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He is moving to Sirius satellite radio. Much like cable, the FCC has no authority to regulate content on a pay channel.
What horrors will be wrecked upon the people of America without the loving censorship of the FCC? Oh yeah, the same stuff that's on HBO. Strangely, the republic hasn't fallen yet.
Michael Jackson, fresh off of his fathering of quadruplets with a surrogate mother, wants to carve out a celebrity execption to the First Amendment
Rasputin has a good point -- when various idiots gather together for a good ol' fashion book burnin', from where do those books come?
In an update to the billboard ban, an agreement has been reached.
Rapper Jadakiss is making a complete fool out of himself for blaming Bush for 9/11.
Ruff Ryders/Interscope artist Jadakiss is getting a lot of attention for his single "Why?" from his new album, "Kiss of Death." The song questions President George W. Bush's role in the events of Sept. 11, 2001, with the lyric "Why did Bush knock down the towers?" The line has prompted some radio stations to edit the track.
Having said that, if he wants to make the claim, let him. He takes the responsibility for his own statements, he gets the credit or the blame for speaking out as he sees fit.
However, I do not support radio stations editing out what they don't like -- If you don't like what he has to say, then don't play the record. It's pretty simple.
Clear Channel Communications, one of the largest communications conglomerates around, has rejected displaying a politically oriented billboard in NYC around the same time as the Republican convention. The billboard in question showed an American flag in the shape of a bomb with the slogan "Democracy is best taught by example, not by war."
If this had been the government stopping the display of this ad, then I'd be all up in arms over it. That's not the case here -- it's a business decision (as politically motivated as it may or may not be). On the one hand, CCC is well within their rights as a private business to decline any business they do not want. On the other hand, it does smack a little of political expedience.
Even copyrighted works can be quoted, so long as the quote isn't so long as to be approaching a totality of the work and the original author is appropriately credited. This is typically referred to as "fair use." This doctrine is coming under assault as of late, though.
Does that mean that some silly copyright holder might sue anyway? Sure! [...]
This is the problem with fair use: It is a gamble. If you were confident that the copyright holder would not care or would not bother for fear of bad publicity, then you could go ahead and use the material as the law intended you to do. But we have all been taught that copyright holders are vultures out for a quick and easy meal. This is not always true.
Fair use is near and dear to my heart -- if you're read this blog for any length of time, you've seen me using it. Heck, the above quote is an example of fair use. A decline in what can be used in this fashion would be a bad thing.
Due to a new FCC regulation, radio and TV broadcasters are now may be required to keep an archived edition of everything they do for sixty to ninety days. I'm not a fan of this approach; I expect that it will significantly curb any broadcaster's willingness to even risk playing a song (or showing a skit) that might offend someone.
My reasoning? Well, prior to this rule, if someone was going to complain, they had to be recording the broadcast in question. This didn't always happen, of course (How often didn't this happen, you may be asking? Try 1.17%.). Nowadays, all that anyone has to do is write the FCC, say "KBAL did something indecent at 7:25am on Saturday, July 10" and an investigation will follow. Said investigation will cost the station money (in research, lawyers, etc.), so the sheer nuisance value of the potential complaints will cause the station to shy away from taking the risk.
Before any of you get all happy over this possibility ("less smut on the air! yeah!"), try to keep in mind that there is no limit to how this can be applied. A complaint could be lodged for something offensive during a Rush Limbaugh show just as easily as an allegation can be sent in about an incident during a Michael Moore interview.
Also, what about small/indie stations? Most radio/TV groups will probably have the technical means to support this requirement (to warehouse the tapes and/or hard disk space for the archives), but some of the micro stations that the FCC has been trying to encourage may not. Web-based radio stations will probably have the disk space (since it's a streamed medium), but I still suspect that this regulation will probably put some groups out of business.
-- Update --
I changed the post to better reflect the reality of the situation. Thanks for the correction, Kristin.
A nickel for a kiss, a dime if you tell me that you love me and, apparently, half a million or so for a bare breast. The Janet Jackson fiasco rolls along.
Prince -- Prince!! -- is supporting the FCC's crackdown on indencency. Isn't this the same guy who celebrated his Controversy?
Thanks to Simon for the tip.
Since Howard's little difficulties with the FCC, he suggested his listeners complain to the FCC about Oprah. Here are some of their letters.
Thanks to Mark for the tip.
Pat Boone, never one of my favorites by any stretch of the imagination, has achieved the rank of full blown doofus.
I don't think censorship is a bad word, but it has become a bad word because everybody associates it with some kind of restriction on liberty. ...
Censorship is healthy for any society, and that goes for arts, entertainment, anything.
There's not much I can say to this. Actually, there is.
Censorship: The institution, system, or practice of censoring.
Censoring: To examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable. [My italics]
Hey, idiot!? If you suppress or delete something, it is a restriction on the liberty of the person who had said/done the thing in question.
If you think something's bad -- so bad that it shouldn't be allowed to escape into the world -- then do what you can to try and stop it. Protest, write your congressman, hold your breath until you turn blue, boycott the offender; whatever you think appropriate to do so long as it is legal. I'm almost certainly going to both disagree with you and fight against you (because I believe that the answer to "bad" speech is to raise good speech against it). But be honest with yourself (and with everyone else) as to what you are doing.
Thanks to TMFTML for the tip.
Stuart Benjamin has a few things to say about the FCC and indecency.
The House has passed legislation that increases the maximum monetary penalty to $500,000 for each violation and that provides for revoking the license of broadcasters who are penalized three times. Other legislation would (to the delight of George Carlin) define the statutory term “profane” to include any form of eight objectionable words. ...
The bottom line for broadcasters is that they are much more likely to be penalized, and that the penalties will probably be more severe – and as a result a judicial challenge is more likely.
In recent years broadcasters have refrained from bringing judicial challenges to the regulation of broadcast indecency precisely because the fines were small, and rare, enough that broadcasters decided it was not worth the costs of antagonizing the FCC and Congress. Now, with heavy fines (and maybe even license revocation) on the line, broadcasters are more likely to do so. Indeed, that process began yesterday, when both NBC and a coalition of media groups filed petitions asking the FCC to reverse its decision. It looks like those groups are girding for a judicial challenge to the indecency regulations.
This is significant, because the Supreme Court probably would – and in my view should – find these indecency regulations unconstitutional. With respect to newspapers and magazines, telephones, and cable television, the Supreme Court has held that the government may not reduce the adult population to viewing only what is fit for children. As the Supreme Court noted in the 2000 Playboy case on cable indecency, a core principle of the First Amendment is that "The citizen is entitled to seek out or reject certain ideas or influences without Government influence or control."
In the morning, I ususally listen to NPR while getting ready. I like the news and entertainment more than some of the other schlock that's played at that time on the day.
This am, there was a story about an annual award for people who try to stop free speech. Here are this year's "winners".
The FCC seems to be having some second thoughts about the new fine structure.
"I understand it," [Michael] Powell [Chairman of the FCC] said, referring to Congress' desire to make performers pay. "But I have some reservations with the FCC going after performers."
Powell said artists have always enjoyed protection under the First Amendment governing free speech and slamming them with large fines would be "a very touchy area for the FCC."
Thanks to Jesse for the tip.
On the one hand, my free speech instincts thinks that this is a rather bad idea. On the other hand, music that supports bigotry isn't a very good thing, either.
and it makes me a little sad.
...a recent national survey asked administrators and students about the First Amendment. Only 21 percent of administrators and 30 percent of students knew that the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom. Only six percent of administrators and two percent of students knew that religious freedom is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment. Only 41 percent of administrators and 32 percent of students believe that religious people should be permitted to advocate their views by whatever legal means available. On the other hand, 74 percent of students and 87 percent of administrators think it "essential" that people be able to express their beliefs unless—and then come a host of qualifications, all amounting to the condition that their beliefs not "offend others."
Because it wouldn't do to allow someone to be offended, now would it?
Thanks to Stephen for the tip.
A good op-ed piece in Newsweek about censorship in America and why it rarely -- if ever -- works.
There has been a lower court ruling about a congressional candidate owning his own name.
A federal judge Thursday denied Republican congressional candidate Robin Ficker's claim on the domain name "robinficker.com," saying the Web site owner had a First Amendment right to use the candidate's name.
"By entering the public arena as a candidate for political office, (Ficker) has invited comments and critique, which operates in the spirit of healthy democracy of this country," U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. wrote in the four-page ruling.
I found this rather surprising; I would have thought the simple fact that it is, well, your name would have been a pretty strong legal argument towards this man winning his case. I think that if Mr. Tuohy (who owns the site and just happens to be a political consultant to Mr. Ficker's opponent) had a site called fickerisabadman.com, that would be fine. But buying someone else's name? That just seems wrong (as I head over to register my own name...).
For those who have not heard this, Howard Stern has been tossed off of Clear Channel's stations.
This is pretty much a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Stern was only on six of CC's stations, and he just happened to be dropped as the CEO of clear channel heads up to Congress to testify about indecency.
As far as indecency goes, if you don't like it, just turn it off. It's like the guy who got Bubba the Love Sponge thrown off the air in Florida -- he was so offened by what he heard that he listened for hours. 'Please stop me before I sin again.'
An article worth a read about some of the consequences of the FCC getting all investigatory with Janet's, um, malfunction.
These points won't satisfy the Repressive Right, but even the FRC and other right-tilting authoritarians ought to remember that its Republican/conservative friends won't always be running Washington. Someday, maybe sooner than we know, it will the Politically Correct Left that is reviewing all shows. And when the political/ideological wheel turns, the same state machinery that the FRC wants to use to wallop its foes will be used instead to wallop the FRC and its friends. As Ronald Reagan said many times, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away."
To be honest, I'm getting rather tired of reading and listening to all the riga-ma-role about this whole thing. I'm adding this link because I think it's important to remember both that free speech is one of those things that requires active protection and that free speech is oft time not good speech.
Clear Channel, the nation's largest radio chain, has been fined $755,000 dollars for indecency. Apparently, some of the stations in the chain's family aired Bubba The Love Sponge a few times, totalling up to twenty-six times altogether. The FCC issued the maximum fine ($27,500) for each pop and then added $40,000 on top "because [Clear Channel] failed to keep proper records of the possible violations". And yes, the amount of the fine is a record.
Having not heard the actual violation itself, I can't really speak to it. I have, however, found a description of the particular transgression:
In the July 19 broadcast, skits in which Bubba show members imitated cartoon characters and discussed drugs and sex were inserted between Cartoon Network advertisements. In one instance, a cast member portraying George Jetson began by saying he no longer needed Viagra because he got a "Spacely Sprocket (bleep)ck ring." Another bit featured a show member imitating the voice of cartoon character Alvin The Chipmunk, in which "Alvin" complained that he hadn't "been laid in almost six weeks." Another chipmunk responded that the problem was due to the "f(bleep)cking pussy music we play" and sang a "kick ass" song directing a "filthy chipmunk-whore" to "suck on my [inaudible] chipmunk (bleep)s." The FCC determined that all seven segments reviewed for indecency "unquestionably involved on-air discussions relating to descriptions or depictions of sexual organs, excretory organs and/or activities of a sexual nature. The broadcasts involved conversations about such things as oral sex, penises, testicles, masturbation, intercourse, orgasms and breasts."
It seems, though, that Bubba is attempting to out-Stern Stern. By focusing on strippers and sex, the lowest-common denominator theory of radio will pretty much guarantee him an audience.
My general response to this kind of protest is to tell people that if you don't like what you hear (or are offended by it or whatever), then turn it off. The Supreme Court has carved out an exception in the 1st Ammendment to allow some supression of free speech via radio because
"Broadcast mediums (TV, radio) are uniquely pervasive presence in our lives – hard to avoid and easy to accidentally come upon harmful material, and uniquely accessible to children...There is (was) a limited spectrum of radio/TV frequencies and gov’t was justified in monitoring/regulating this spectrum"
--FCC v Pacifica(1978)
That particular exception does not seem all that compelling to me, though; if you happen to turn on the radio and something comes on that you are not expecting (no matter how vile), you can always change the station or just turn it off. But that's just me.
Here's a good reference website if you want to know about free speech (or, more accurately, the arbitrary limitations placed on "free" speech) on various college campuses (or is that campi?) throughout the US.
Thanks to Glen for the pointer. And to Eugene for pointing out a particularly laughable restriction at Macalester College (which bans speech that aggravates another).
For those who haven't quite seen this website before, there's a hoax site about treating a kitten like a Bonsai tree. It's a joke, people. Not a particularly good one, but a joke none the less. For some reason, the British version of the ASPCA sees a need not only to respond to this issue but to also call for the regulation of speech on the web. Now that's something that's not at all funny.
The Royal Society is well within their rights to criticize the people who put up the Bonsai Kitty site; the best answer to bad speech is good speech. Calling for banning the site not only is an immoral thing to do, it actually will backfire on the Society's intention (I can promise you that I would neither have written about the site or even gone there without first having read about the Society's call for "cleaning" up the web).
Thanks to Eugene for the pointer.
For those of you that don't know, my biggest hobby horse is free speech. For the record, I'm pretty much an absolutist when it comes to free speech -- I think that the cure for "bad" speech is more "good" speech, not attempting to restrict the "bad". So, from time to time, I'll bloviate on various matters on this issue.
Eugene Volokh (of the Volokh Conspiracy) has written an interesting article about some of the myths of free speech. It's worth a quick read.
-- Update --
Volokh revises and extends his thoughts in the article in response to comments from readers.