Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations • Hacker News Board

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#61

Post by nullc » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #60

nullc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A bigger legal problem is the copyright question. _Unfortunately_, statutory licensing means that you can license most commercial music for your station for a couple hundred per year ( https://www.prometheusradio.org/music-licensing-noncommercia... ). Considering the investment of time that goes into scheduling, promoting, etc. a successful station the licensing costs aren't that big a deal. I say unfortunately bec…

Right, but those rates don't apply to internet streaming. This proposed new service isn't exactly internet-based, but it isn't an FCC-licensed commercial radio station either, and it's digital and packet switched; you can bet your left ovary that sooner or later it would face music industry mafiosi arguing in court that it should have to pay the internet streaming radio rates, not the ones KVIL pays.

Follow the link and look midway through it, statutory licensing also applies to non-interactive internet streaming too-- though the rules are somewhat different.

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#62

Post by ColanR » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 4:35 AM UTC

magduf wrote: post #46

Chlorus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's gotten really unreliable in many places these days because the infrastructure is decaying and companies are spending the absolute minimum to keep it going, but they're milking it for profit from all the dinosaurs who refuse to give it up. Citation? I haven't heard anything about this and I work closely with telecom. > and is getting older and easier to manipulate into buying stuff. You know, Slashdot was never…

>Citation? I haven't heard anything about this and I work closely with telecom. It's what I've seen with some of my family that lives in smaller towns or rural areas. Some crappy company like CenturyLink buys up the infrastructure and then just lets it rot, but charges huge prices for phone service, higher than cellular service. Then service quality is poor and outages are common. >You know, Slashdot was never quite…

> How on earth is it "toxic" to state a fact? Older people are generally easier to manipulate...

That's not true.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3525123/Generation-...

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#63

Post by fortran77 » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 4:58 AM UTC

Chlorus wrote: post #45

magduf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would expect that radio stations in general were suffering from people switching to other forms of media. If that's the case, would it perhaps drive the licensing price down? Actually, I kinda doubt it. I think radio is a lot like landline telephones: it's "dying", but it's taking a long time because there's a bunch of dinosaurs who still use it and won't quit until they're dead. (Disclaimer: I listen to radio in…

> it's gotten really unreliable in many places these days because the infrastructure is decaying and companies are spending the absolute minimum to keep it going, but they're milking it for profit from all the dinosaurs who refuse to give it up. Citation? I haven't heard anything about this and I work closely with telecom. > and is getting older and easier to manipulate into buying stuff. You know, Slashdot was never…

> Disclaimer: I listen to radio in my car sometimes, but only NPR, not anything commercial.

He doesn't even listen to radio! It's beneath him!

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#64

Post by at_a_remove » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 5:07 AM UTC

thedoir wrote: post #57

at_a_remove wrote: post #21

The Great Translator Invasion of 2003 created a situation where the portions of the band where community radio, run by and for residents ( local information, for local people), was instead occupied by "translators," replicating signals from religious broadcast networks like Moody. Between that and NPR behaving as if they were about to be blasted off the air by third adjacent-channel interference from tiny station wit…

What happened in 2003 and where can I learn more about the translator situation? It doesn't seem to be limited to religious programming. For example, KUSC, a non-profit classical station, has 4 translators. I don't understand why. NPR affiliate KCRW has 5 translators.

"A 2003 FCC licensing window for new translator applications resulted in over 13,000 applications, most from religious broadcasters. Due to the number of license applications, LPFM advocates called it the Great Translator Invasion."

It isn't limited to religious programming but it the major component.

Translators are really just re-broadcast mechanisms, and because of the various oversights in the regulations, the original signal does not have to be over the air or local, so networks can spawn off in parts of the band that were, in the spirit of things, intended for programming created by the same people the LPFM signal could reach: those in the nearby area.

There's a long, long history of lower power stations and tons of inside baseball on the topic. Unfortunately, removing market caps in the nineties caused a wave of consolidation in the radio industry that swallowed up many local stations with higher power. The Great Translator Invasion similarly purged the local stations with lower power.

Despite that consolidation and what you would think would be efficiencies of scale at the cost of programming from locals, many of the media companies that "borged up" the little guys have gone bankrupt. I won't pretend to know too much about all of this, I can only say that due to my contacts in the radio industry I have had multiple points of input giving me an overall negative opinion of how this has worked out over the years.

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#65

Post by colejohnson66 » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 5:11 AM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #55

magduf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would expect that radio stations in general were suffering from people switching to other forms of media. If that's the case, would it perhaps drive the licensing price down? Actually, I kinda doubt it. I think radio is a lot like landline telephones: it's "dying", but it's taking a long time because there's a bunch of dinosaurs who still use it and won't quit until they're dead. (Disclaimer: I listen to radio in…

> I think radio is a lot like landline telephones: it's "dying", but it's taking a long time because there's a bunch of dinosaurs who still use it and won't quit until they're dead. I would consider actively switching if there were an alternative that was strictly better. Something with the quality of at least HD radio and the reliability and accessibility of FM radio, for instance.

SiriusXM?

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#66

Post by jdsully » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #40

tjohns wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that plan is that broadcast radio does not let two stations (in the same general area) share the same frequency, period. So you need to have frequency coordination. Compare with the ISM bands, like 2.4 GHz, where you can use complex digital signaling (e.g. CDMA/TDMA combined with robust error correction and detection) to effectively timeshare the frequency. The only reason this works well is because…

I was aware of that when I wrote my comment. Also the 2.4GHz has a lower inherent range due to higher frequency and water absorption. I just don't foresee a huge interest in amateur stations being a problem that couldn't be sorted out informally. So Timmy decides to stomp on the broadcast of Tommy a few doors down - they'll figure it out. It certainly can't be worse than the current situation where Tommy isn't broadc…

In this situation 1+1=0. If Timmy and Tommy go to war the frequency is effectively useless. Neither will be heard without severe interference.

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#67

Post by dylan604 » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

magduf wrote: post #43

jfengel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect that radio stations in general were suffering from people switching to other forms of media. If that's the case, would it perhaps drive the licensing price down? And if the licenses could be affordable, perhaps it would be possible to raise funds for people to do low power radio in that space? I don't know if it would be legal to do it that way, but if somebody presented the FCC with a plan (including…

>I would expect that radio stations in general were suffering from people switching to other forms of media. If that's the case, would it perhaps drive the licensing price down? Actually, I kinda doubt it. I think radio is a lot like landline telephones: it's "dying", but it's taking a long time because there's a bunch of dinosaurs who still use it and won't quit until they're dead. (Disclaimer: I listen to radio in…

> I think radio is a lot like landline telephones: it's "dying", but it's taking a long time because... there's a small number of corporate owners owning the majority of stations. FTFY

When the same corporate owner controls multiple radio stations in the same market, the listening experience sucks. I've recently started spending time with someone that listens to the local hip-hop stations (there are 2). They play the same 5 songs all day long. They go to commercial at the same time. They have the exact same format where each station has the same concept show at the same time. Just pick the on-air personalities you like better. I would be totally expect to find the same style station from the same owners in other cities would follow the exact same formula.

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#68

Post by superkuh » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 6:03 AM UTC

Multicomp wrote: post #54

If we could get cognitive radio going over SDRs, mesh networks using automatic frequency hops to the nearest radio whitespace would become drop-dead easy. From there, the FCC could issue regulations to the tune of 'use any non-military band for up to X seconds, provided you confirm you are not interfering with any other traffic every Y milliseconds' and the entire licensing scheme of "radio bandwidth is a finite good…

The lack of technologies like cognitive radio aren't preventing mesh networks. If you're talking the useful bands for data transmission (ie, VHF and up but mostly very up) then the only thing that matters is height above terrain. Unfortunately except for exceptional situations (coastal mountains or megacity roofs) that height and getting power up there costs a lot of money. That's why neighborhood and city mesh networks don't work. And it's why cell networks do.

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#69

Post by leoh » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 6:34 AM UTC

moftz wrote: post #50

leoh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine, if you will, that this law was applied to Facebook, Twitter, etc. That you could only see content produced within some number of miles. Without Having so much reach, I wonder if we could devise a system that returns to amplifying local voices and creating community as opposed to louder, problematic voices from afar.

Ideas would spread the exact same way. Most people follow their friends and relatives. Most of those people usually live near you. It wouldn't take much for ideas to spread on a sort of mesh network of these interconnected groups.

Yeah. I mean this more as a thought experiment as it's not even really feasible technically (how would you ensure someone is where they said they were).

Re: Pirate Act: what the law says and how it threatens pirate radio stations

#70

Post by diffeomorphism » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

ColanR wrote: post #62

magduf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Citation? I haven't heard anything about this and I work closely with telecom. It's what I've seen with some of my family that lives in smaller towns or rural areas. Some crappy company like CenturyLink buys up the infrastructure and then just lets it rot, but charges huge prices for phone service, higher than cellular service. Then service quality is poor and outages are common. >You know, Slashdot was never quite…

> How on earth is it "toxic" to state a fact? Older people are generally easier to manipulate... That's not true. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3525123/Generation-...

> That's ... true.

Partial citations can be very misleading...