Media Watch

A win for YouTube changes the political climate in Google's favor, meaning new legislation would probably follow public favor, which the lawsuit would promote for the sharing of public domain content. Furthermore, in simple terms, once aired, content is (or damn well ought to be) public domain. So it follows that YouTube's sharing model falls under fair use of such content. The Radio Commission (today's FCC) established two things that matter here. First, that the public owns the airwaves; and 2, that the phone company couldn't possibly be able to monitor (and be accountable for) the content that flowed through its privately owned copper (although it uses public rights of way). This is what I believe is the underpinning of Safe Harbor; that you can't hold a media company accountable for everything its pass through its network. Safe Harbor may only be possible because it permits copyright owners to object to content if it owns it, and subsequently get it removed

So I'm a suit, I guess, and I write form letters. That's what people expect when they write to me and complain that we're doing something different. They might try to find a friendly ear (like one of our radio personalities) to touch first, but plenty of the nasty-grams make it past my desk, so I have to either ignore them or try to compose coherent answers. This one deals with the username/password issue lots of sites are requiring. Is everybody as jaded as this? [Dear Radio Personality], I didn't want to receive a form letter from some [company] suit concerning the registration process required to listen to the online broadcast on [radio station], so I chose you to receive this message. Lucky you! I don't have to register to listen to [station] on my radio in my car or my home, so why do I have to do so [to] listen to it online? The service may still be financially free but it is no longer nuisance free. Don't we have enough nuisances in our daily lives

Hello again! I'd fallen off the face of the blog-o-sphere (do they still call it that?) until now this moment. Seems like, after the initial blogging blitz, things died off. Now, even your brother-in-law is blogging (and could barely use his laptop at Christmas). I've been ambiguously refering to myself as the web guy for over a decade now, since the little stint at the copier place (which amounts to driving around town, flirting with the girls at offices). And now, for the second time, I'm leading the web initiative at a Clear Channel Radio plant in the midwest. Fun toys! Web 2007: Who knew they'd start sticking pictures with voices? I guess what comes around... I'd like to talk more about video on the web. Just a few years ago, I felt so strongly against plugging up the tubes with broadband content, especially video. But the quality of compressed media -- and the bandwidth that carries it -- is now only limited by where in the $50 to $100 range you want you