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Free Airwaves Still Illegal

by anarchy on the air collective
NPR & the rest of the corporate media monopoly will get their way soon when LPFM is killed as a rider on an appropriations bill that Clinton is expected to sign. See web link for more info.
"It's more fun to break the law anyway," says one anonymous pirate radio operator who has been broadcasting illegally and will continue to operate illegally, no matter what fiction of reality the NPR/NAB/FCC coalition thinks they can script.<br><br>The anonymous pirate radio operator continues: "Any hardcore radio geek or hacker is definitely not pining away in corporate america. And if they are, they are just there to funnel information back to the underground. It is a simple fact of distributed information warfare: there are more of us, we're motivated by passion, not money, and we have nothing to lose. We will win."<br><br>This anonymous hacker, who operates with the clandestine anarchist collective Anarchy on the Air, says: "Technology and the way it is produced represent multiple evils. The hierarchies that dominate technology are even worse and prevent us from doing anything to attack those evils. These hierarchies permeate everything, from the domination of tv/radio by corporate conglomerates, to independent media being dominated by fulltime activists. At the same time that people go on the attack for their favorite cause, we think they need to be focusing just as much on the hierarchies they are creating through their activism."<br><br>Anarchy on the Air is currently working on the Robin Hood Radio project, which intends to steal, finagle or scam the necessary equipment to give away free radio transmitters to "other people in our shitty economic class, regardless of how long their activist resume is."
Honestly, I like the effort but not the captains.
What a disappointment.
by just some geek (indymedia [at] geekme.org)
You're forgetting something. US media has quite a lot of very real power in government. They don't get to do whatever they like simply because they are, erm, industrious. I have not been following the issues surrounding free airwaves, but I can certainly cite some examples of the US government wielding unprecidented weapons on behalf of media.

For instance, it is actually _illegal_ for you to skip the commercials at the beginning of a DVD if the producer wants you to see them. This was done with the full will and understanding of the government. It's due to the DCMA.

Another example that clearly illustrates someone is getting to write the rules as they go along-- a mere CLERK slipped the two words "sound recordings" into an ammendment to the Copyright Act, making them "works-for-hire", the difference being that the right of ownership no longer reverts back to the artist after 35 years. The publisher retains it indefinately. This was not part of the ammendment until Mitch Glazier inserted it in a late draft, and it was not even noticed until after the ammendment was passed. Did he go to jail? Hell no! The RIAA hired him and is paying him half a mil each year! And why not? RIAA's Cary Sherman: "Wouldn't you expect that we would try to hire the guy who has done more copyright legislation in this town than anyone else in the last five years?"

When you are up against such unabashed corruption, ignorance and incompetancy, you do not need to be a lazy man to get hurt. Just an honest one.
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