the FCC to promote the trading and auction of spectrum of all types. (You need a free account to read the article, but it’s worth it because free is better than the $1 for the paper edition! You don’t have to give them your real…

Matthew Lasar, author of Pacifica Radio, has been placing on his website–the Lasar Letter–transcripts of original “Letter to the Listeners” aired by Pacifica founder Lew Hill during the 1950s. They make for facinating reading, and provide some nice perspective on Pacifica’s current problems. Lasar frequently updates with commentaries and other interesting artifacts, so his site…

Once again John Anderson of the Free/Pirate Radio Page at About.com has the scoop: Doug Brewer, the Tampa “Party Pirate,” and owner of L.D. Brewer Radio recently got a double-whammy from the federal gov’t. Anderson reports that Brewer had a summary judgement against him in his case against the seizure of his transmitter 2 years…

For those who live in East-Central Illinois (home of WEFT): Be aware that our own House Rep. Thomas Ewing has signed on to H.R. 3439, the ‘Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act of 1999,’ which aims to kill Low-Power FM before it starts. Now is the time to write, call, e-mail or fax Rep. Ewing to encourage…

Michael Albert has published a nice commentary in Z Magazine on-line entitled “Resolving the Pacifica Crisis.” In my opinion, too much needless virtual blood has been shed in the battle over Pacifica, exemplified by the ongoing debate between Saul Landau and Edward Herman. The stakes in this battle are high, and the events going on…

I just received a press release from Stephen Dunifer of Free Radio Berkely and IRATE announcing “the Premiere Showings of Documentary Video on Micropower Broadcasting -‘;Free Radio’: Sunday, March 5th – Berkeley, 7 PM, Unitarian Fellowship (Cedar & Bonita) This premiere gala, starting at 7 PM, is a fund raiser for Free Radio Berkeley IRATE…

A short article in Upside magazine discusses the prevalence of Linux in ‘net radio servers. An open source platform like Linux may be the best hope for they type of openness on the web that allows users/citizens the opportunity to use the ‘net for their own purposes rather than simply be consumers of content streamed…

Students Against University Censorship have put up a site protesting the blockage of bandwidth hogging mp3 trading sites, like napster.com, at many major universities (including mine, University of Illinois). On it’s face this appears to be simply a case of bandwidth restriction and copyright–Universities need to preserve their bandwidth for academic purposes and avoid copyright…

As a follow up to the previous story, today Wired News reports that AOL and Time Warner have signed a “memorandum of understanding” that they will open up access to T/W’s broadband service so that customers will be able to use ISPs other than AOL. A glimmer of light in an otherwise dark night, but…

Wired News reports that AOL Chairman Steve Case and Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin are to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to discuss the planned merger of these two companies. I’m sure it’s unlikely that there will be any truly challenging questions leveled at these two, especially regarding how the merger will…