[00:00.000 --> 00:02.460]  Welcome to day two of H2K2.
[00:03.680 --> 00:10.660]  I'm sure there's a lot of people right now clutching their heads and trying to close out the darkness in the rooms because they were up till 6 a.m. buggin'.
[00:11.940 --> 00:17.420]  But people are sure to flow in all day.
[00:17.760 --> 00:21.340]  The name of this panel is The Ins and Outs of Webcasting.
[00:22.040 --> 00:34.840]  And to my left we have Linnea Diaz-Hagan, who is with NYC Indymedia, as well as Tariq Karula, who's with NYC Indymedia, and I believe the third panelist who's on his way is with NYC Indymedia.
[00:35.460 --> 00:42.540]  I will let them give a description of what Indymedia is, and then we'll launch into the ins and outs of webcasting.
[00:44.840 --> 00:45.260]  Thanks.
[00:46.120 --> 00:46.540]  Hi.
[00:46.800 --> 00:52.800]  I think most of you, if you've come in and registered, you've seen the Independent, the newspaper that they're handing out at the front desk.
[00:52.960 --> 00:54.220]  Everybody, I think, can hear me?
[00:54.520 --> 00:55.940]  I think I'm chewing on the mic well enough.
[00:57.440 --> 01:00.820]  The Independent is the newspaper of the New York City Independent Media Center.
[01:01.140 --> 01:07.160]  Indymedia is essentially a network of about 80 or so, I think?
[01:07.480 --> 01:08.780]  Actually, close to 100.
[01:09.020 --> 01:13.860]  Close to 100 media outlets throughout the United States and elsewhere within the world.
[01:14.560 --> 01:30.180]  And it's basically an organization that is structured on anarchist principles, consensus-based decision making, and is primarily unified in that people believe that if you are you are the media.
[01:30.360 --> 01:30.480]  You are the media.
[01:30.480 --> 01:33.960]  Every individual creates their own media by participating and making it themselves.
[01:35.280 --> 01:37.520]  So... Sorry.
[01:37.760 --> 01:41.200]  I just noticed our person here, Kevin, is on his way up now, which is great.
[01:41.940 --> 01:45.440]  So essentially, that'll just give you a little idea of where we're coming from.
[01:46.020 --> 02:00.120]  We have a webcast that has been going on for about two years now, and while we'll talk about the technical aspects of the ins and outs of webcasting, we definitely would like to talk a little bit about using webcasting as an alternative community communication tool.
[02:02.160 --> 02:13.340]  Thinking of it in a different way from the way people deal with radio broadcasting, and I think, to be honest, our own personal agenda and why it is that we're drawn to webcasting as a medium for activism.
[02:15.980 --> 02:27.000]  So, we're now joined by Kevin Fritchard, who helped start the webcast sound collective with me two years ago at the Independent Media Center.
[02:28.400 --> 02:29.160]  Welcome, Kevin.
[02:30.200 --> 02:30.240]  Welcome, Kevin.
[02:30.240 --> 02:30.660]  Hey, everybody.
[02:31.140 --> 02:31.580]  Welcome.
[02:32.100 --> 02:32.860]  It's an early morning.
[02:35.480 --> 02:36.040]  Let's see.
[02:36.100 --> 02:53.200]  We didn't have a chance to discuss what we were going to talk about for our panel, so why don't I give you a brief overview of how we started here in New York, and then we can get into some of the philosophical issues that Linnea discussed and the technical issues which Kevin can discuss with you.
[02:55.600 --> 03:01.240]  The Independent Media Center started in 1999 around the Seattle protests.
[03:02.020 --> 03:07.600]  It was the biggest convergence for what was termed at the time the anti-globalization movement.
[03:08.780 --> 03:22.480]  Shortly after that, well, I guess it started primarily to tell the story of what was happening on the streets that wasn't being covered in mainstream media like CNN and the New York Times, for instance.
[03:22.480 --> 03:33.920]  So it came really out of... it grew out of necessity and took advantage of the internet and the web to sort of tell the story of what was happening out there.
[03:34.400 --> 03:43.400]  Pretty much committed to the idea of the democratization of media, meaning that we're all media makers instead of passive consumers of media.
[03:44.060 --> 03:50.720]  So shortly after Seattle, independent media centers sort of started sprouting up all over the place.
[03:51.140 --> 04:03.240]  As Linnea mentioned, there's close to a hundred now worldwide in places as far-reaching as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Palestine, Jerusalem.
[04:04.820 --> 04:05.560]  Where else?
[04:05.620 --> 04:06.060]  Any in Asia?
[04:06.400 --> 04:06.600]  Chiapas.
[04:06.600 --> 04:08.280]  We have one... there's one in India.
[04:09.980 --> 04:10.380]  Chiapas.
[04:10.560 --> 04:11.660]  There's a number in the Americas.
[04:11.860 --> 04:14.920]  Obviously, there's a lot here in the States.
[04:15.860 --> 04:19.280]  I guess New York is one of the... one of the bigger ones?
[04:20.060 --> 04:21.880]  Does that sound... do you think so?
[04:22.060 --> 04:26.900]  Perhaps one of the more active ones in terms of, you know, all the different media groups.
[04:27.040 --> 04:30.520]  We produce a monthly newspaper in addition to the regular webcasts.
[04:31.220 --> 04:36.880]  Again, as Linnea mentioned, in which you probably saw a registration, pick up a copy, and you'll sort of see where we're coming from.
[04:38.380 --> 04:50.220]  The site itself is sort of organized around the idea of open publishing, meaning that anybody can post an article to the site itself, and there's open commentary for all the publishing on the site, too.
[04:50.500 --> 04:55.240]  So, as I said, we started in about August of 2000 here in New York.
[04:55.520 --> 04:57.160]  That was before we had a space.
[04:57.500 --> 05:11.860]  And in September of 2000, or I guess right at the end of August of 2000, Emmanuel Goldstein, who some of you may or may not know, who helped organize this conference, was nice enough to donate some space to us here in New York.
[05:12.180 --> 05:17.720]  So, after we had free space, for those of you that aren't from New York, space here in New York is a premium.
[05:18.380 --> 05:30.020]  And it would actually be impossible to do what we do without the donated space, seeing as how we're a volunteer-run organization, and we all give our time freely.
[05:31.060 --> 05:36.340]  So, I guess in September, we sort of started going full blast.
[05:37.480 --> 05:45.960]  Around that time, there was the S8 Millennium, the September 8th Millennium protests around BUN.
[05:47.040 --> 05:53.370]  And that was like our first sort of experience with webcasting, and we didn't know what the hell we were doing.
[05:53.570 --> 05:56.370]  I think at that time, we were using Shoutcast, right?
[05:58.710 --> 06:01.790]  Shoutcast and a lot of free bandwidth.
[06:02.390 --> 06:04.490]  Right, free bandwidth offered through Loud Eye.
[06:04.970 --> 06:08.390]  It was an interesting experience because we didn't know who we were reaching.
[06:08.710 --> 06:10.930]  That's the interesting thing, is you don't have a...
[06:10.930 --> 06:16.310]  Unlike broadcast radio, there's no defined radius, and we started receiving emails from all over the world.
[06:16.930 --> 06:21.350]  People were telling us that they were relaying our broadcast in other countries.
[06:21.350 --> 06:22.430]  It was pretty exciting.
[06:23.710 --> 06:28.270]  Yeah, I mean, we were just sort of making it up as we went, and two years later, we're still doing the same thing.
[06:28.510 --> 06:36.910]  So, I don't think any of us on the panel here, aside from Laszlo, has experience in radio coming to what we did.
[06:37.670 --> 06:49.510]  I come from a background in interactive media and web technology, and I got into radio because of my interest in the internet and interactive communications.
[06:51.070 --> 06:51.510]  So...
[06:51.510 --> 06:53.210]  How did you guys come to the indie media?
[06:58.290 --> 06:59.170]  Well, I...
[06:59.170 --> 07:00.950]  Actually, it was through radio.
[07:01.350 --> 07:08.910]  I saw a lot of interesting things happening at the end of 1999, or heard a lot of interesting things through the radio.
[07:08.910 --> 07:14.610]  I was really intrigued with what was going on in Seattle, and I was hearing about this thing called indie media.
[07:14.610 --> 07:25.370]  And I was pretty excited by it because it seemed to me that there was some sort of an insurrection going on on the streets, and it was being covered online through the internet.
[07:25.650 --> 07:30.630]  And this was very exciting because, you know, as we all know, the internet has this, you know, this...
[07:30.630 --> 07:39.230]  It's always had this great promise of, you know, open technology, you know, easy access to...
[07:41.940 --> 07:43.100]  Is there an echo in here?
[07:44.740 --> 07:45.180]  And...
[07:45.180 --> 08:02.960]  So I was hearing about indie media through my local radio station, WBAI, and I thought, this is really exciting, and I want to get involved in it because I think it's important for, you know, ordinary people to hear about what's happening, you know, on the streets that the mainstream media isn't presenting.
[08:03.200 --> 08:15.460]  And I was hearing on the radio these really great things, and at the same time, over on CNN, they would just have, like, a close, tight shot of a few, you know, rowdy protesters, or what they call rowdy protesters.
[08:15.660 --> 08:17.380]  And I thought, this is ridiculous.
[08:17.380 --> 08:18.640]  This is not what I'm hearing.
[08:18.780 --> 08:20.440]  They're presenting this highly edited view.
[08:20.620 --> 08:22.380]  It really enraged me, and it really...
[08:22.380 --> 08:27.580]  That really propelled me to want to get involved and to, you know, and to come and do what I can.
[08:27.740 --> 08:34.620]  And I have a background in audio, you know, recording and engineering and that sort of thing.
[08:34.620 --> 08:36.180]  So I thought, you know, I'll just go...
[08:36.180 --> 08:40.780]  I'll just show up in Philadelphia for the Republic Convention and see what kind of help they need.
[08:40.960 --> 08:44.640]  And it turns out they needed help in the webcasting department.
[08:44.960 --> 08:46.760]  And, you know, I got involved there.
[08:46.900 --> 08:51.500]  And I see some of the people from the Philadelphia Independent Media Center here in the audience.
[08:51.740 --> 08:54.820]  And they were there when I got started.
[08:54.820 --> 08:58.100]  So it's been really exciting.
[08:58.100 --> 09:02.080]  It's a great, you know, potentially democratizing medium.
[09:02.320 --> 09:07.720]  There is the digital divide, which is a problem, as we...
[09:07.720 --> 09:20.960]  You know, as everybody knows, that, you know, it costs as much to receive the signal, almost as much to receive the signal as it does to send the signal, at least in terms of the equipment that generates your so-called, you know, web radio broadcast.
[09:21.480 --> 09:22.980]  And that's a bit of a problem.
[09:23.120 --> 09:24.560]  But I think that's going to change over time.
[09:26.120 --> 09:30.900]  I guess going along on the same lines of how it is that I ended up involved in this webcast.
[09:31.400 --> 09:37.340]  I actually have been involved with the Independent Media Center in New York since the Republican National Convention as well.
[09:37.440 --> 09:42.860]  I went down there and checked out their space and realized what was going on there and came back to New York and started working with them.
[09:43.280 --> 09:56.460]  And my inclination at first was really, I was really involved in outreach, which sounds a little bit like missionary work, but primarily interested in getting as many different kinds of people involved in the IMC.
[09:56.920 --> 10:00.760]  It's really an environment where DIY predominates.
[10:00.920 --> 10:13.720]  People who are the most comfortable with themselves, the most aggressive, the most willing to kind of look at a project and just say, sure, I'll do whatever I can and go for it, are the people who flourish in an environment that is A, all volunteer run,
[10:13.720 --> 10:21.760]  and B, based on how much work you can get done collaboratively with very, very little resources.
[10:22.160 --> 10:35.800]  So it was kind of important to me to figure out how do you bring people into this fold who are and may not feel initially extremely comfortable jumping into this environment, but also without hand-holding.
[10:36.360 --> 10:49.360]  Because I don't think that you can have a genuinely democratic environment that is representative at all if you don't find some way to deal with people who don't feel like the tools are theirs already and under their command.
[10:49.680 --> 10:57.540]  It's just a simple process of helping people feel empowered, however trite that word might be.
[10:58.380 --> 11:05.020]  So I got involved with the outreach working group and was working with them for a while, but kind of felt that I was floating without a particular working group.
[11:05.020 --> 11:12.940]  The New York City Independent Media Center, as most of them, as most of the Independent Media Centers in the States, has a number of different working groups.
[11:13.080 --> 11:23.180]  There's video, tech, audio, in our case we call it the sound collective, print, and then various ones to keep the organization running.
[11:24.260 --> 11:30.480]  And I was trying to figure out what working group can I work with that is going to help people feel comfortable.
[11:31.920 --> 11:40.780]  And the print team, which is extremely consistent and does great work, they have a newspaper every single week, ultimately that's a medium that people who most feel...
[11:40.780 --> 11:45.160]  They have workshops that encourage people to write, but it's a one-way medium.
[11:46.080 --> 11:51.540]  People write, and you read it, and it goes out that way, despite the fact that it is open and many people can come in and participate.
[11:51.920 --> 12:04.840]  And I felt it was really important to kind of get back to something about democracy, democracy being that people who are speaking, that's part of democracy, having people involve themselves, that the community actually can speak for itself.
[12:07.020 --> 12:21.120]  And I think that radio or webcasting or an environment where people can use their voices is one of the few ways that people can feel comfortable coming into a space and working with a tool that they use every single day to say, this is what I'm about,
[12:21.240 --> 12:22.200]  this is what's going on.
[12:22.940 --> 12:28.540]  And it's also pretty immediate when you have something going on in the street where you can just record something and then play it.
[12:29.220 --> 12:42.440]  And if you'll humor me, I'd like to read a quote from Berthold Brecht, just to make the point about the potential of webcasting, not necessarily internet radio, but I'll just read this.
[12:44.100 --> 12:53.100]  Radio could be the most wonderful public communication system imaginable if it were capable not only of transmitting, but of receiving, of making the listener not only hear, but also speak.
[12:53.540 --> 12:55.220]  And this is written in 1932.
[12:55.800 --> 13:03.720]  Berthold Brecht had written a number of essays on radio and film and was specifically seeing how radio was quickly becoming a tool of propaganda.
[13:04.320 --> 13:12.380]  And quickly, despite the fact that it had the potential to be a two-way medium, becoming one-way distribution and not about interaction.
[13:12.380 --> 13:14.600]  And I think we're kind of at a similar point.
[13:14.980 --> 13:23.380]  Not quite the same, because the molecular structure of the internet makes it possible for many different people to kind of look for their own voice.
[13:23.400 --> 13:29.440]  So I don't think we're at a point where we're going to have mass distribution where everybody is listening to the same filter material.
[13:29.440 --> 13:48.860]  But with the Recording Industry Association of America, the latest copyright rules that they're bringing down on people who are doing webcasting, and just the various hurdles that people have to get over on a personal level, not assuming that webcasting should be like radio broadcasting.
[13:49.080 --> 13:54.000]  How do we undo the idea that it should somehow mimic a form that we've heard all of our lives?
[13:54.000 --> 14:08.840]  I think this is the process that people, I hope, can go through to use webcasting to really become an interactive and two-way communication system.
[14:09.700 --> 14:19.320]  I think Linnea brings up a couple good points about the differences between what we think of as standard radio and what webcasting is.
[14:20.120 --> 14:29.260]  You know, a standard radio signal is a broadcast signal that reaches as many people as possible, and as she said, is a one-way medium.
[14:30.120 --> 14:31.460]  Webcasting is much different.
[14:31.560 --> 14:35.480]  If somebody's listening to our stream, they've actually had to go through a lot of work to listen to us.
[14:35.480 --> 14:39.780]  So it's a very active choice as opposed to a passive choice on the listener's part.
[14:41.020 --> 14:47.560]  We've also tried to take advantage of internet technologies or protocols during our show.
[14:47.560 --> 14:57.060]  So, for instance, we have a live chat room during the show, and it enables us to be in constant contact with our listeners all at once.
[14:57.180 --> 15:06.340]  We're all in the same sort of virtual room trading ideas about what to ask the guest or what's coming up next.
[15:06.540 --> 15:11.160]  So some of these ideas are somewhat different from the standard paradigm of radio.
[15:12.400 --> 15:17.220]  And I think the second point that she made was that we're not necessarily trying to be broadcasters.
[15:17.860 --> 15:22.940]  While, of course, we'd like to reach as many people as possible, we see this...
[15:22.940 --> 15:28.240]  And again, this is somewhat around these sort of founding principles of the IMC, of democratization.
[15:28.240 --> 15:39.700]  We see this as just one point in many, that what we're trying to do is open up a conversation where we're not the only people speaking, but we're empowering everyone to speak.
[15:39.940 --> 15:53.240]  And there's a cacophony, a sort of chaotic cacophony of conversation going on, instead of a hierarchical one-point broadcasting to everyone as listeners passively don't participate.
[15:54.020 --> 15:57.940]  To his point, a couple of years ago at this conference, J.L.
[15:57.940 --> 15:58.040]  B.
[15:58.100 --> 16:01.640]  Offer said, we should become the media.
[16:02.100 --> 16:04.540]  And I've thought about that a lot over the last couple of years.
[16:04.680 --> 16:08.960]  I've been working in commercial radio since the early 90s.
[16:09.160 --> 16:16.260]  And actually, in 95, started at a station where we were doing some of the first webcasting.
[16:18.260 --> 16:22.020]  And it's interesting to see how it's come along.
[16:23.620 --> 16:31.120]  As you probably know, some recent stuff has gone down that has basically put a lot of webcasters out of business.
[16:31.600 --> 16:47.320]  If you play music on your website now, it's potentially a situation where it could cost you $50,000, $100,000, because you're supposed to keep track of what songs are being played and how many people are listening.
[16:47.500 --> 16:52.680]  And they've kind of, like, run it very much out of existence.
[16:53.760 --> 17:04.720]  I do a nationally syndicated radio feature called The Technophile that's a short-form technology program that's on about 75 commercial radio stations nationwide as well as XM satellite radio.
[17:06.200 --> 17:19.320]  But I was also on some web-only radio sites that, as soon as this stuff went down, contacted me and said, we're closing shop, we're done.
[17:20.140 --> 17:23.840]  And it was really weird to see and unfortunate.
[17:26.560 --> 17:28.980]  Because webcasting had a lot of promise.
[17:28.980 --> 17:36.420]  And I think it does have a lot of promise when it comes to voice and news and indie media and activism and so forth.
[17:37.720 --> 17:42.140]  Unfortunately, one of the reasons that people listen to the radio is music.
[17:42.580 --> 17:47.220]  And that is quickly getting killed.
[17:47.220 --> 18:02.240]  One thing I will say, just from being a radio journalist, about becoming the media, if you... and technology has come along such that mini-disc, MP3, video recording devices are inexpensive.
[18:02.980 --> 18:09.620]  And people are recording things like, I don't know, the beating that occurred recently by the police.
[18:10.180 --> 18:17.840]  Because when this kind of stuff gets posted to the web, as they were saying, it's not all that infrequent for the normal press to pick it up.
[18:18.000 --> 18:33.180]  On many occasions, I have come across stuff on the web that I've pulled directly off and pulled into my studio system and edited down and talked about it and put it out over commercial radio.
[18:35.860 --> 18:40.300]  So, when it comes to webcasting and becoming the media, how do you do that?
[18:40.500 --> 18:42.860]  Well, record, write, post.
[18:44.160 --> 19:03.440]  I saw some interesting stuff about a lawsuit that was being filed alleging that Ashcroft and some people in the Justice Department were actually buying databases from the two big companies that collect data from grocery store cards and things like that.
[19:05.000 --> 19:06.240]  What data were they collecting?
[19:06.760 --> 19:08.120]  What were they doing with it?
[19:08.280 --> 19:08.980]  Well, they wouldn't say.
[19:09.180 --> 19:10.320]  So, this lawsuit was filed.
[19:10.560 --> 19:14.480]  I thought it was a very interesting story and I really wasn't seeing anything about it.
[19:14.580 --> 19:20.500]  So, I wrote up a quick three, four hundred word piece and started emailing it to editors at magazines.
[19:20.700 --> 19:26.380]  Just going to their websites, finding editor at Insert Magazine here and just emailing it.
[19:26.840 --> 19:28.720]  And they get it and they're like, wow, this is kind of interesting.
[19:28.720 --> 19:31.480]  And it got published in a commercial magazine.
[19:31.700 --> 19:32.840]  That's how you become the media.
[19:33.020 --> 19:36.680]  If you see something interesting or something that you're interested in, write it up.
[19:36.800 --> 19:40.320]  I mean, from... I've only been writing for magazines for the last couple of years.
[19:40.320 --> 19:42.880]  I now write for Playboy magazine every month.
[19:44.280 --> 19:51.020]  Is that these guys are hungry for interesting content and people in this room have interesting content.
[19:51.020 --> 19:55.140]  You just need to make those commercial publications aware of it.
[19:55.600 --> 20:02.020]  Because otherwise, they're going to just keep taking the PR, the press releases, and the shit that they get from the press junkets.
[20:03.380 --> 20:07.120]  When PR people go party them and basically hand them a story to print.
[20:08.180 --> 20:28.160]  I think just to expand on the RIAA thing, a lot of webcasters, but one of the things about webcasters is, well, in a particular given metropolitan area like New York, you might have 50 or 60 or 70 different radio stations between AM and FM.
[20:28.160 --> 20:30.360]  There's a tremendous lack of diversity.
[20:31.000 --> 20:34.260]  But online with webcasting, there are tens of thousands of stations.
[20:34.560 --> 20:39.660]  Anybody with, you know, a minimal amount of bandwidth can set up a webcasting radio station.
[20:39.840 --> 20:48.740]  And what the RIAA is threatening to do is to charge each one of those exorbitant fees per listener in order to play licensed works.
[20:49.180 --> 20:53.460]  And that's threatening to put a lot of people off the internet.
[20:53.580 --> 20:56.200]  And these people don't even run broadcast... they don't even run advertising.
[20:56.200 --> 21:01.140]  They're just out there to put out music that they enjoy and that they hope other people will enjoy.
[21:01.980 --> 21:10.580]  And so, I view this, though, as being a kind of... it's sort of like a heavy-handed negotiation on the part of the RIAA.
[21:10.780 --> 21:14.680]  They're saying, basically, we're going to make this so expensive that we're going to shut you down.
[21:14.880 --> 21:29.680]  And, you know, in one way I view that as being a way of protecting the old boy payola network that goes on between radio station producers and the record company executives and, you know, the people who get the music out there, on behalf of the, you know,
[21:29.880 --> 21:30.800]  the major artists.
[21:31.060 --> 21:42.240]  And so, I think that we have, you know, as web broadcasters, if we play licensed work, which we really don't do at Indymedia, but if you do, you, you know, I think you just have to continue doing it.
[21:42.240 --> 21:44.360]  It's as a form of protest, in fact.
[21:44.760 --> 21:46.520]  Just like people continue to download.
[21:46.720 --> 21:55.840]  It's one way of looking at downloading MP3s through Gnutella or, you know, the different networks, is that, you know, it's also a form of protest in addition to getting the music that you like.
[21:57.560 --> 21:59.100]  It's a way of negotiating.
[21:59.400 --> 22:02.300]  We don't have a whole lot of power in Congress.
[22:02.460 --> 22:07.700]  We don't collectively pool our dollars the way that the record companies do.
[22:07.700 --> 22:16.460]  And so, we don't have, you know, we don't have a big lever in Congress to say, well, we'd like a law passed now that, you know, supports what we do.
[22:16.640 --> 22:18.700]  It's just, it's probably not going to happen that way.
[22:18.700 --> 22:33.640]  But if we continue to use technology to our advantage to make sure that our end of the bargain is at least, you know, recognized, if not exactly, you know, paid off in Congress, then, well, you know, maybe things will start to swing our way.
[22:34.400 --> 22:36.320]  And, you know, that's what I'm hoping for.
[22:36.320 --> 22:43.560]  So, webcasters, just keep broadcasting the same old thing, you know, if it comes to the licensing actually being final.
[22:43.760 --> 22:46.360]  I say just keep doing it and let them come after all of us.
[22:46.540 --> 22:49.620]  Let's tie it up in court for years and let's just keep on doing it.
[22:50.160 --> 22:51.700]  You know, the whole...
[22:56.290 --> 23:04.190]  The tenor of the debate around copyright issues seems to be mis-framed.
[23:04.190 --> 23:15.990]  What usually gets discussed is whether or not we're ripping off artists when we download MP3s or don't pay royalties for playing their music over the web.
[23:16.310 --> 23:28.010]  But in reality, the people that are really ripping off the artists are organizations like the RIAA, the Recording Industry Artists Association.
[23:28.430 --> 23:31.110]  What does the RIAA really protect?
[23:31.350 --> 23:39.590]  It protects the artists' copyrights, but the artists, if you're assigned to a major label, you no longer really hold your copyrights, actually.
[23:39.830 --> 23:46.650]  What you've done is you've sold your copyrights to a few large media conglomerates like Time Warner, for instance.
[23:46.650 --> 23:49.790]  So, what they're trying to do is protect their investment.
[23:50.310 --> 23:58.810]  They want to get as much money as possible for every play and sale of a piece of music.
[23:59.110 --> 24:01.050]  So, Napster and Gnutella scare the hell out of them.
[24:01.450 --> 24:13.470]  Most of you are probably familiar with Courtney Love's tirade a couple years ago against the RIAA, where she essentially said she loves Napster because artists aren't getting money from the labels anyway.
[24:13.470 --> 24:29.390]  And we could sort of go off and discuss how artists get screwed from the labels, but I just wanted to mention that when we say that we're trying to play music royalty-free, we're not really trying to screw over artists.
[24:29.690 --> 24:37.950]  It's that the laws have been designed or sort of misused at this point to no longer represent artists' rights.
[24:38.650 --> 24:48.310]  I wanted to talk a little bit about the history of copyright and web streaming for those of you that don't know.
[24:48.950 --> 24:55.270]  In 1998, Congress passed the DMCA, which is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
[24:55.270 --> 25:06.650]  And again, this is legislation that's primarily addressing the needs of industry and not of artists.
[25:07.950 --> 25:20.550]  Traditionally, over-air radio broadcast has paid a royalty of 3% to artists whose music they're playing.
[25:20.550 --> 25:23.690]  And that gets paid out through ASCAP and BMI.
[25:24.910 --> 25:25.510]  Songwriters.
[25:27.090 --> 25:29.070]  The composers.
[25:29.670 --> 25:30.110]  Okay.
[25:31.130 --> 25:33.190]  And correct me if I'm wrong on any of this stuff.
[25:34.030 --> 25:35.270]  Because we are the media.
[25:38.050 --> 25:43.070]  So, what they're proposing now for web streaming is a completely different royalty rate.
[25:45.570 --> 25:58.190]  They want to give some money to the composers, but they also want to give money to the copyright holders, who, you know, not surprisingly turn out to be the industry represented by the RIAA.
[25:59.010 --> 26:00.750]  This is a completely different paradigm.
[26:01.170 --> 26:10.530]  So, when you hear music on the radio now, the only people getting paid are the composers and the radio station itself in the form of advertising dollars.
[26:11.130 --> 26:14.330]  And the recording industry is saying, oh, yeah, but we want our cut now, too.
[26:15.130 --> 26:26.650]  And they've actually asked for 15% of royalties from webcasters, which is ridiculous, if you consider that 3% is being paid to composers right now.
[26:26.890 --> 26:34.370]  So, Congress went in and created CARP, which is the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel.
[26:35.090 --> 26:46.590]  And this has been, for a couple of years, been sort of batted around, and they've tried to come up with ostensibly a fair royalty process for paying for web streaming.
[26:46.870 --> 26:53.050]  And what they've come up with is paying, what is it, 7 cents per thousand users or something like this?
[26:56.270 --> 27:05.930]  And it's retroactive, so that people that have been webcasting since 1998 are going to owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalty payments to the industry as well as to the composers.
[27:06.310 --> 27:08.130]  And this is what's shutting people down.
[27:08.430 --> 27:11.370]  So, up until now, there's no FCC for webcasting.
[27:11.490 --> 27:13.850]  You can say whatever the hell you want, which has been great.
[27:14.750 --> 27:17.530]  And up until recently, we haven't been doing anything illegal.
[27:17.530 --> 27:22.730]  But this is going to be the first step to sort of criminalize what we're doing over the web.
[27:23.550 --> 27:27.030]  And I'm sure this will be used as leverage to shut us down in the future.
[27:29.990 --> 27:46.790]  One of the bizarre things from working in commercial radio over the years, when I first moved to New York and started working at a radio station, I had the program director there, who I was in an argument with, and he said, Laszlo, it's not about the music,
[27:46.990 --> 27:47.830]  it's about the commercials.
[27:49.210 --> 27:50.630]  And that's really...
[27:50.630 --> 28:01.110]  I think one of the reasons that people are screaming out for webcasting and for alternative sources of music is because of what has happened to commercial radio.
[28:01.610 --> 28:05.490]  It has really turned into an ugly situation.
[28:05.490 --> 28:12.770]  I have a lot of friends who are very creative people that have worked in radio over the years that are getting out or have been fired.
[28:13.670 --> 28:17.650]  Radio stations used to consist of 20, 30 creative people.
[28:17.790 --> 28:19.770]  It was kind of a bizarre, weird family.
[28:21.270 --> 28:24.950]  And now I have friends that work at radio stations that have four people.
[28:25.130 --> 28:28.870]  And you walk into the booth and you read your lines.
[28:29.110 --> 28:31.630]  Hey, that was this song, coming up it's this song.
[28:32.390 --> 28:37.490]  And the computer just places it in between the songs and it's all played off of a hard drive.
[28:37.490 --> 28:48.130]  They're now opening what are called DJ farms, where they just have a whole bunch of studios and DJs just sit and read lines.
[28:48.330 --> 28:50.690]  Hey, that was Metallica coming up, it's quite right, alright.
[28:51.370 --> 28:58.390]  And that sound file is sent electronically to radio stations nationwide and just plopped in between the songs.
[28:58.390 --> 29:05.670]  So you have a room that's basically a bunch of hard drives, a big fat internet connection, and a transmitter.
[29:06.910 --> 29:11.290]  And it's... and people... consumers aren't stupid.
[29:11.570 --> 29:13.930]  People can see this happening.
[29:14.150 --> 29:18.970]  They know that radio is sounding the same from town to town to town.
[29:19.370 --> 29:25.710]  Subsequently, the ratings in a lot of cases on radio have been going down.
[29:25.710 --> 29:29.530]  So they start playing more commercials to try to make more money in people.
[29:29.690 --> 29:30.990]  And it's this downward spiral.
[29:31.950 --> 29:33.730]  Man, that is some fucked up shit.
[29:34.850 --> 29:36.950]  That is just... it's crazy.
[29:37.190 --> 29:45.670]  I just want to expand on it a little bit by saying that, you know, what compounds this is the fact that today's, you know, FM and AM broadcast media, they're antiques.
[29:46.230 --> 29:49.330]  You know, those were defined, what, like over a hundred years ago.
[29:49.330 --> 29:57.410]  And, you know, we have the technology today to get probably like, you know, who knows, a hundred times more station out of those bandwidths.
[29:57.930 --> 30:00.550]  Out of... out of that... that allocated bandwidth space.
[30:00.790 --> 30:06.130]  And, unfortunately, the way the digital radio is going is, well, we have XM and we have... what's the other one?
[30:06.250 --> 30:06.710]  Sirius?
[30:07.090 --> 30:07.570]  Sirius.
[30:07.930 --> 30:10.870]  And, you know, those are satellite and they're on a whole nother...
[30:10.870 --> 30:11.870]  whole nother spectrum.
[30:11.870 --> 30:21.230]  But what's going digital on FM is, you know, it's just being allocated back to the license holders of those current analog stations right now.
[30:21.390 --> 30:24.190]  And so there's no opportunity for small people to get in.
[30:24.630 --> 30:27.670]  It's just... it's more the same old boy network.
[30:27.930 --> 30:36.090]  The, you know, the people who leave corporations to go to work for the FCC or go to work in other government bureaucracies, they get to write the policy that controls this.
[30:36.810 --> 30:41.890]  And... and so it ends up never changing because they're all, you know, they've all got their hands in each other's pockets.
[30:42.650 --> 30:44.270]  Just to put it in eloquently.
[30:44.530 --> 30:47.010]  But, you know, that's why webcasting is so exciting.
[30:47.150 --> 30:50.990]  Anybody who can afford a computer and the connection and the bandwidth can get on.
[30:51.310 --> 30:54.450]  And, you know, what I'm hoping to see is that...
[30:54.450 --> 30:56.970]  You know, and I think part of that comes out of people's frustration.
[30:57.190 --> 30:57.970]  They'd like to broadcast.
[30:58.110 --> 30:59.530]  They'd like to put a message out there.
[30:59.650 --> 31:02.070]  And indie media, you know, that's how we got started.
[31:02.210 --> 31:08.810]  We were sick of seeing the same old, you know, corporate filtered crap getting out there in the newspapers, television and radio.
[31:08.810 --> 31:11.950]  And, you know, we don't want to see that anymore.
[31:12.150 --> 31:19.030]  But, unfortunately, webcasting is restrictive in that it requires a computer and an internet connection in order to receive this.
[31:19.130 --> 31:20.610]  And even then, it's not very reliable.
[31:20.710 --> 31:27.470]  It's not like a $5 FM radio that you can just pick up, you know, your local five and dime and listen.
[31:27.710 --> 31:37.630]  And that's why I'm hoping for more collaboration between webcasters who, you know, want to invest the time in putting together a coherent message.
[31:37.830 --> 31:44.830]  And between LPFM broadcasters, pirate radio broadcasters, shortwave broadcasters.
[31:45.330 --> 31:48.030]  And I think there's a lot of potential there.
[31:48.170 --> 32:02.310]  And I haven't, you know, occasionally during some of the indie media events where we have coverage on the streets of different protests and insurrections around the world, there will be different stations in Europe and maybe Canada who pick us up.
[32:02.410 --> 32:08.050]  And some LPFMers in the United States who pick up our web stream and they'll broadcast it locally in their metro area.
[32:08.250 --> 32:16.650]  And that's a really exciting thing because it means instead of 1,000 or 2,000 people hearing it, that potentially 10,000 or 100,000 people are hearing that message.
[32:16.650 --> 32:26.130]  And that's really important because, you know, we need to bust out of the limitations that, you know, government and corporations are imposing on us.
[32:26.410 --> 32:31.470]  And I think it's incredibly important because, you know, we need to get our message out too.
[32:31.690 --> 32:35.390]  We don't want the paid-for, advertised message to get out there as well.
[32:35.630 --> 32:42.890]  Yeah, I mean, one of the dangers of traditional media, mainstream media, is that the barrier for entry is money.
[32:42.890 --> 32:49.950]  It costs a shitload of money to make anything that's broadcast ready for television or...
[32:49.950 --> 32:55.490]  It costs a shitload of money to set up an antenna and broadcast a standard radio signal to people's homes.
[32:55.690 --> 33:02.550]  So one of the exciting things about webcasting, and I think I consider it very much in its infancy right now.
[33:02.730 --> 33:06.330]  I mean, what we're doing essentially is practice right now.
[33:06.670 --> 33:12.370]  But one of the exciting things about webcasting is that the barrier for entry, the cost, is almost nil.
[33:12.370 --> 33:17.330]  I mean, we set up our studio in New York for like 50 bucks.
[33:17.570 --> 33:18.050]  Right?
[33:18.150 --> 33:21.870]  We used a salvaged computer that we had gotten donated to us.
[33:21.990 --> 33:25.970]  And we had a cheap Mackie mixer also donated to us.
[33:26.050 --> 33:26.990]  And then we had some bandwidth.
[33:28.030 --> 33:30.330]  And a couple of crappy mics from Radio Shack.
[33:30.510 --> 33:32.210]  And before you know it, we're broadcasting.
[33:33.110 --> 33:36.810]  So the barrier for entry for that was almost nothing.
[33:37.370 --> 33:50.510]  So one of the scary things about CARP and the DMCA is that what they're saying is, okay, the barrier for entry now, if you're playing any kind of music, copyrighted music, is potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[33:50.790 --> 33:52.650]  So who are the voices that you're going to hear?
[33:53.130 --> 33:56.550]  You're going to hear people that can afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to broadcast.
[33:56.730 --> 33:58.130]  And we're going to be shut out.
[34:00.450 --> 34:02.650]  So that's why these issues are so important.
[34:03.950 --> 34:16.990]  Ultimately, one of the other things that's, I think, most threatening to the mainstream media is that we're giving people as much choice as possible about what they're listening to instead of dictating to them what they listen to.
[34:17.170 --> 34:20.890]  Standard radio playlists, we have, as listeners, have no control over.
[34:21.010 --> 34:25.870]  Whereas we're getting increasingly interactive and giving people more choice about what messages they're hearing.
[34:25.870 --> 34:32.850]  You can see that if you go to iTunes and you can choose any from, you know, hundreds of categories of music to listen to.
[34:33.710 --> 34:36.590]  Or Napster, or Morpheus at this point.
[34:37.530 --> 34:42.390]  Which lets you choose specifically what songs you want to listen to and make your own playlists.
[34:45.550 --> 34:55.010]  Yeah, I just was going to say that, when you mentioned the idea of there being a very low barrier to entry, there still is a technical barrier to entry.
[34:55.010 --> 35:02.250]  And, you know, for instance, the IMC may have been built on $50, but it's because there were a lot of people who knew what they were doing and could do a lot of things with parts.
[35:02.870 --> 35:07.830]  So that's kind of definitely a hurdle that needs to be bridged in some way.
[35:09.110 --> 35:11.370]  That's, you know, something to figure out, definitely.
[35:11.670 --> 35:16.470]  And you need an expensive computer to listen to what we're doing as opposed to a $5 transistor radio.
[35:16.470 --> 35:19.350]  So that's another problem that needs to get fixed.
[35:19.730 --> 35:22.090]  And another ongoing cost is bandwidth.
[35:22.510 --> 35:32.570]  And, you know, one exciting wrinkle or new development in this area is that there's a new product, or there's a new open source software package called Streamr.
[35:32.690 --> 35:33.730]  And Streamr is different.
[35:33.730 --> 35:44.050]  The major packages that are used today are Winamp with the Shoutcast plugin, which is this software combination.
[35:44.250 --> 35:52.990]  Winamp is a player that lets you play MP3s or CDs, and Shoutcast is a software module that you plug into Winamp that lets you...
[35:52.990 --> 36:04.190]  it takes whatever you're playing and it encodes it as an MP3 stream and sends it up to a server that then takes that one stream and makes it available for hundreds or thousands of people to come and listen to.
[36:04.470 --> 36:12.830]  The problem with that, or the hurdle there, is that it costs a lot of money to rebroadcast that to a lot of people.
[36:13.050 --> 36:24.510]  There are bandwidth cooperatives that people set up on an ad hoc basis where, you know, somebody's got a DSL line here, a cable connection there, and they kind of bond this all together and share IP addresses.
[36:24.910 --> 36:27.890]  The next thing you know, they can support a couple of hundred listeners.
[36:28.130 --> 36:30.290]  Well, now there's this new package called Streamr.
[36:30.470 --> 36:36.230]  And what's cool about Streamr is it's a peer-to-peer streaming package.
[36:37.570 --> 36:42.130]  You still use... I haven't set it up myself yet, but I believe it works like a plugin.
[36:42.150 --> 36:48.230]  You plug it into Winamp and it makes the stream available to one or two other listeners.
[36:48.230 --> 36:55.030]  And then their player also makes it available to a number of other listeners and it kind of trees out there.
[36:55.210 --> 37:01.330]  It's sort of like a network of small rebroadcasters, but it does it automatically.
[37:01.610 --> 37:10.490]  There's a way that when you go to a website, you know, when you go to the website and click on the link to listen, it's going to find you a spot that you can actually, you know, hear it from.
[37:10.490 --> 37:15.850]  And there's no one central server that is serving the bandwidth and generating all of this expense.
[37:16.030 --> 37:19.350]  It also makes it harder for the RIAA to come in and shut you down.
[37:19.870 --> 37:24.210]  Because there's no one server that they can just go to the ISP and say, You're out of there!
[37:24.970 --> 37:26.130]  It's not like that anymore.
[37:26.270 --> 37:27.770]  So this is a really exciting development.
[37:27.990 --> 37:31.050]  And I believe this is one of the... it's the first or second package of its kind.
[37:31.270 --> 37:33.230]  So I think we're going to see more of this kind of thing.
[37:33.370 --> 37:34.790]  And to me, it's really exciting.
[37:36.070 --> 37:36.430]  Decentralization.
[37:37.470 --> 37:39.690]  There's probably some people that want to ask you guys some questions.
[37:40.170 --> 37:41.070]  Can you go grab the mic?
[37:43.250 --> 37:44.170]  Somebody have any questions?
[37:45.150 --> 37:45.310]  Maybe.
[37:45.930 --> 37:46.370]  I like it.
[37:50.470 --> 37:51.790]  Yeah, it's just called Streamer.
[37:51.850 --> 37:55.890]  I think if... I think if you go to Google and just type in Streamer...
[37:56.350 --> 38:00.690]  There were some articles about it on the website Slashdot recently.
[38:00.970 --> 38:03.190]  S-L-A-S-H-D-O-T dot org.
[38:03.650 --> 38:09.730]  And if you just type Streamer into their search box, you'll see some articles and discussion come up about that.
[38:10.490 --> 38:14.490]  Actually, I'm familiar with that because I'm also presented with the current issues at hand.
[38:14.850 --> 38:16.470]  And so someone recommended, you know...
[38:16.470 --> 38:20.730]  I don't know if it was called Streamer, but it's on the same principles of peer-to-peer streaming.
[38:21.670 --> 38:27.610]  A major problem I found is users having different, you know, levels of technology available to them.
[38:27.890 --> 38:31.490]  You know, some are on a modem and some have just those crap-ass computers from like four years ago.
[38:31.610 --> 38:34.030]  Some still like run 14.4 for some unknown reason.
[38:34.950 --> 38:35.530]  Yeah, I know.
[38:35.650 --> 38:37.450]  I'm like, I'll give you 20 bucks, go buy 56k.
[38:37.650 --> 38:42.130]  But, I mean, do you think like those kind of problems I think right now can really inhibit...
[38:42.130 --> 38:46.650]  I'm not too really, really deep in knowledge of, you know, the technology behind the Streamer technology.
[38:46.830 --> 38:50.730]  But do you think that because of user-level technology, it can be inhibited?
[38:52.530 --> 38:59.210]  Are you asking that, you know, with varying levels of technology at the user's computer, the different speed of connection?
[38:59.410 --> 39:07.570]  The speed of connection that a user has has definitely been a bit of an issue because, you know, some people have, you know, T1s.
[39:07.590 --> 39:10.990]  Some people have, you know, 28.8 modems, 14.4.
[39:10.990 --> 39:17.190]  And, you know, you need to have like a really low-quality slow stream in order to serve those people.
[39:17.510 --> 39:24.010]  And what we do at Indymedia is we run a high-quality stream for people who want to relay us or rebroadcast us on the radio.
[39:24.150 --> 39:26.650]  And we run a really low-quality stream.
[39:26.650 --> 39:33.510]  It's a 16K BPS stream, which can be picked up by people with a 28.8 or a 33.6 modem.
[39:33.730 --> 39:37.730]  And, you know, so there are ways of addressing it like that.
[39:37.810 --> 39:43.010]  What we use to do that on one computer is a software package that runs under Linux.
[39:43.050 --> 39:44.190]  And it's called Dark Ice.
[39:44.510 --> 39:49.650]  And Dark Ice has the unique ability to generate multiple streams at the same time.
[39:49.830 --> 39:51.170]  I highly recommend it.
[39:51.770 --> 39:53.550]  Most of the bugs are shaken out of it.
[39:53.630 --> 39:55.190]  But it does need to run on a Linux computer.
[39:55.190 --> 39:56.730]  And that's also a technical hurdle.
[39:58.010 --> 39:59.270]  I guess it runs on Linux.
[39:59.470 --> 39:59.910]  Oh, sorry.
[40:00.130 --> 40:02.990]  I haven't tried to compile it on BSD, but I imagine that you can.
[40:04.310 --> 40:06.170]  Actually, I wanted to respond to that question, too.
[40:06.270 --> 40:12.410]  I think one of the points you were asking was, what's sort of the technological barrier for entry for listeners?
[40:13.630 --> 40:19.170]  And probably a corollary would be, what's the technological barrier for webcasters like ourselves?
[40:19.470 --> 40:19.850]  Right?
[40:21.110 --> 40:24.130]  I think it's very important not to alienate listeners.
[40:24.610 --> 40:26.090]  To try to make...
[40:26.090 --> 40:27.790]  And Kevin was speaking to this.
[40:27.870 --> 40:30.850]  To try to make our stream available to as many people as possible.
[40:31.030 --> 40:36.090]  Because really, frankly, the way it works now is, it's not available to that many people.
[40:36.370 --> 40:38.850]  I mean, half of this country is wired at this point, right?
[40:38.950 --> 40:43.190]  But the rest of the world, and we have global listeners, is not wired.
[40:43.230 --> 40:47.350]  If we want to be speaking to people in Mexico, we're kind of screwed.
[40:47.350 --> 40:49.750]  We have actually a huge audience in Brazil, which is kind of weird.
[40:50.670 --> 40:53.890]  Brazil's all over the internet radio tip for some reason.
[40:54.270 --> 40:54.970]  I don't know if you guys know that.
[40:56.470 --> 40:57.350]  So, no.
[40:57.570 --> 41:04.370]  I mean, we don't want a techno-elitism, where we're requiring people to have very expensive equipment to listen to us.
[41:04.430 --> 41:10.110]  We want just the opposite, which is to have incredibly crap-ass equipment that's able to listen to us.
[41:10.110 --> 41:11.850]  You know, they're pulling out of dumpsters and stuff.
[41:12.030 --> 41:14.210]  Because, you know, that's sort of our philosophy.
[41:14.690 --> 41:19.050]  And going with that philosophy is creating a stream off really crappy computers.
[41:19.210 --> 41:23.030]  I mean, our stream is served off like a P2-300 or something, right?
[41:23.170 --> 41:24.150]  Is it even that fast?
[41:24.810 --> 41:27.690]  I think it's actually a Pentium 166.
[41:27.890 --> 41:29.210]  Is Lee in the house here?
[41:29.510 --> 41:30.470]  Lee, what is it?
[41:32.470 --> 41:33.930]  It's a Pentium 233.
[41:34.150 --> 41:35.250]  So, it's like, you know...
[41:35.250 --> 41:36.150]  I mean, this is like...
[41:36.150 --> 41:38.110]  People aren't even using this for word processing anymore.
[41:38.370 --> 41:38.870]  You know what I mean?
[41:38.870 --> 41:45.730]  So, the goal is very much to create this media with yesterday's technology.
[41:46.150 --> 41:46.770]  And to never...
[41:46.770 --> 41:51.090]  To not get into this techno-elitism of requiring expensive equipment.
[41:51.830 --> 41:52.110]  Hi.
[41:52.370 --> 41:54.090]  I just was wondering...
[41:54.090 --> 41:56.990]  I know there's not a lot of funding and there's a lot of donated equipment.
[41:57.170 --> 42:00.010]  Is there any sort of stream of funding that you do have?
[42:00.450 --> 42:02.530]  And if you could go into what the sources of that are.
[42:02.790 --> 42:03.870]  The other thing was...
[42:04.450 --> 42:05.050]  Excuse me.
[42:05.150 --> 42:07.670]  We were talking about a lot of software packages that are coming out.
[42:07.670 --> 42:11.530]  And how difficult it is for people to listen to the media as it's being produced.
[42:12.170 --> 42:13.230]  And I was wondering...
[42:13.230 --> 42:16.970]  Is there any sort of cooperation between the content producers.
[42:16.970 --> 42:18.770]  Which is what it seems that you are.
[42:18.970 --> 42:20.430]  And the actual software developers.
[42:20.730 --> 42:23.690]  That can actually figure out what it is that you need from them.
[42:23.810 --> 42:27.350]  And so that they will know that they have an audience for the software that they're developing.
[42:28.310 --> 42:29.670]  Can I address the first point?
[42:30.230 --> 42:31.450]  As far as funding...
[42:31.450 --> 42:33.310]  Were you asking specifically about indie media?
[42:33.570 --> 42:34.470]  I wasn't asking specifically...
[42:35.070 --> 42:35.730]  The webcasting in general.
[42:35.770 --> 42:35.870]  Yeah.
[42:36.070 --> 42:38.790]  I mean, basically, indie media, I suppose, is what you would be...
[42:38.790 --> 42:39.470]  It's what we can speak to.
[42:41.090 --> 42:44.790]  As Tariq had said at the beginning, the one thing that we do have is a space.
[42:44.950 --> 42:47.330]  It's just donated by Emanuel Goldstein of 2600.
[42:47.330 --> 42:51.990]  So that in and of itself is a major expense that other IMCs have to deal with paying for that.
[42:52.670 --> 42:58.750]  As far as our webcast is concerned, the materials that we work with have been salvaged for the most part.
[42:58.930 --> 43:02.070]  Donated by individuals who participate who are volunteers of the network.
[43:02.210 --> 43:03.290]  Pulled out of the trash.
[43:04.350 --> 43:05.990]  And then a lot of fundraising.
[43:06.690 --> 43:10.830]  So I think ultimately the goal is to do as much as we can with as little money as possible.
[43:11.190 --> 43:15.730]  We're not particularly beholden to anybody at this point as far as our content is concerned.
[43:17.190 --> 43:24.270]  And, you know, speaking to that, I mean, we want to be as sort of financially independent and squirrely as possible.
[43:24.270 --> 43:29.370]  To be able to sort of make as many independent decisions as we can.
[43:29.590 --> 43:33.070]  So we held our first benefit, actually, a couple weeks ago.
[43:33.110 --> 43:34.230]  And we raised a couple grand.
[43:34.510 --> 43:38.790]  And so for the first time, we're going to be able to buy, like, a nice mixer and some turntables.
[43:39.070 --> 43:42.870]  And, you know, at one point we had a record player.
[43:43.350 --> 43:48.230]  And the slip mat was a piece of paper towel.
[43:48.810 --> 43:51.130]  You know, I mean, it was like things were kind of rough there for a while.
[43:51.370 --> 43:53.930]  So we're actually going to be able to get some nicer equipment.
[43:54.190 --> 44:01.350]  And people won't feel like if they bring vinyl in that it's going to get trashed when they play it on our stuff, our equipment.
[44:01.350 --> 44:06.630]  But by and large, we've been doing this simply sort of volunteer out of pocket.
[44:07.970 --> 44:10.150]  And we want to stay that way, you know.
[44:11.470 --> 44:13.590]  There's some grants that we've applied for.
[44:13.850 --> 44:15.050]  We probably won't get them.
[44:15.670 --> 44:18.310]  We'll continue to sort of look for money from wherever we can get it.
[44:18.570 --> 44:20.710]  But, you know...
[44:20.710 --> 44:23.090]  Could you shout out part two of your question again?
[44:29.660 --> 44:32.100]  There's another plug-in that we were...
[44:33.100 --> 44:34.800]  We've been talking with the developers.
[44:36.820 --> 44:37.700]  It's called...
[44:39.840 --> 44:40.720]  I don't...
[44:40.720 --> 44:41.880]  I'm drawing a blank.
[44:42.000 --> 44:42.800]  I haven't had coffee yet.
[44:42.960 --> 44:43.280]  But it's...
[44:43.700 --> 44:55.060]  Yeah, we were emailing back and forth and saying it would be really nice to, you know, see levels on the screen, even, you know, in text mode within curses or something like that, which is just a way of displaying text, you know, on the screen.
[44:55.260 --> 44:59.520]  And, you know, they were more than happy to accommodate as long as they had the time.
[44:59.740 --> 45:00.660]  You know, everybody's...
[45:00.660 --> 45:04.180]  The people who develop most of the software out there are doing it on a volunteer basis.
[45:04.400 --> 45:05.640]  You know, they don't get paid for it.
[45:06.600 --> 45:12.960]  That's, you know, that's the double-edged sword of open source software, of course, that, you know, people do it when they have time to do it.
[45:13.080 --> 45:16.080]  But sometimes they produce really great things and we all benefit from it.
[45:16.080 --> 45:18.300]  And I think it deserves our support.
[45:18.520 --> 45:22.520]  So go to Free Software Foundation.
[45:23.780 --> 45:26.520]  Check out their website and make a donation if you've got the cash.
[45:27.420 --> 45:28.880]  We have about three minutes left.
[45:29.020 --> 45:30.520]  Let's see if we can get a couple more questions in.
[45:31.700 --> 45:36.460]  With a lot of the file sharing software out there now being kind of...
[45:36.460 --> 45:46.240]  a lot of the services and everything being isolated by the record industry and them starting to, like, attack people now by prosecuting them and going after individuals.
[45:46.500 --> 45:50.700]  What's being done to maybe create a pool of music that everybody can play?
[45:51.100 --> 45:59.920]  Or something, some sort of, like, I don't know, pool where everyone can come and draw music out of that and just play that, like, all radio music?
[46:01.100 --> 46:02.960]  That's a great idea, actually.
[46:03.620 --> 46:16.200]  And I don't know if there's anything that's been started up like that, but I do know that there are artists who make their work available for general, you know, download and listening on, you know, websites like mp3.com.
[46:16.360 --> 46:27.000]  Sorry, that's not an endorsement, but there are an awful lot of download sites out there that seem to have, you know, relatively promiscuous policies in terms of sharing those works.
[46:27.140 --> 46:30.140]  Even though they're probably copyrighted, I don't think they care if you play.
[46:30.140 --> 46:42.600]  But in terms of, you know, artists identifying themselves as saying, hey, you can play my music anytime and I don't give a fuck, that's a great idea, too, to, you know, maybe build an organization in that direction.
[46:42.980 --> 46:43.080]  Sure.
[46:45.880 --> 46:50.540]  Yeah, there is some movement towards a new standard of copyright.
[46:51.220 --> 46:53.440]  And there's an acronym for it that I can't remember.
[46:53.580 --> 46:56.760]  I actually had a piece of music released under it, so I should know.
[46:57.120 --> 47:00.720]  But it's out there.
[47:00.880 --> 47:07.540]  People are thinking about new sort of... I mean, copyright law is sort of crumbling around us in the 21st century.
[47:07.800 --> 47:10.060]  You mentioned Lawrence Lessig, so...
[47:10.840 --> 47:13.000]  No, it's not the GNU public license.
[47:13.640 --> 47:15.360]  It's not the copy left, it's something else.
[47:15.640 --> 47:16.300]  I don't know, I'm sorry.
[47:16.860 --> 47:17.260]  I don't have it up.
[47:17.740 --> 47:19.300]  We have time for one more question.
[47:19.920 --> 47:20.360]  Hi.
[47:20.840 --> 47:24.800]  I'm part of a station called RantRadio.com, and we set up a website.
[47:24.900 --> 47:27.580]  It's basically a streamcasting graveyard.
[47:28.280 --> 47:31.540]  And that's at www.smokehouse.com.
[47:31.780 --> 47:36.860]  And we're basically trying to show the impact that CARP has had on the webcasting community.
[47:37.420 --> 47:40.400]  And it'd be great if you could try to support that and try to help us out.
[47:40.820 --> 47:41.580]  Great, thanks.
[47:42.300 --> 47:44.440]  Can we get another question in before we're done?
[47:46.420 --> 47:46.940]  Anyone?
[47:47.400 --> 47:49.040]  Was there a question up front here?
[47:53.600 --> 47:56.340]  The question was how many people can listen to our webcast?
[47:57.080 --> 48:04.120]  I think, well, for what we're doing, we can support up to about a thousand listeners on one server.
[48:04.820 --> 48:08.820]  We're sharing bandwidth with some other folks, so we have a pretty good deal worked out.
[48:09.020 --> 48:15.420]  But under extreme circumstances, we can go over to another server and maybe support up to 2,000 listeners.
[48:16.000 --> 48:18.480]  But on a weekly basis, it's never that high.
[48:18.560 --> 48:19.840]  It's just during the major events.
[48:20.440 --> 48:22.380]  We're also operating under a different paradigm.
[48:22.560 --> 48:34.820]  We're not trying to do simply just sort of ephemeral real-time radio, but we're trying to archive our pieces as much as possible and keep them in a regular rotation so that these things live on beyond the single moment that we're actually doing them.
[48:35.920 --> 48:44.300]  And the main website for our organization is www.indymedia.org.
[48:44.380 --> 48:45.600]  Go and check it out.
[48:45.840 --> 48:47.820]  And we're nyc.indymedia.org.
[48:47.820 --> 48:51.840]  Yeah, and stay away from proprietary formats like Reel and QuickTime.
[48:52.260 --> 49:00.240]  There's a lot of free, open protocols out there, such as...
[49:00.240 --> 49:12.000]  Yeah, in addition to MP3, which is actually something that I believe has patents surrounding it, there's also Ogvorbis, which is in its nascent stages, but it's taking off as a streaming format.
[49:12.460 --> 49:16.800]  One other thing that we do just to help people get online, there's a lot of really crappy players out there.
[49:16.960 --> 49:32.700]  We create links to serve the MP3 streams to real players and QuickTime and Windows Media Player, just because a lot of these players, when you have them loaded on your computer, they're all struggling to take over the mime-type association, which means when you click on a link,
[49:32.820 --> 49:34.860]  you know, one player wants to respond versus another.
[49:35.120 --> 49:45.460]  So, if you're going to be running a web radio station, I think it's a good idea to provide as many different links to your one stream as you can for the different player types, because they're all fighting with each other.
[49:45.700 --> 49:49.280]  And it's a stupid fight, it's just another part of this whole fight over money.
[49:49.280 --> 49:51.020]  Alright, we're out of time.
[49:51.440 --> 49:53.280]  I want to thank all our panelists.
[49:53.620 --> 49:55.600]  And your website is...
[49:55.600 --> 50:00.240]  www.nyc.indymedia.org Excellent.
[50:00.480 --> 50:01.300]  Coming up next...