Radio News You Can't Use

Internet and Satellite Radio: Copy-Protection at any Cost
A new piece of legislation is swirling around the Senate cesspool, aimed at eliminating any possibility for a listener to record audio from internet or satellite radio. If the Perform Act is passed, MP3 streaming will be put to bed, and a new (no doubt, worse-sounding) DRM-laden technology will be forced upon web radio stations. Rather than taking advantage of new technologies and revamping their business model, the RIAA (read: lobby dollars behind the Perform Act) prefers to punish all who listen to music via suing the pants off of customers and coming up with far-reaching restrictions for the radio stations that help their records sell. Read more about how the RIAA and the U.S. Senate want to ruin your fun here.

Indecency Update
Last month, the FCC left us all dumbfounded by their latest batch of indecency rulings for television (click to read a legal interpretation of recent FCC fines). We thought it wasn't possible for the definition of indecency to become any murkier, but oops, the feds did it again. Luckily, broadcasters aren't going to take millions of dollars in fines lying down. CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox have all united against the FCC, filing several lawsuits calling the indecency rulings unconstitutional. Chairman Martin, whose term was just extended for another 5 years, asserts that the FCC's indecency standards are clear. Yeah... In any case, we're excited to see that this issue is finally headed to court; and backed by major network dollars, to boot.

Other Radio News Headlines
- Payola inquiries continue
- Profile of a prison radio station (thanks, Monica!)
- Replacement replaced: David Lee Roth was fired from CBS Radio, to be replaced by XM badboys Opie and Anthony
- Air America loses flagship NYC station
- Academic paper on the legal and cultural implications of the word 'Fuck', with a nice meaty section on the FCC
- Creative Commons has released an in-depth Podcasting Guide
- Feast your eyes on these PBS Auctions

Comments

[PS777]

The networks' legal action is entirely justified, because the FCC must be brought to task for its inconsistent (and some may argue, selective) enforcement of its own murky definition of indecency. How is it that stations airing "Without A Trace" and "The Blues: Godfathers and Sons" get fined, but stations that air Oprah Winfrey and "Saving Private Ryan" don't?

The answer is that an FCC decision to fine a TV station is every bit as subjective as the TV viewing decisions that are made by parents and individuals in 110 million U.S. TV households. What makes the FCC's fines even more unnecessary and undesirable? The fact that parents and individuals already have the ratings and content-blocking devices that are necessary to make and enforce their own TV viewing decisions.

Don't let the government decide what you can watch on TV. Visit TV Watch at www.televisionwatch.org for a common-sense voice of reason in this debate.