FCC's Chairman Powell Starts Blog 118
The Importance of writes "And he wants to hear from the tech community. 'I am looking forward to an open, transparent and meritocracy-based communication -- attributes that bloggers are famous for!' Powell said on his blog. But does he really get blogging? He says he 'need[s] to hear from the tech community as we transition to digital television.' Perhaps we could discuss the broadcast flag? If you want to leave some comments on his blog, I suggest you do it before Howard Stern mentions it on his radio show."
too late (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.howardstern.com/boards/showthread.php?
i dunno how busy
howard et all are on vacation (for another week i think). when he gets back, i'm sure it will get mentioned. hopefully the rest of his fans can keep it civil (heh) on the fucktard's blog
Don't we already have a Powell? (Score:5, Informative)
In related FCC news, they just passed an order lessening the restrictions on the unlicensed 2.4Ghz and 5.8Ghz frequency bands.
The news release [fcc.gov] (pdf) says that this order removes roadblocks keeping deployment of next generation (longer range) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices.
There is also a statement [fcc.gov] from Chairman Powell himself (more pdf)
-Cary
Fairfax Underground [fairfaxunderground.com]: Where Fairfax County comes out to play
Re:Sigh, he doesn't have a clue does he? (Score:3, Informative)
Right. However, the airwaves are also a public good -- it's not very feasible to isolate radio waves within a particular region on any kind of a large scale.
Generally, the way we deal with public good problems (clean air, littering in a park, etc) is by establishing rules and regulations that enforce universal cooperation (and thus makes all members of the system win out), which is pretty much what the FCC is for.
Content belongs to the creator. If my first steps were recorded in analog video, the government should not impose a law which would make such content impossible to view. When I create a DVD of my baby's first steps, I should have the right to control and sign that content. I should have the right to make it available to others and transcode that content to whatever the format of the day is in 2021.
How does this relate to Powell's policies at all?
If you're proposing change, this relates to copyright law, not to regulation of communication.
Government belongs to the people. All content created at taxpayer expense should be in an open format, not subject to proprietary licensing.
Interesting idea, and I agree. However, again, this is not the domain of the FCC, which doesn't have the required jurisdiction. You'll need legislation going through the House and Senate that constrains purchasing in the Executive Branch.
Government should not play favorites. If Howard Stern profits from our airwaves with junior high mentaility, then everyone capable of expressing a junior high mentality should also have this right. If World Harvest Radio uses our airwaves to convince the world that Americans are all right-wing extremists and cultists, than other kooks should have that right.
You need to propose feasibile approaches for this. Yes, as an ideal we try to roughly approximate a meritocracy with a free flow of ideas. However, in practical terms, there are lots of people that object to some information being available to their kids (and advocate censorship), and things like funding for idealized systems can be a problem.
Consumers should have the right to not see Howard Stern or listen to World Harvest radio. They should have the right to not expose their children.
Again, you need to propose an actual mechanism here.
Consumers should be able to select from the thousands of public programs available at the Library of Congress and produced by other governments (BBC, RTE, NHK...) wi#
# Consumers should be able to select from the thousands of public programs available at the Library of Congress and produced by other governments (BBC, RTE, NHK...) without running into a region code "iron curtain".thout running into a region code "iron curtain".
That's also an interesting idea. I'd be dubious as to whether this would be FCC jurisdiction, again. It'd just involve an international treaty giving playing rights to stuff produced with taxpayer dollars in various nations.
The BBC in particular does some nice stuff.
A broadcast flag is a stupid simpleminded idea. It won't work and it will violate many of the above principles.
It doesn't have to be elaborate. Macrovision can be defeated, but it keeps the average Joe from copying.
That being said, I think you're right, and that the broadcast flag is pretty much dead in terms of helping companies recieve payment for their goods.
Ambigious terminology and Blurred boundaries (Score:3, Informative)
I guess you can attribute that perceived confusion to two reasons.:
Many terms lose their meaning over time, or take a new meaning altogether. This is most often seen in Corporate Marketing speak, and in Politics. Someone will use a catchy term to mean a new thing they are trying to push (for economic or political gain). Think about "user friendly" for instance, or "N-Tier" in the marketing of IT. In politics, linguistics is also used this way, as Chomsky and others pointed out. Terms lost meaning over time or come to mean something else.
Think about what "convergence" was about. When two things eventually become the same by merging features from both. For example, the IP protocol used to be a data only packet protocol. Voice used to be on switched circuits only. Now this is all converging with VoIP and such. The same could be underway in journalism and opinion columns with blogs being a merged form of what we now use for blogs and what op-eds are.
So, it may not be confusion after all. It could be evolution as well.
Just a thought.