Funferal

The Cliff Richards performance copyright extension

The EU commission is proposing to extend copyright terms for performers of music, to match the existing terms for composers. The notion of retroactive extension is problematic (though not unprecedented), but there are some interesting aspects to the proposal:

For session musicians, the record companies will set up a fund reserving at least 20 percent of the income during the extended term to them. For featured artists, original advances may no longer be set off against royalties in the extended term, which means the artist would get all the royalties during the extended term.

The commissioner also intends to propose a “use it or lose it” provision. In the case where a record company is unwilling to re-release a performance during the extended term, the performer can move to another label.

Posted in Corporate media, Intellectual property issues, International law and structures, Media regulation | No Comments »

Contacting RTÉ about medium wave

I’ve discussed the pending elimination of medium wave broadcasts a number of times here. If you’re interested in contacting RTÉ to comment on the decision, their Information Office is the most readily available email address you can use.

 I’ve already contacted RTÉ, and include the text of my email below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Media regulation, Public Service Media, Radio | 1 Comment »

Opposition coalesces against axing of MW by RTÉ

The Éan (Emigrant Advice Network) blog has compiled a list of coverage of RTÉ’s decision to cease broadcasts on Medium Wave. In my own piece I noted that while RTÉ touted the fact that it would continue service on Long Wave:

LW is not present on most domestic receivers at this stage, so it will be a difficult transition for some people. Thus, in a certain sense, the burden is being moved from RTÉ (who were spending large sums maintaining and operating a MW network) to individual listeners. 

I was subsequently contacted Enda O’Kane, who has been campaigning for some time for the adoption of DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale - not Digital Rights Management!) by RTÉ, particularly on the 252 frequency on the Long Wave band, and who we have covered on several occasions here. He pointed out a number of arguments for opposing the RTÉ move, including the following: 

1. Similar to my argument about transferring the burden/cost of accessibility from RTÉ to individual listeners, Enda points to some of the advantages of MW for the elderly, those with limited vision (since the band is less cluttered it’s easier to tune in a specific station), and those travelling (as you don’t need to move up and down the dial as you move from place to place).
2. Northern Irish audiences: “Cutting service also contradicts the sprit of the Good Friday Agreement. Parts of Northern Ireland, including the Falls and Belfast still rely on medium wave. RTE medium wave, and Radio Ulster from Lisnagarvey, are traditional cross border cultural links enjoyed by all. They serve all ages and social groups.”
3. Emigrant communities: “For the past number of years, RTE has been running its long and medium wave transmitters on close to half their allocated power, thus reducing its service to Northern Ireland, the UK and beyond, contrary to custom and practice, as well as the spirit of the recent Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2006, which specifically provided for the broadcast of radio to our emigrant communities.”
4. Cutting Medium Wave before the Long Wave signal is transitioned to digital is premature, will cost listeners unnecessarily, and undercuts the transition to DRM or other digital radio formats. Noting that RTÉ have installed and tested a DRM transmitter on the 252kHz waveband, but not yet transitioned to the digital standard he argues that
   • “In cutting off the medium wave transmission prematurely, RTE have abandoned a principle which served then well over many years: when a new technical standard is being introduced, it’s vital to maintain the existing one during the transition period to allow the public time to switch over…. The principle has not been pursued here. Medium wave should be recognized as an integral tool in the strategy toward digital radio; and
   • “Those who purchase a longwave radio now will find it obsolete when RTE cuts the existing longwave signal and sends out a digital signal in its place. They will end up having to buy a second radio to continue listening on longwave after this change occurs. For that reason,  RTE must continue with the medium wave service to give an alternative to longwave until a longwave digital signal is sent out.”

 These are important arguments, which deserve consideration and attention. Is RTÉ seeking short-term gains (by shutting off power to the MW transmitters) at the expense of future success of any transition to digital on the long-wave band? Groups like Éan are of course concerned about the immediate impact on “emigrants in Britain and beyond, as well as people in the North” - an important issue in itself - but there are secondary questions about RTÉ’s long-term digital strategy and how they intend to integrate it with their public-service commitments.

Already there are hints that after flirting with DRM they are returning to the - surely clearly obsolete - DAB standard. DAB has attractions for networks seeking to maintain central control and lock out newcomers to broadcasting (due to its reliance on centralized multiplexes rather than distributed transmitters), but I’m very concerned if this is the approach RTÉ is taking to the future of its public service mission. RTÉ has often had a troubled history when it comes to welcoming democratic and participatory approaches to broadcasting and media creation, but one would hope that they would by now be seeing the potential of such approaches. Being central to facilitating active public engagement - over the airwaves and elsewhere - may be the best hope public service broadcasters in Europe have of not being slowly made irrelevant.

Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Digital Audio, Public Service Media | 2 Comments »

Symbolism and rhetoric

Many people pointed last week to Obama’s victory speech in South Carolina, calling it inspiring and uplifting. At first glance I saw it as well executed, but perhaps lacking in substance in areas I would like to have addressed, but as I listened closer, particularly to the latter sections, I became more enamoured with it.There was one part, however, that caught my attention in an unusual way:

I think of that elderly woman who sent me a contribution the other day, a money order for three dollars and one cent, along with a verse of scripture tucked inside the envelope. So don’t tell me change isn’t possible. That woman knows that change is possible. 

Rachel Sklar calls it “an inspiring image” - which is undoubtedly true - and recognizes that it is a clever, well constructed, piece of oratory, drawing on so many sympathetic themes.When I heard it - and again when I heard it a second, and then a third, time - I thought “what book of the Bible has a relevant Chapter 3, Verse 1″? Mentioning that a verse was tucked in with the money order was the kicker, but $3.01 is unusual enough that I suspect symbolism in the very amount. Two questions arise - was Obama aware of the symbolism (and did he intend to telegraph it ‘to those who have ears to hear’); and what exactly is the symbolism.So today I went through an online Bible, looking for verses that might fit. And wow, were there verses. The problem is that so much of the rhetoric could be made to fit, even if in cases it would strain. There are a few verses, however, that stand out: 

•  Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good (Titus)
• Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. (1 Timothy)
• Woe to the city of blood,full of lies,full of plunder,never without victims! (Nahum)
  
• Woe to the city of oppressors,rebellious and defiled! (Zephaniah)
• There is a time for everything,and a season for every activity under heaven: (Ecclesiastes)
• My son, do not forget my teaching,but keep my commands in your heart, (Proverbs)

And this, of course, is but a small selection - I’ve omitted the ends of days references, or oblique references to marriage and offerings. Any of these could well be the verse included - the first two as commendations on the decision to run, the middle two as comments on changes needed in DC, and the last as an admonition to follow a righteous path. If I had to choose, I’d guess it’s probably Ecclesiastes (quoting from ‘to everything there is a season’ asa  complement to Obama’s call for ‘change’ and claim that ‘Yes We Can’) or Timothy (commending Obama for seeking leadership). Of course, if it’s Timothy, one would expect other candidates to get similar donations as, in seeking office, each are doing the same as Obama, and it would be easy to puncture Obama’s rhetoric by showing that to be the case.Thus, I’m going to guess it’s the verse from Ecclesiastes. Just guesswork, of course, and I welcome alternative theories. Also - has anyone seen any other commentary on the bible verse? It is, of course, a minor aspect of the speech, and but a footnote in the race, but I was surprised not to see any commentary myself that even nodded in the direction of the $3.01 being a coded reference.  

Posted in Electoral politics, Political activism, Society and culture | No Comments »

Using Twitter to promote radio shows

I’ve recently started using Twitter for a number of different radio shows I’m involved with. For those who are interested, you can now follow A Critical Ear and Media Matters show updates via Twitter. There’s also my personal Twitter stream, which is somewhat more established (though still rather eclectic in content).

Posted in Meta, Online communication, Radio | No Comments »

Post-ACE resources

On last night’s show I made mention of an online graphic demonstrating the relative wealth of US presidential candidates. That graphic is available at this post with the large version here showing just what the disparities are. While I’m at it, I misremembered some of the details - Obama is ‘only’ at between $2 and $3 million, while Clinton is up over $34 million and Edwards is over $50 million. Richardson is over $6m while Kucinich is somewhere around $200k. On the Republican side, Huckabee’s personal worth is something under $1m, while all the other contenders listed are over $1m - Thompson at $8m, McCain at $40m, Giuliani at over $50m, and Romney at $350m, though this is believed to be a significant under-estimate.

As is noted in the accompanying article, Kucinich is the one with a worth closest to the ‘average’ American, though $200k still puts him well above the median - in 2004 US households had a net worth of just over $100k. I’m not one to attack candidates purely on account of their wealth - as we pointed on during the show, it’s the policies that matter, and criticisms of, for example, Edwards for raising issues of poverty, are cynical and ill-founded. It’s significant, though to note the correlation between wealth and being perceived as a ‘viable’ candidate. Note too that the 2004 CNN figures I reference above show just 6.4m US households with net worth over $1m (excluding primary residence) and around 500k households with net worth over $5m. There are around 100m households in the US (the census’s 2004 estimate was around 107m) which puts Obama firmly in the top 6% of households by wealth (assuming his reported wealth is his household wealth - if not, he’s even more firmly up there). All of the other remaining candidates (now that Kucinich is out) with the exception of Huckabee are firmly in the top half-percent of households by wealth.

Bob also referenced a San Francisco Chronicle article criticizing the court decision allowing the exclusion of Kucinich from the Nevada debate.

Posted in Electoral politics, Radio | No Comments »

A Critical Ear - 24 January, 2008

We’re now posting this evening’s edition of A Critical Ear. It lasts about 90 minutes. Contents:

• Interworld Radio news headlines (3-4 min)
• Interworld Radio feature about healthcare services in Zambia (6 min)
• Discussion of Iran and US foreign policy regarding Iran (30-40 min)
• Gaza - recent developments and context
• Jose Padilla (5-10 min)
• Economic developments in the US - recession or not, policy reactions (interest rates, economic stimulus packages) (10-15 min)
• Kucinich dropping out of presidential race, impact of media (5-10 min)
• notices and events (5 min)

Update: I’ve now posted an edited file which contains only the discussion of Iran and Gaza.

Posted in International Affairs, International law and structures, Political activism, Radio, Society and culture | 2 Comments »

A Critical Ear

I’m in the process of building out resources for the radio show I do on WRFU with Robert Naiman, and have registered a domain - which is currently pointing at this site (funferal.org).

So, for those of you arriving here to learn about the show - we’re still working on the full site. However, for now it’s enough to know that we broadcast at 6pm on Thursdays on WRFU (104.5FM in Urbana, IL) and that we’ll be posting links to show audio here (and on the new site when it’s available).

Posted in Alternative Media, Online communication, Radio | No Comments »

RTÉ to abandon Medium-wave

Reports over the past few days that RTÉ is to drop its medium-wave broadcasts from March. In many senses it’s not surprising, given that FM has been the dominant band in Ireland, particularly since the decision to license local stations (almost) exclusively on FM (and one can look previously to the migration of pirate stations to FM from about 1981 onward). However, the Medium Wave band has some characteristics that make it desirable - such as being received in areas that FM can’t reach.

Now, to be fair, RTÉ will continue to offer service on Long Wave - most people will have missed the fact that RTÉ took over the 252 frequency a number of years ago, and is broadcasting the Radio One service on it - which will cover some of the areas being missed on FM. However, LW is not present on most domestic receivers at this stage, so it will be a difficult transition for some people. Thus, in a certain sense, the burden is being moved from RTÉ (who were spending large sums maintaining and operating a MW network) to individual listeners. As a public service operator, RTÉ have, in general, a responsibility to provide universal service, but whether that responsibility can be accurately given a financial value in calculating public service audits/reports, and where the burden becomes an unreasonable drain, depriving other possible public service activities, is a tricky question.

I wonder if this move will mean, however, that RTÉ will concentrate more investment on LW - which could be good news for Enda O’Kane’s campaign to have them introduce Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) on that band.

(Link thanks to fluffy.)

Posted in Public Service Media, Radio | 9 Comments »

Continued EU attacks on public service broadcasting

The EU continues its slow assault on public service broadcasting (framed as preventing ‘unfair’ subvention that might interfere with commercial media operations) with a new consultation process into state aid and public broadcasting. The consultation runs until 10th March, 2008, and responses can be made online.

Posted in Media regulation, Public Service Media | No Comments »