As the current session of the New York State Assembly winds down, Assemblyman George Latimer is hoping to make progress with a bill he has been pushing for several years.
Following similar legislation in Florida and New Jersey, Latimer's bill would make operating a pirate radio station in New York state a felony carrying a fine of no less than $10,000. The New York State Senate is considering a similar proposal.
"One of the problems I have is trying to get people to understand that it's a real problem," says Latimer, who represents several Westchester communities.
Commercial operators, who pay fees to the government and recording artists and have gone through the hoops of obtaining licenses, complain that pirates flout the rules, interrupt their signals and, in some cases, bleed ad dollars from their markets. There have also been claims that the illicit broadcasts can interfere with airplane communications.
"The idea is not that you want to lock people up and rack up penalties," Latimer says of the proposed law. "You want the penalty to be significant enough that it deters the action."
Read more:
http://www.thedeal.com/magazine/ID/039715/2011/talk-like-a-pirate.php
(Note: If you live in New York, or maybe even if you don't, drop this guy's office a line-- and tell him to STFU! ~J.Poet)
The Crystal Ship or 'TCS' is a former North American shortwave pirate radio station, founded in 1982, reactivated in 2004, betrayed and busted in 2011. Now known as the TCS Shortwave Relay Network, with shows broadcast by other pirate radio operators. 'The Poet' and 'The Radical' program left-leaning political opinion, and specialize in music from the '60s, '70s and '80s.
June 23, 2011
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Another example of the corporate weasels using their paid spokespeople (i.e. legislators) to deny access to the public airwaves to the common person.
ReplyDeleteAgain, the legislators do not worry about the concentration of media power into fewer and fewer hands. Instead, they would rather punish those who see the use of pirate radio as the last true bastion of free speech and collect their campaign donations/blood money to keep their cushy jobs.