[extropy-chat] FWD (SK) RFC: copy protection report

[Samantha Atkins]

On Dec 4, 2005, at 9:43 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote:

> --- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
>> The FCC should be disbanded as utterly useless and in the way.  Their
>>
>> "powers" are arbitrary and pernicious.    What exactly do they do
>> that needs doing and that wouldn't be done better by a free market?
>>
>
> Make sure no one corporation owns all the TV stations or similar
> media outlets in any area with more than a few of them (which
> would let them impose legal censorship - corporations not being
> governed by the First Amendment).

hehehehe.  This is the internet age.  Once we have fiber to the home  
anyone who wants to can broadcast the equivalent (and better) to TV  
under whatever commercial/non-commercial terms they wish.  TV  
stations are dinosaurs.   There is no effective censorship in the  
internet age.

>
> Keeps people from jamming various frequencies, intentionally or
> unintentionally, so that certain forms of wireless communication
> don't work.
>

It is trivially to track jammers and does not require a federal  
bureaucracy to do so.

> And that's just off the top of my head.  One might wonder if
> their mission, justified by the scarcity of resources in any
> communications medium, is obsolete with respect to the Internet,
> but radio, TV, and newspapers do still exist offline.

Wireless technology has improved to the point where there is no  
longer a very compelling reason to sell broadcasters fixed slices of  
the spectrum.  Of course for a little while the required transmitter/ 
receiver tech is not common and available at a reasonable price.  But  
the FCC stands in the way of some of that instead of helping it along.

- samantha