FCC vs decentralization

Thomas Shaddack shaddack at ns.arachne.cz
Fri Feb 13 07:36:56 PST 2004


Wondering a little.

FCC recently mandated fees for Internet radio "broadcasters", based on the
number of listeners. However, there are emergent technologies for P2P
broadcasting, where some of the clients act as broadcasters themselves,
"retranslating" the stream. This way it may not be technically possible
for the broadcaster itself to know the number of listeners -> impossible
to assess the fees -> impossible to getting reliably proved the number of
listeners to. What can happen then?

Similar with FCC decency rules they recently tightened after the
"Superbowl Boob Incident". How can the FCC execute their jurisdiction over
a distributed struture, where there is no official registered owner of the
station? Can they go after the volunteering DJs, or after the listeners?

How would look a good, decentralized structure for allowing pseudonymous
IP stream "broadcast" with minimal resources, the ultimate Internet Pirate
Radio station?





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