Michael Powell should resign as chairman of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), says BusinessWeek online.

"Powell's No. 1 policy initiative has been repeatedly rebuked," says Thane Peterson in Why the FCC Needs a New Chief here.

"Over the summer, the House of Representatives voted to roll back his regulatory easement. On Sept. 3, a U.S. Appeals Court in Philadelphia blocked Powell's rule changes. And on Sept. 4, a Senate committee joined the House in moving to halt a key part of Powell's plan, which would raise the market share of TV stations that one company can own from 35% to 45% of U.S. households.

"Powell has generated unprecedented opposition across the political spectrum, from the conservative National Rifle Assn.. to the liberal National Organization for Women. By the FCC's own count, it has received some 2 million calls, faxes, e-mails, and letters opposing the changes. This is failed leadership."

Powell has no plans to resign but if he doesn't, "President Bush should ask for his resignation."

This isn't an antibusiness issue, the BusinessWeek story continues. The problem is Powell himself who at best, has a 'tin ear for public relations' and at worst, he seems to go out of his way to antagonize friend and foe alike.

"For instance, before the FCC passed the media consolidation changes on June 2, he refused to make public the 250-page FCC document that formed the justification for the move. He also held only one public hearing on the media rules changes. Later, he sought to justify that by saying that public hearings, at about $20,000 each, were too expensive.

"Imagine that - major changes in the rules governing media ownership of newspapers, radio, and TV, and the champion of the effort says a public airing of the merits of the case is too expensive. This rings a tad hollow, given that FCC commissioners and staffers accepted $2.8 million in freebie trips over the last eight years from the industry, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan Washington (D.C.) research organization. The favored destination for these "research" forays: Las Vegas. The trips continued at least through mid-June, the center says, though Powell has since promised to end the practice."

One reason for public anger is the shoddiness of the FCC's research, the story says.

"Powell proudly noted in his C-Span appearance that the FCC studied the issues for 20 months and did '12 empirical studies' of media concentration before coming up with its new rules. Trouble is, most of the FCC studies were so poorly designed and inconclusive that they don't illuminate much of anything.

"Just as poorly thought-out is Powell's new 'diversity index.' In an attempt to assuage critics who fear the new rules will squash local news coverage, Powell came up with a scale that purports to measure to measure 'news diversity' in various markets. But an analysis by the Consumers Federation and the Consumer's Union (publisher of Consumer Reports magazine) found it full of 'flawed analytic thinking' and 'riddled with internal contradictions'."

But, adds Thane, populist groundswell apart, as Joseph Turow, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication summed it up:

"Politicians fear that it will give the media even more leverage over them."

Attention hackers:

Would someone pleeeeeeeeeeeeease hack the RIAA site again? That stuff is priceless, man. Except this time replace those cheezy pictures of singers and musicians on the homepage and replace them with what the RIAA really represents which is rich, fat, white men. You can have a picture of a fat-cat in a conservative suit puffing on a huge stogey and laughing at us. Then beside that you can put a picture of Jay-Z looking sad and depressed because he can't afford that hovercraft he's always wanted because his latest album only made him $400,000,000 instead of the $800,000,000 he was counting on. In the last slot you might want to show a picture of a newspaper displaying the prominent headline:

"Congress approves funding for new prison to house rising surge of convicted teen-aged file-swappers!"

I'm boycotting cd's like the good little protester I am, but honestly, I'm not really doing much that I haven't been doing for a couple of years now anyway. Ever since Napster, with the ease and convenience of mp3's and getting only the songs you want, the thought of paying damn-near $20 for a cd with two good songs on it seems arcane. Hey, RIAA, your era of fleecing the American consumer is over. We woke up, and last time I checked you haven't bought yourselves a law that can force us to forget.

The DMCA is unconstitutional on its face and I really hope at least some of these people fight them on this thing.

I'm a lawyer and I'll volunteer my services to anyone who needs them.

Long live music - long suffer the RIAA

Communications? You mean politicians actually communicate with the outside world? Don't be rediculous! That's what spin was invented for! It's a shortened name for "spin the wheel", where every single option is "keep them in the dark, tell them we're in recession, and make us richer. Telling them about oil and music are preferable routes to accomplishing this mission."

Gotta have satire, you do. Especially when, like me, you're not a US citizen, but you're nonetheless hacked off with the RIAA and politics in general (which goes for pretty much anywhere on this planet).

sorry for the ot but....

Peer-to-Peer Trade Group to RIAA Bullies: Come Out and Fight Us If You Want, But Leave the Little Guys Alone !!!

Group Will Reimburse 12-Year-Old's Mom for $2,000 Strong-Armed by Record Industry

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030910/dcw055_1.html

LOL sueemall!!!

join my site for this page sized poster i made that i post around my town

http://groups.msn.com/BOYCOTTTHERIAA

nB: Take off the at the end of the URL. Heaven knows why it's there!

contact isn't working on my machine...sorry i have been cooped up in a depostion all day so im posting

File sharers not changing their tune
RIAA court tactic has limited success

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/10/BU281743.DTL

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/5074227.htm

sueemall rock the hell on we need more legal peeps in this game....oh and by the by im not a lawyer

Fuck the FCC and the RIAA. I say everyone passes there mp3's to trade groups outside the US and let them distribute it.

Lets see those greedy lame ass sluts go after another country for our worthless copyright laws that dont hold even a drop of water out there.

Metallica can F themselves too, greedy sluts, be a crying shame if there tour bus crashed.....

say while teh gov't is at it they should see how mnay of thes big wig bastards owe backed taxes, do\deal drugs or have some sort of illegal action or history.

I mean shit if a 12 year old can go down for dowloading a song, why the fuck not fry the piggies up?


God im fuming, I working on a band project that the cover of the CD will be an anti RIAA logo. F them in there stupid asses.

seraphielx: Don't worry about it, it's happened on other posts too.

I've had a new idea, that we should go posting posters in every single public place, schools, hotels, train stations, heck even charity shop windows. Only this way can we get the message through to the general public.

One last thought, the Flash mobs! If a group of people could be organised to assemble in a record store, or near some RIAA offices, then say pull off jumpers and reveal the boycott-riaa t-shirts, I think that would be a fantastic PR stunt for us, esp if the media were notified. Who's up for this?

News Bulletin!!

I just saw, for the first time, Cary (fishlips) Sherman on John Gibson on Fox news. Although Gibson agreed with the Riaa about downloading being wrong, the thrust of the message was asking Cary if he wasn't worried about being portrayed as the big bad wolf, with mucho references to the 12 year old and the college student who is no longer a college student, thanks to the RIAA. I am sure this will be re-run this evening at 11 or 12 CST. Gibson got a couple of good thrusts at Cary...however, Cary did not appear to be phased at all! And he has dimples, comparable to the a**cheek type. I know, I know, that was not nice.

Finally an article that makes sense. Michael Powell is evil.

I also watched Cary on Fox News. He did a good job! Go Cary. Sue the thieves until they bleed!

News extra, news Extra, read all about it: Sherman to star on the Simpsons as a tramp, repeatedly saying "d'oh!" and wondering if he'll ever get to "supervise" a Britney shoot again...

No, it's not true. Just my poor attempts at o/t humour.

I just read something very interesting...here's the link.

http://www.thespeciousreport.com/2003_newmusicsucks.html

Here's another: http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/7923

This goes along with this post, free speech is rapidly dissappearing. I joined the boycottriaa forums just this past monday. On Monday I spent a few hours posting around 80 fliers in a very highly trafficed localized area that people would see. Today, Weds, 2 days later over 70 of my fliers have dissappeared.

I goto Penn State, apparently the RIAA really has bought this school. This is a sad sad day for freedom and a great day for the RIAA. Settling with the 12 year old girl instead of landing in court, halting the spread of the boycott even further, the NY Times apparently knows what is right from wrong now as the front page article stated file sharing was wrong and parents need to convince thier children of its evils.

America, land of the free... unless you're not giving your money to the RIAA or MPAA

Once again, the misguided mroop throws in his two cents. Look, oop, this isn't a filesharing forum, per se. Our goal is to free the music from the clutches of a trade group that has grown too powerful. Not saying that we want it free of charge, but that we want to be free to choose what to buy & listen to. The Big 5 have years of great music locked up in their vaults that they are unwilling to sell. Hey, I agree that pressing CDs and distributing them is a large expense (comparatively, it's $0.74 per CD). So why not open up your back catalogs at 25 cents per track to download? Because maybe they would outsell all this current garbage? And while you're at it, get your filthy hands out of radio! Let the DJs play what they want and what their listeners want, not what the Big 5 wants. All the no-talent screechers like Britney and the fake gangsta rappers will have to get real jobs. The musicians with talent will rise to the surface. My God, Simon & Garfunkel broke up 30 years ago. Their music is so powerful that their upcoming tour will easily be the highest grossing of the year. People clamor to hear the good music. If the Big 5 weren't pushing today's crap it wouldn't get a notice at all. So, oop, take your venom to where somebody gives a damn, maybe your own mind, perhaps?

I Agree S. Twisted. As far as hacking Riaa site again, I have an idea (inspired by a Noob hacker that tried to send me a homemade virus (Thank god for Norton Auto protect and Black Ice.)
It was a music video of Britney Spears Slve 4 U [}I'll refer to her as Plastic Spears from now on or BITCHney.} The voice sounded like it was it was guy breathing helium while being repaetedly kicked in the nuts. (It was that high) perhaps when somebody goes to that site that type of music video will play. Along with the site of her breasts exploding and spraying silicone and blood everywhere.

The pay to download thing again...

You know, I balk at visiting sites that just want me to "register" which I think is a total pain in the rump...now having to pay to do this and to do that, including downloading songs? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this came from Napster when they were trying to save themselves. I don't think the pay model will work because, well, because it hasn't. The RIAA rejected Napster's attempts at telling the RIAA how to sell their product...they wanted Napster (and anything and everything like it)gone, dead, finis...they had no intention, and still don't, of having upstarts tell THEM what they're going to sell and at what price...no one is going to infringe on the industry's dollar pie.

Not only that, people here are the type who love music...we own literally THOUSANDS of songs a piece, even before we bought PC (or even CD's for that matter...most of my stuff is analog). That, I think, is the real crux of the problem. If you had ten albums in the house, and never listened to them, none of this would mean jack...

Dear darkened03

WE ARE PENN STATE!

70 filers gone huh? Go to Pollock, grab several reams of paper and print 10000 more. Put the fliers up in high-traffic areas.. Willard, Hammond, Sparks, Hub, Osmond, Thomas, BAB, all of the commons and put them up on designated bulletn boards. Facilities tends to remove fliers on tuesdays, and they definately remove them from no-post areas. Organize a committee to help you out, and also organize a PR stunt during homecoming.

Finally, grab some chalk and start writing on the sidewalks. Remember how successful "Adam" was? Be more successful.

Down with the Spanier, down with RIAA

i'm with ya there, I like finding things not currently available anywhere, like acoustic versions of songs, but I also own about 600 cd's and have another 500 tapes buried somewhere, so it's not like the RIAA haven't gotten a ton of my money (more than they deserve) in the past. But no more, at least not now. Spread the word everywhere you can, even if we can get a large amount of people to stop purchasing cd's until even Christmas it'll send a clear message to the major labels.

Nice, sueemall.

Powell should have been gone a long time ago. Why is he still around?

It's obvious no one has confidence in his leadership. Under him, the FCC sucks. The House voted to oppose his new laws, and a court just stuck them on a back burner. Ha, ha. Too bad Powell thinks for no one except a few friends at the big media companies.

DOWN with the RIAA. I hope they have the worst holiday season ever for record sales.

mroop, lets meet somewhere in the chihuahuan desert and see how tough you really are, or if your alligator mouth is just overloading your hummingbird ass.

so, mroop...I take it, suing 12 year olds and grandfathers are right up your alley.

mroop,

You are despicable. You can kiss my ass.

All hail mroop! king of the losers!