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| Friday, April 16, 2004 |
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The copyright ghost in the FCC machine 
| | Jim Thompson expands on what he wrote in an email to me yesterday. Here's how he puts the FCC's current undemocratic (as well as unconstitutional) campaign to fine "indecency" off the airwaves: |
| | I do think that if the pressure by the FCC continues, it will serve to kneecap broadcast TV. The cable / sat channels can serve up what they damned well please, and the American appetite for salacious "content" is increasing. |
| | Put another way, there is a vast, growing market for exactly the viewing that the FCC/Congress/Ashcroft is attempting to squash, and the existing suppliers (the broadcasters) are going to be constrained to not participate in this (not so) new market. Thus, the buyers will move to markets where they can get what they seek; digital cable, DSS, and the Internet. |
| | After quoting two FCC commissioners (Powell and Copps) at length, Jim concludes, |
| | A twist here is that the FCC is getting increasingly annoyed with the Broadcasters for not moving to the 'new' digital/HDTV spectrum they were *given*. link |
| | Note that the FCC is pushing broadcast radio to be digital as well, and though radio got the favor that they broadcast digitally in-place. |
| | This "drive to digital" isn't about new services, its about control. Its difficult to keep an analog signal from being copied, but a digital receiver can have technology embedded to keep the bits under a DRM scheme. |
| | its about copyright. Basically someone is using the FCC to not only limit the first amendment, but by breaking the 1st, the copyright culture gets stronger in the process. |
| | And yes, the FCC will likely fork-over (sell) the analog TV channels to cell phone carriers. link link |
Putting your ego back in your id entity
Three degrees of mediation
| | Dave correctly points out that the distinction is somewhat beside the point, which is that, thanks to blogging, "now we can route around confusion" introduced by the mediated telephone game that journalism (of the reporting variety) too often is. Somebody with something to say can go directly to the reader, without intermediation. This is especially important for technologists, who have a high need for thoroughly informed dialog and a low tolerance for rhetorical packet loss and other forms of distorition. But it's no less important for politicians and other public figures who find their words misquoted or reduced to sound bites that serve as building material for stories that have little nothing to do with what they said in the first place. That was my recent experience with a long interview for CBS, 22 seconds of which served as an intro to a story that was mostly about what Joe Trippi was up to. (Guess I was lucky, sort of. Dan Gillmor and Tim O'Reilly ended up on the cutting room floor.) |
| | This all makes me think that much of the journalism that Jay talks about (that blogging is not) is, truly, mediated. It requires two and three degrees of separation to do its job. For better and worse, that's what mediation is about. It's one reason we call journalists' employers "the media." |
| | I rather like Jay's original "No one owns journalism" point. Perhaps we can take the NEA principles on which the Net was built ... |
| | - Nobody owns it
- Everybody can use it
- Anybody can inmprove it
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| | ... and apply them to journalism as well. |
| | In reality, journalism is the opposite of "up for grabs." It's the Establishment. A closed profession. Or worse. Journalism, for many who blog, is one thing they are blogging against. Or instead of. (Or are they blogging "over" it? Could be.) |
| | So what is journalism? Not sure, they say, but someone else owns it. |
| | Even if that's so, bloggers are clearly improving it. |
I was hoping to fetch six, seven figures
| | An ego-surf on Google just brought up a "Doc Searls on eBay" adlet there on the right. (Below another for "Condoleeza's Notebook." Go figure.) Curious, I clicked and caused eBay to pay Google for my eyeballs to gander "Proceed to search results for Harry Potter." |
Prepare to move
| | Says here we'll have a 6.4 quake before Labor Day. |
A 3fer
| | Thanks to Big Rick for the pointer. Rick also says All right let's get this sraight, I hate MTV, but this new show Pimp My Ride rrrules! |
Welcome back, big guy
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