OT: Speak up now

The recent congressional moves to cut funding for PBS prompt me to urge everyone to get involved and speak out in your community.

I have strong feelings on this subject - but my intent here is NOT to push a view. It is instead to remind us all of our special responsibility as media professionals. I further submit - it's only good BUSINESS - and well worth the time at that.

I count on my Doctor to help make me aware of urgent medical issues. My mechanic tells me about vehicles and transportation. It's OUR JOB to speak out on media issues.

As a group - we use and understand electronic media, we tend to do more thinking on how media are used, and we better understand what impact it has on society. Lastly - there are many among us who have participated in journalisim, and thus who are especially qualified to cut through the fog of political speak.

Important issues like the merits of funding public media, hardware copyright protection, digital rights, and even the continued existence of analog dubs are up for consideration in the US and EU. I'm sure Nick can tell us of similar things down under.

That these issues are of immediate importance to us all has already been proven. In the EU, this resulted in the first generation of PAL DV cameras Having crippled firewire. In the US, the votes on funding cuts are happening this week.

SO - I urge you to do your mental homework, and reach a position on what you think about these issues. Then speak out to your local political representative, Write or better yet - call up your congress person. Speak up on this to local business groups (it's worthy of discussion at your next rotary meeting) and engage your clients. Ask these folks what sort of media world THEY want. You don't need to become a wild person. You DO need to speak out if you care about any of this, and you need to do it soon.

How many of us have really engaged our clients on the subject of who owns the images you take? If hardware media protection is engaged, your clients WILL HAVE TO PAY for every time they use their favorite popular song - even in their daughters graduation video. What do they have to say about that? How will they feel about you not being able to provide them a dub that doesn't have hardware copyright protection enabled?

Again, please don't respond with a political position rant.

Instead, I'd like to hear about bills and corporate moves you think might be important to us. An example of the later is the Sony/BMG move to sneak copyright protection into CDs (Sneak - as in it is already implemented but they won't tell on what titles.)
[www.stereophile.com] Or - argue with me about our responsibility.

Ian Graham -
Curmudgeon and gadfly in residence

Ian, the only thing I disagree with is the issue of European DV Firewire which has nothing to do with this issue, but greater import tariffs on video "recorders" than on video cameras. Because you could record video over firewire, it went into the "recorder" tariff rather than the smaller "camera" tariff and hence manufacturers disabled recording to keep the price down. This was due to EU protectionism for, basically Phillips, being the only EU video recorder manufacturer at the time. Then it was pointed out that no video recorders were being manufactured in the EU any more, and the stupd tariff was history.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

Guys, best to move this thread over to the Announcements forum. I can see this blowing up and becoming ugly like the similar thread over on the Avid-L.

[www.lafcpug.org]

If I can figure out how to move this thread I will but I urge you Ian to continue this very important topic over there



Michael Horton
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I'd gladly take discussion on benefits or problems of a particular issue over there . . . and I also worry about this becoming blown out . . .

But let me be very clear - my intent here is NOT to make this political, so much as a "heads up" on issues that affect our day to day execution of our businesses. For instance - As Apple users - BMG/Sony's copyright protection scheme on CD music is likely to have an immediate impact on anyone who uses iTunes, and iPod, or who does family projects that use popular music.

I may be overly optimistic - but I like to believe THIS board can possibly keep things relevant to our daily work, and keep personality assassination out.

Can we leave a notice of these issue and public notice threads on the main board and direct folks to post on the thread in Jobs/Announcements? I'd like to see work flow suggestions and client communication ideas stay here, as they are directly related to work, not policy.

In truth - I'm particularly interested in the perspective on digital rights management from a business point of view that comes from our contributors from across the pond.

Ian

Actually the thread is now moved to the announcemnets forum. Go ahead and post this on the cafe and direct comments to this thread. Yes, it needs to be discussed and action taken if necessary.

[www.lafcpug.org]



Michael Horton
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Just wrote my Congressman.

Boy...what an absolute disaster this will be if it comes to fruition. My 7 year old son (who was diagnosed with Autism 5 years ago) has emerged from his diagnosis and it's mainly attributed to my Wife and her tireless efforts in privately educating him along with all the lessons he has learned from all the PBS shows over those last 5 years (not to mention my own PBS memories).

You bet your a$$ this is a political subject...INJECTING partisanship into the PUBLIC BROADCASTING SYSTEM?!?! GD tighta$$ conservative Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a Republican. If Bush signs it, it's political death for him come election time.

All this issue needs is a little on-air creative disclaimering to calm the tight a$$es down.

That's my (Democratic) 2¢

- Joey

Joey - glad you spoke up. But I don't see this as a D or R issue. Just as I don't see the current practice of many school systems to terminate art and music from the curriculum as a D or an R issue. These are basic quality of life issues.

Here's the latest news.

he CPB is unique in that federal funds for the program are appropriated in two-year cycles. For instance, funding for FY2005 and FY2006 was appropriated during the FY2004 bill. This year, funding for CPB was part of H.R. 3010, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2006. On June 9, 2005, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, which has jurisdiction over CPB funding, voted to reduce CPB's FY2006 funding from $400 million to $300 million. The committee also voted to end the two-year funding process by not voting to forward fund CPB through FY2008.

On June 16, 2005 the House Full Appropriations Committee voted to restore the two-year funding cycle for CPB, and fully funded CPB at $400 million through FY2008. The committee did not vote to restore the $100 million cut from FY2006. Representative David Obey offered an amendment to H.R. 3010 that would restore the $100 million to the FY 2006 budget. The amendment passed by a vote of 284-140.

The legislation passed on June 24, 2005 with bi-partisan support of 250 to 151. This bill provides $1.2 billion for public broadcasting through FY2008, including the $400 million restored funds for FY2006."

At this point, the Senate takes this up. Note that the figures above, while "fully restored" actually represent a cut of about $150 million over the past funding levels.

Ian

Ian - thanx. I understand the financial situation behind this, but you need to read a little more into why Tomlinson is doing what he's doing. It is absolutely a "D or R issue".

Tomlinson has surrounded himself with conservative partisans, including a Bush White House communications official, with a scheme to change public broadcasting to suit their political agenda. Tomlinson replaced a non-partisan professional chief executive at CPB with Ken Ferree, the top media adviser to former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell. Ferree was the chief architect of a failed effort to dismantle the FCC rules that prevent media concentration. This week, Tomlinson was successful in pushing through the appointment of Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, to run CPB.

Conservatives on Capitol Hill and on the CPB's board targeted legendary broadcaster and popular PBS journalist Bill Moyers, demanding that he be "dealt with.'' In response, Tomlinson secretly hired an outside consultant last year to track the political leanings of the guests on ``Now With Bill Moyers.'' Moyers resigned in December and funding for the news program was subsequently halved.

I could go on for days, but I'm going to gracefully pull out of this discussion because my views about Conservatives will not be well-taken by my Republican friends on the forum.

Peace & Long Live PBS.

- Joey