ihoby wog

One alternative could be a mixture of electronic democracy and either pay per view or state funding.

With digital TV and Radio (and of course, net-based entertainment) there could be added, a rating functionality. The audience could casually participate in providing democratic feedback of anything that is being broadcast. It would be great if the ratings were not just a simple up or down vote but could also be in the form of a 1-5 or 1-10 rating – or be in the form of emotion (joy, disgust, sadness, etc.) and concept (“I feel informed”, “This is important”, “This is disappointing”, etc.) buttons. Along with this ability to give pertinent but simple feedback, the results could be made transparent as well. There could be a view mode that would show current feedback statistics for the broadcast.

That would handle one aspect of opinions of how valued a broadcast may be to the public.. the other side is where the funding for these programs comes from. You could either go the capitalist or the socialist way.. or both.

In the capitalist method, everything would be pay per view. The price would probably have to be low or not many people would watch. Life with that would most likely be similar to using cell phones without “plans”.

In the socialist method, taxes would pay for the programming and voters would control what shows or stories (or general styles/genres/subjects) actually get the funding.

In either method, advertising could be excluded entirely to remove that source of bias and influence. The programs might not be as well funded.. but I think in most cases, current programs are over-paid and the broadcasting industries are rife with wasteful excess.

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As for how to prevent propaganda.. the best way is probably through diversity of viewpoints broadcast. And the best way to increase the diversity of viewpoints is to reduce the cost and difficulty of creating contents and broadcasting them as much as possible.

If it’s cheap enough and easy enough for someone to argue with what you say, they’ll do it.

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You probably shouldn’t use the word “filter” in this context because in the larger picture it amounts to censorship and informational fascism.

What could be implemented for net-info though, are protocols for increasing the ability to quickly/easily verify information and for certifying credentials or building cumulative “street cred” for a given source.

I can think of a couple ways of doing this – and I think these sort of systems would give the greatest benefit without needing to form armies of corruptible moderators or attempting to develop impossibly smart artificial intelligence programs.

This situation definitely centers around the “knowing about knowing” paradox that allows them to – among other things – make us believe that we are part of an ideological minority, when in fact the direct opposite is probably true.

By controlling the means of mass communication, they can make us feel more isolated and alone than we really are.

Education and health are probably the key methods for societies to realize self-empowerment. And since communication is most of what education is, that makes mass communication a critical device in how each one of us formulates our view of the world around us (especially beyond us).

Right now the Internet is the only means of mass communication still dominated by diverse and opposing viewpoints.. I think it’s for this reason that we have a movement as massive as we do, trying to counter forces of oppression. The internet is the only place where we can FIND OUT about opinions and reports that contradict what is being broadcast on TV, Radio, and Print. It is the very means with which we even know that things like media consolidation / net un-neutrality / etc. are happening and that there are other people out there who don’t like it either.

Remember there is no such thing as common knowledge, only what is either experienced directly or passed on from one person to another.

If there is a question of focus, that could go in several directions. Either we fight to protect the internet over all else and branch out from there.. or we get some other medium up and known as fast as we can before they shut down the open internet.. or we give up both to take over TV or Radio.

I don’t know. Neither of these focus actions sound as good as keeping at all fronts.

I guess the biggest thing to consider is that we HAVE to keep some line of communication up between all of us, whatever it may be.

It is apparent to me that besides the efforts of small collectives of relatively poor and unconnected people trying to turn the tide of tidal waves like corporate propaganda environment we have today – the two ways we have left to affect significant improvements to the communications landscape is by making friends with people who are one or both of the following:

1. Rich

2. Connected

Organizations like MoveOn and even the ACLU have only persisted at the level they have because of one or more wealthy benefactors who agree with their way of thinking. Somehow these orgs and their silent sponsors found each other and I think more of this needs to happen.

If this isn’t on the table as an important course of action, I feel it should be. While I don’t generally favor fighting fire with fire (and in this case, money with money and clout with clout), it can have the effect of leveling the playing field.

I’m wondering if anyone has ideas about who we could appeal to? Possibly disheartened members or former members of major corporations, banks, the federal reserve, or so on? Maybe on the side of influence there are people in the congress, lobbyists, newspeople or military officers.. I’m sure there are some of them who don’t like what’s going on, or at least some aspect of it.

Maybe.. maybe some of those contractors in Iraq that received portions of that “missing” $9 billion a couple years ago? I mean, if two guys with no experience or staff can get paid $100 million for “securing” an airfield that no aircraft used – I’d think either some of them might be feeling guilty and want to give back a little, or we could get even a fraction of that kind of money from someone else.. which would amount to far more money than could ever be raised by donations from us, the fantom that used to be called the middle class.

I mean $100 million.. one hundred million. Can anyone even visualize that kind of money? It doesn’t even sound like a real amount.. a zillion kadjillion.

But that’s what we’re up against.. people that have that kind of money and people that were willing to do just about ANYthing to get that kind of money.

So if any of those people in that strata might be willing to confront their peers with our help – either openly or discretely – that would be an opportunity that could change everything.

They might need us just as much as we need them.

I would like to urge you to vote against financial burdens being imposed upon Internet Radio Broadcasters. It has recently come to my attention that airwave radio stations are exempt from royalties or such from the record companies, on the basis that they provide Promotional Value. As Internet Radio actually provides more Promotional Value than airwave radio – listed in the following ways below – I see NO reason why Internet Broadcasters should be targeted for payments of any kind to the record companies. If anything, the record companies should be paying the Internet Radio stations for promoting their artists.

The ways Internet Radio provides superior Promotional Value over airwave radio:

1. it can be listened to world-wide
2. it can include full Artist, Title and other information of the currently playing song
3. it can include a link to BUY the album from which the song originates

Other ways Internet Radio (IR) is just better than airwave radio:

4. IR stations most often play nothing but music, no talking and no advertisements
5. IR stations play an extremely wide, eclectic range of music
6. IR stations are not in it for money, they broadcast for free because they love music
7. IR stations allow artists to be heard that wouldn’t normally be able to be broadcast
8. IR stations can bridge political and cultural divides the same way that web pages can

Internet Radio is a beautiful thing the way it is. It’s active, it’s diverse, it can expand people’s minds. It’s freedom. It’s auditory freedom. What the record companies are trying to do is remove our freedom from Internet Radio and replace it with greed. Doing so will only spoil its beauty, it will become repulsive and dictated. This country was founded on freedom, yes? I personally do not want my freedom to be turned into a dictatorship.

In closing, I’d like re-state that Internet Radio provides superior value and promotional value over other radio delivery methods for everyone involved (artists, publishers, broadcasters and listeners) and should be kept free from needlessly imposed charges. Forcing money from stations that aren’t making money from broadcasting will kill them. Please don’t allow this to happen. Keep creativity, diversity and the love of music alive.

I am writing to you in regards to the soon to be decided issue of Internet Radio, what is being proposed by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the CARP report issued by the United States Copyright Office (Docket No. 2000-9 CARP DTRA1&2) and the Notice and Record keeping for Use of Sound Recordings Under Statutory License (Docket No. RM 2002-1 37 CFR Part 201).

I strongly urge to you not let this pass into law for several reasons, both from the perspective of a producer and of a listener:

1. Restricting independent internet radio will stifle musical culture.
Currently, music of all kinds from around the globe are available to be experienced. History, culture, art and diverse points of view are contained in the music and spoken word being broadcast. I personally have enjoyed a dramatic widening of my musical world view since finding particular independent internet radio stations – stations which are coincidentally, free from annoying advertisements and pointless disc jockey talking. Restrictions will act as a censor to this new range of cultural diversity and further deaden our society with the status quo of inbred corporate selections of what music is most likely to return the most profit.

2. Restricting independent internet radio will re-establish an unfair advantage the major record labels have over independent labels and artists.
Internet radio is one of the few places that new, underground or international artists can be heard by large potential audiences in a non-live performance format. Cutting that off will drive those artists into obscurity, just because they’re either not independently wealthy or backed by a major record label pushing for guaranteed sales figures reaching deep into the millions.

3. Restrictions of this kind are monetarily pointless.
What people would this restrict from broadcasting? Answer, people that are running internet radio stations for free..or at least, not to make money anyway. Is anyone losing money by having any given group of songs broadcast over these stations? No. Are the artists and music publishers getting free advertising by having these songs play with full track and artist information visible in the player applications? Yes. Are these stations committing intellectual property piracy by charging for redistribution of copywrited material that they don’t own? No.. Every internet only radio station I’ve listened to has not charged or even run advertisements. They broadcast because they want to broadcast the music they like. There’s no money to be made or lost in this activity, or for that matter, the proposed restrictions I’m advising against.

4. Restrictions in the US will only cause the small/free/hobbyist stations to broadcast from other countries.
So the process of broadcasting whatever you want will just be a little more irritating, you’ll have to use a non-US server. Will that added difficulty discourage some people from setting up little stations? Sure. Will it discourage everyone? Certainly not. The people that want to continue to broadcast free of censorship will do so from anywhere outside our borders.

The very reasons I had stopped listening to airwave radio – narrow & repetitive playlists, frequent and annoying advertisements, pointless DJ talking and lack of available song/artist information – are the very reasons why I enjoy listening to Internet Radio nearly every day. Internet Radio does not suffer from those deficiencies. It’s only problems are net congestion and dependance on internet connected devices, which have nothing to do with the content being broadcast.

Currently I as a listener can call up any number of specialty or eclectic Internet Radio stations to hear music that I like and have never heard before. I hear the music and only the music. If I like something enough to want to hear it whenever I want, I (most of the time anyway) can bring up the name of the Artist and Song Title – and often the Album name as well – while the song is playing. With that information I can go out and buy it. I can also recommend internet stations to any of my friends, wherever in the world they happen to be. I think this is a wonderful way to experience new music. There is SO much music out there that most of us haven’t heard, and it is so nice to be able to hear from a more diverse selection than what appears in the corporate sponsored top 40.

I as a broadcaster enjoy being able to let others hear some of the music I love to listen to, and I also enjoy the freedom to use internet broadcasting to voice any points of view I’d like to express. Free speech, good music, broadcasting for the sake of broadcasting. Restrictions of this kind are going against our constitution, which is a very well phrased document meant to insure our various freedoms. These restrictions are based in greed. i don’t support that. Please keep these proposed restrictions from becoming law.