1/13/2007
PhoneBlogz post by Cao
Cao just recorded a new phoneblog, you can click here or on the player below to listen.
Gary writes here:
We will get back with Gary because this test was successful.
News from Afghanistan expected soon.
Melanie Morgan and the leftist blogger on the attack
A series of events involving a local liberal blogger, a San Francisco conservative radio station and the reaction of two of the larger corporate advertisers in the country — Bank of America and MasterCard — is revealing how slippery freedom of speech has become in the digital age.
The tale of Spocko, a self-described “fifth-tier” blogger who lives in San Francisco, exemplifies how one person with a computer and an Internet hookup can challenge the views of a major media corporation — and what a media corporation will do to stop him.
For the past year, Spocko has been e-mailing advertisers of KSFO-AM with audio clips from its shows and asking sponsors to examine what they’re supporting. Some sponsors have pulled their ads, after hearing clips like one of KSFO’s Lee Rodgers suggesting that a protester be “stomped to death right there. Just stomp their bleeping guts out.”
Now, bloggers and media freedom advocates are concerned about the legal reaction from Disney/ABC-owned KSFO. Shortly before Christmas, an ABC lawyer demanded that Spocko remove audio clips from his blog on the grounds that Spocko’s posting of KSFO content was illegal. Digital freedom advocates counter that the clips constitute fair use and worry that critical voices could be silenced by corporations threatening legal action for violation of copyright law.
“That’s inevitably been the modus operandi of the media companies in these types of situations,” said Ronald Coleman, legal counsel for the Media Bloggers Association, which provides legal support to bloggers. “It doesn’t matter the size of the blogger.”
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Among the clips circulated to advertisers was one of morning show co-host Melanie Morgan saying of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “We’ve got a bull’s-eye painted on her big laughing eyes.” Morgan said she has never called for anybody’s assassination and was speaking merely in political terms, as she is researching Pelosi’s background for a book proposal. “Yes, this is a freedom of speech issue, and this individual is entitled to say what he wants to,” said Morgan. “But he’s trying to take away my livelihood, and I’m not trying to take away his.”
San Francisco Chronicle (source)
San Francisco ISP Shuts Down Website After Disney Complaint
….the ISP, 1&1 Internet, acted after receiving complaints from ABC Radio that the posted material violated the Walt Disney Company’s copyright. However, the operator of the site, who goes by the online name “Spocko,” insisted that the audio postings represented “fair use” and maintained that Disney had acted because KSFO advertisers whom he had contacted, including Netflix, MasterCard, Bank of America, and Visa, have already withdrawn advertising from the station.
Odd, particularly when leftists think it’s okay to sell online merchandise like this:
Kind of a double standard, I think.
Engels: …thus long do Communists and democrats fight side by side, thus long are the interests of the democrats at the same time those of the Communists.
” one would there find no ordered expression of doctrine but a series of aphorisms, anticipations and aspirations”.
This is how Mussolini described early Fascist meetings. Modern-day Leftist agitators too seem more interested in slogans than in any form of rational debate.
January 13th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
“That’s inevitably been the modus operandi of the media companies in these types of situations,” said Ronald Coleman, legal counsel for the Media Bloggers Association, which provides legal support to bloggers. “It doesn’t matter the size of the blogger.”
This is a very good point, one that could have been beneficial for KSFO to talk about, assuming the blog was not singled out. It begs the question whether the perception and the reality are the same.