Jeff Jarvis continues his unstopple FCC indecency coverage here: The Daily Stern: 04/30/2004. Of note today is his cover story on the FCC's apparent vendetta against Howard Stern in The Nation (F*cked by the F*CC). Yours truly is quoted.
So, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the FCC's indecency enforcement lately, and it just struck me how the broadcast flag will inhibit enforcement of the prohibition on obscene, indecent, or profane depictions on broadcast.
According to the FCC's page for indecency complaints (Obscene, Profane & Indecent Broadcasts), complainants are asked to provide the following:
Information regarding the details of what was actually said (or depicted) during the allegedly indecent, profane or obscene broadcast. There is flexibility on how a complainant may provide this information. The complainant may submit a significant excerpt of the program describing what was actually said (or depicted) or a full or partial recording (e.g., tape) or transcript of the material.
In whatever form the complainant decides to provide the information, it must be sufficiently detailed so the FCC can determine the words and language actually used during the broadcast and the context of those words or language. Subject matter alone is not a determining factor of whether material is obscene, profane, or indecent. For example, stating only that the broadcast station “discussed sex” or had a “disgusting discussion of sex” during a program is not sufficient. Moreover, the FCC must know the context when analyzing whether specific, isolated words are indecent or profane. The FCC does not require complainants to provide recordings or transcripts in support of their complaints. Consequently, failure to provide a recording or transcript of a broadcast, in and of itself, will not lead to automatic dismissal or denial of a complaint. [emphasis in original]
Although a recording is not strictly required, obviously it would be very useful to have one when making a complaint. "Did I just hear/see what I thought I heard/saw? Let's go to the tape (or more likely, the hard drive)." However, if copying the broadcast is prohibited (as enforced by the FCC itself), it will be very difficult for average citizens to make recordings to make transcripts and to bolster their complaints about indecency.
I can imagine broadcasters inhibiting copying of "racy" shows in order to reduce the possibility of being fined for indecency violations. Heck, I can imagine broadcasters having "do not record buttons" in place of "bleeping." That way, when someone displays something on broadcast the FCC might think they shouldn't, the broadcaster can ensure that no copy is made by the average citizen.
Of course, who expects the FCC to be consistent and have coherent policies?
A number of gadget websites have noted what sounds like nifty new technology, an external hard drive especially designed for Digital Video Recorders (DVRs). The device, from hard drive manufacturer Maxtor, connects to an existing DVR to provide up to an additional 160 hours of recording capability. Read the press release: Maxtor Expands QuickView Outside the Box.
What the press release doesn't tell you:
The first devices will be available in the summer of 2004 and have an eSATA interface. Maxtor is exploring USB 2.0 and FireWire/1394 connections. Good enough.
However, the product will not be available in retail initially, but rather via your cable/satellite provider. In other words, you won't own it. Actually, ownership is probably not a good idea because the device will not be portable and will be designed to connect to a single DVR. Moving or switching providers will be fun.
Furthermore, according to Maxtor's press contact:
Due to content protection/privacy, the Expander will not communicate/share files with the PC.
Content privacy? Not sure what that is. Regardless, why are so many new consumer devices being designed deliberately crippled? Why is the United States sacrificing so much potential innovation? Perhaps, Mary Hodder is right and it is time for "Silicon Valley Lamented".
via Designtechnica
On April 20th, the Oakland Tribune published a story regarding Diebold's alleged use of uncertified voting software in violation of California state law (Diebold knew of legal risks). The article cited and focused on internal legal memos from the Jones Day law firm showing that Diebold's own lawyers had warned of some of the possible illegalities. Online, the Oakland Tribune posted the documents in addition to the article. That afternoon, the Trib's parent company and the reporter were sued by Jones Day to have the documents returned. The judge ordered the documents returned, except for those already published on the internet (Judge: Tribune must turn over legal memos):
Jones Day's lawsuit claimed the documents were protected under California law as attorney-client communications and attorney work product, and that the defendants "improperly, and possibly illegally, secured, maintained possession of and refused to return" the documents despite the firm's demands.
Read on...
UPDATE More memos here: The inside story on California Diebold decertification -- Next: Ohio?
Continue reading "A New Pentagon Papers Case - Newspapers, Blogs and the Diebold/Jones Day Memos"Well, the official NOI isn't available publicly yet - a spokesperson for the FCC said it would be available on the internet in a couple of days. Of course, that doesn't stop them from putting out a press release: FCC Explores Rules for Digital Audio Broadcasting [PDF].
As rumored, the FCC is going to start the process for considering a broadcast flag rule for digital radio (among a lot of other changes as well):
Subjects raised for comment in the Notice of Inquiry include digital audio content control and international issues.
The subtitle of the press release is: "Goal is to Promote the Introduction of Digital Radio Services for Americans."
That sounds awfully similar to what they said about the television broadcast flag. I'll provide full details on the NOI when it is available.
Recent discussions concerning the FCC and indecency have focused on the record fines levied against Clear Channel for broadcasting the Howard Stern show. I've written a bit about this (Howard Stern: Indecent But Not Profane), but follow Jeff Jarvis for the full coverage. April 8th's The Daily Stern: Bulletin is a good place to start.
However, another indecency fine was affirmed the same day Stern was hit. The decision regards two shows by another popular target of the FCC's censorship, Mancow, who broadcasts a morning show. The decision is here: In the Matter of Emmis Radio License Corp., File No. EB-00-IH-0401 [PDF]. It has some interesting twists.
Read on...
Continue reading "FCC's Latest Mancow Decision: Discrimination Due to Lack of Evidence"Didn't the lawyers in the FCC's Enforcement Bureau get the memo? Didn't they notice that three weeks ago the FCC announced a shiny new policy of enforcing prohibitions on broadcasting the profane? Apparently not, because their most recent decision on indecent broadcasts since that announcement doesn't consider whether the broadcasts were also profane. Come on FCC ... am I the only one who takes your newly announced policy on profane broadcasts seriously?
Well, you can't blame the FCC lawyers entirely since the Commissioners, who were so pumped by enforcing the prohibition on profane broadcasts against the Golden Globes, haven't done anything about it either. While the Commissioners applaud the size of recent fines and other new policies (such as fining every separate utterance), they seem to have forgotten about enforcing their prohibition on the profane. You would think that the FCC would want to promulgate and apply the new standards as soon as possible, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
As an advocate of free speech, I'm certainly interested in learning what the new standards for censorship are as soon as possible.
UPDATE When asked for the reason that the new policy on profane broadcasts was not addressed in the decision, an FCC representative replied, "I can only say that the NAL was based on the FCC's indecency standard." No further comment was forthcoming.
Read on....
Continue reading "Howard Stern: Indecent But Not Profane"Public Knowledge's President, Gigi Sohn, has an op-ed in C|Net News today on the FCC's digital media/broadcast flag powergrab (FCC is taking wrong turn on digital media). She points out a couple of the dumb things the FCC plans to do with their claimed power to regulate digital media. However, if the FCC gets away with the broadcast flag, imagine all the dumb ideas content providers will try to foist upon us.
Read on...
Continue reading "The FCC and Idiotic Idiot Box "Innovation""WIRED has a very interesting article on the various websites that make it easier to track campaign finance in the political system (Following the Money Made Easier). A number of the best websites are cited, such as Fundrace, Political Money Line, and my favorite, Open Secrets.
Worrisome Privacy Issues
Increased transparency in funding is all to the good (especially for larger donors), but I feel a little strange being able to know which of my neighbors have given $100 to Bush or Edwards (no local Kerry fans, apparently). How long will this data be held? Will these websites discourage people from donating to candidates not favored by their neighbors? What effect will this have on our politics?
More Efficient Tracking Desired
Of course, I would love for these websites to become even more efficient. What about email alerts and RSS feeds? You could subscribe to a candidate feed and be notified when they have new donations above a certain limit. You could have geographic feeds and industry feeds. You could track particular donors, especially industries, across a variety of candidates. Bloggers could make excellent use of such feeds.
Fix the Problem of Money in Politics
We really need to reduce the importance of money in politics (it'll never go away entirely). The more we undermine mass media, the better I think. A vast amount of political money is spent on television advertising, if we can change that paradigm with something like broadcatching we would be better off.
Bonus IP issue: The logo for Fundrace is highly reminiscent of Nascar's.
Not all technological advancements that increase the ability of the average person to produce professional-quality video come in the form of software or silicon. Sometimes they come in the form of $14 worth of galvanized pipe, washers, nuts and a barbell weight.
Multimedia artist Johnny Chung Lee has developed the poor man's steadicam. What is a steadicam? According to the Steadicam FAQ, it "is a camera stabilization device that, in the hands of a skilled operator, combines the image steadiness of a dolly with the freedom of movement of a hand-held shot." Normally, the cheapest 3rd-party steadicams go for $500 and up. Lee's version costs about $14 in parts ($14 Steadicam). It might not have all the bells and whistles, but seems to do a pretty darn good job, considering the price.
Sometimes it is nice to note that not all cool hacks are digital.
via mehack
I've long been a fan of annotating works. I think it is a wonderful thing if people want to add commentary and/or criticism to another work. Fan or expert commentaries for DVDs, for example, could be a great source of additional value for DVDs. Imagine critic Roger Ebert providing commentaries for any DVD he wants.
That is why I've written a great deal about the Clean Flicks case, in which Hollywood is attempting to make annotations illegal. You can read some of my past stuff on Clean Flicks on LawMeme. Start with these two articles and follow the links: Hollywood Industry Mag Unconvinced by DGA Position and The Hypocrisies of the Writers Guild of America, West.
Therefore, I am quite excited by a report in the SF Gate that two major retailers, Wal-Mart and K-Mart, will soon be selling a DVD player that has some annotation capabilities (DVD player to edit movies: Technology allows viewer to bypass offensive content). Now, unfortunately, these players only allow one to skip existing content, although you might be able to do some pretty interesting stuff with that *cough*PhantomEdit*cough*. Still, this is annotation. You may not be in favor of removing offensive content in movies, but if Hollywood can stop this, they can stop people from adding commentaries, or remixing content in really creative ways.
Also, note that this avoidance of offensive content is being done by the consumer and not the government. One would think the FCC and DOJ would be very supportive of the defendants in the Clean Flicks case, being as it would save them all that trouble of acting as censors and all.
via JD Lasica
Well, technically, the treaty is called the WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations, cuz heaven knows they're all faced with extinction. The draft treaty will be discussed June 7-9 by WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), which will then "decide whether to recommend to the WIPO General Assembly in 2004 that a Diplomatic Conference be convened." A diplomatic conference can adopt a treaty. The treaty will not go into effect, however, until a certain number of countries have acceded to it. The draft of the treaty is available here: Consolidated Text for a Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations [PDF].
This treaty is really a nasty bit of work. It will give broadcasters, not copyright holders but broadcasters, a number of exclusive rights in their broadcasts, such as fixation, reproduction and distribution, whether or not the broadcast is of a public domain work. Moreover, the treaty would require signatories to prevent circumvention of those rights.
Oh yeah, the treaty would also apply to "cablecasters" and the United States (all alone on this one, apparently) wants the treaty extended to cover "webcasters." What exactly constitutes a webcaster isn't entirely clear, perhaps only streaming, perhaps HTTP. While the US is not a signatory to the previous treaty on broadcast, our efforts on negotiating this one indicate we are likely to sign on.
Read on for a look at this monstrosity...
Continue reading "The Broadcast Flag Treaty - Draft Available"USA Today is running a story on the recent decision by publisher New American Library to cancel plans to republish a novel (Sisters) featuring positive portrayals of proto-feminists, prostitutes and lesbians (Publisher cancels reissue of racy novel by Lynne Cheney). The reason the poorly-written book was to be republished was because of its author, Lynne Cheney, wife of the Vice-President. Of course, a book that featured an empowering view of the love that dare not speak its name would be an embarrassment to a White House seeking to ban homosexuals from equal protection of the laws. Amazon describes the book thus (Amazon.com: Books: Sisters):
Sophie Dymond had overcome nineteenth-century prejudices to succeed as publisher of a hugely popular women's magazine. But when she left New York to revisit her native Wyoming, where her sister had died mysteriously, she left her prestige and power far behind. Waiting for Sophie was a world where women were treated either as decorative figurines or as abject sexual vassals...where wives were led to despise the marriage act and prostitutes pandered to husbands' hungers...where the relationship between women and men became a kind of guerilla warfare in which women were forced to band together for the strength they needed and at times for the love they wanted. In her effort to grasp the meaning of her sister's life and death, Sophie discovers the secret that tainted her life and begins to understand the experience of the vast majority of silent, trapped women.
Be sure to read the readers' reviews.
In any case, although used copies of the book are going for more than your standard paperback, Cheney's lawyer had this to say, "If there is a serious demand for this 25-year-old book, I am confident that America's used bookstores will be able to satisfy it."
According to her bio, Mrs. Cheney "has loved history for as long as she can remember, and she has spent much of her professional life writing and speaking about the importance of knowing history and teaching it well." But not her history, apparently.
An English professor at Princeton looks at the novel, here: Lynne Cheney, Feminist Intellectual?.
An annotated WIKI of the novel would be a great idea, I think.
via LawGeek
The Portland Phoenix actually had a feature on broadcatching (RSS + BitTorrent = Tivo for your PC). The article is a pretty good introduction to the concept.
Cinema Minima, the blog for independent films that are actually independent, has declared that "The salient issue facing movie makers is distribution" (Trendwatch: new ways to distribute movies). To that end, they will be paying close attention to developments along the broadcatching front.
Steve Gillmor, one of the first to recognize the potential of RSS+BitTorrent back in Dec '03, has penned an open letter to Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer (Memo to Steve Ballmer). The letter makes the case for increased Microsoft support for RSS, including the broadcatching combination.
Read on for many more links.
Continue reading "No Clever Name Comes to Mind for this RSS/BitTorrent/Broadcatching Roundup"Similar to the FCC's broadcast rules for the obscene, profance and indecent, soccer also penalizes those who use indecent language. Depending on the severity of the language used, players may be issued warnings, Yellow Cards or Red Cards. Of course, offensive language depends heavily on context, so how do you determine whether calling the ref a "pratt" is worthy of a warning or Yellow Card? Luckily there is a webpage that has handy Venn diagrams of various uses of language to help guide the budding referee (Bad Language Mapping and Tolerance Levels). Perhaps the FCC would be so kind as to provide similar guidance?
via BoingBoing
Jeff Jarvis is doing an excellent job following the FCC's attack on free speech for broadcast. His latest "Daily Stern" report points out the inconsistencies between FCC Chairman Michael Powell's previous statements on broadcast speech regulation and his current stance (The Daily Stern: Sayings of Chairman Powell).
More interestingly, however, Jeff is ripping apart the old, voluntary US Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters (The Daily Stern: The Code). The "Code" was the set of ethical guidelines established in the early days of television for United States television broadcasters, but was abolished in the 1980s. The reason Jeff brings it up again is because the FCC is now pushing broadcasters (and if Commissioner Michael Copps has his way, cable and satellite channels) to adopt a brand new set of "voluntary" guidelines. Many aspects of the old code seem laughable now, but which will broadcasters readopt if pushed hard enough by political pressure? Fifty years from now, which aspects of a new code will look laughably quaint? Some examples of the old code with Jeff's comments:
Attacks on religion and religous faiths are not allowed. Reverence is to mark any mention of the name of God, His attributes and powers.... [Clergy] portrayed in their callings are vested with the dignity of their office and under no circumstances are to be held up to ridicule.
So The Code is explicitly trying to proselytize the nation. And it won't allow us to make fun of, oh, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, or hundreds of kiddie-diddling priests.Continue reading "A Fond Look Back at the Television Code of 1951"
Last week, I wrote an annotated version of two recent speeches, one by FCC Chairman Michael Powell and the other by Commissioner Michael Copps, in which they addressed (behind closed doors) the National Association of Broadcasters regarding indecency regulation (FCC Commissioners - No Free Speech Please, We're Americans). Frequent commentator Cypherpunk thinks that I was overly harsh with regard to Michael Powell, who formerly was a strong defender of freedom of speech in broadcasting (Too Rough on Powell).
Rather than simply rebut Cypherpunk, I've adapted Powell's speech to give my version of what he should have said at the NAB meeting.
The original speech is here:
Remarks of FCC Chairman Michael Powell at the NAB Summit on Responsible Programming, The Renaissance Hotel, Washington D.C., March 31, 2004 [PDF].
Read on for my revised version.
Continue reading "The Speech Powell Should Have Given on Indecency"I wish this were an April Fools joke, like Howard Stern's. Yesterday, the Chairman of the FCC, Michael Powell, and Commissioner Michael Copps addressed (behind closed doors) the National Association of Broadcasters on the subject of broadcast indecency. The content of their speeches should be chilling to any advocate of the freedom of expression. For example, Copps is calling to regulate satellite and cable indecency in addition to broadcast as well as insinuating that the depiction of violence is profane (and thus subject to FCC regulation). The speeches are available at the FCC's website and I highly recommend reading both of them, all of them:
Remarks of FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, NAB Indecency Summit, Washington, DC, March 31, 2004 [PDF]
My annotated version of these travesties is below. I found it extremely difficult to excerpt particularly egregious examples of attacks on freedom of speech since the entire content of both speeches (with one small exception) is incredibly hostile to the very idea that speech that offends should be defended. Please see Jeff Jarvis' take on Powell's speech as well (The Daily Stern: Life without Howard).
Continue reading "FCC Commissioners - No Free Speech Please, We're Americans"Proving that it is as serious about dominating the music download business as much as it has dominated the retail sphere, Wal-Mart (aka "the world's largest retailer") announced yesterday intentions to purchase Universal Music Group from troubled media conglomerate Vivendi Universal. The purchase will give Wal-Mart immediate control of nearly 30% of the US music market including such popular artists as Eminem, No Doubt and Sheryl Crow as well as a historic catalog that includes artists such as Abba and Louis Armstrong. Read the press release: Wal-Mart to Purchase Universal Music Group.
Wal-Mart to Offer Subscription-Based Download Service?
Wal-Mart refused to discuss whether the purchase will lead to any changes in its music download service, but knowledgeable insiders confirm that Wal-Mart will certainly decrease the price of both CDs and individual downloads for their artists, putting further pressure on alternate music download services such as Apple's iTunes and Napster 2.0. Additionally, analysts believe that Wal-Mart is considering experimentation with a subscription-based download service that would provide rationed download access to the entire Universal catalog for a flat fee of approximately $5/month.
Continue reading "Wal-Mart to Purchase Universal Music Group"