[Rfu-barnraising] Re: {leti} Re: the
automation question
Donovan Finn
dfinn at uiuc.edu
Fri Oct 28 14:42:39 CDT 2005
Sorry all, I've been travelling and just read 104 (seriously) emails, many of which
relate to streaming. I saw one mail that suggested we take the conversation offline,
but that didn't seem to end it, so I will weigh in here as I won't be back in town for a
few more days.
I am frankly STUPIFIED at the opposition to streaming. As I stated months ago, I
think it's a critical part of the picture here. I will refute a couple points that were
raised by various people in earlier mails. I've lost track of who said what at this
point:
1-Podcasting. My understanding is that copyrighted music (most of what RFU will
play) cannot be podcast(ed). Period. Seems that's out, except for talk.
2-"RFU is to serve the Urbana community." I completely disagree. What is the
"Urbana" community? At the VERY least, we are trying to serve the communities of
Urbana, Champaign, Savoy and the U of I, if not the whole county. Am I mistaken?
Are we not the "UCIMC?" We don't even know if the on-air signal will reach
downtown Champaign, let alone further. Hell, we can't even say if it will get to all of
Urbana.
3- Terrestrial radio vs web. I understand the argument put forth that terrestrial
radio is accessable to a lot of people who cannot afford web access. Agreed, but I
never said to ONLY webcast. I can almost guarantee that 75% of the people under 25
years old in this town do not own an FM radio unless it is in their car. Some/many of
these folks are people we would want to be able to pick up our signal, no? But most
of that 75% do have easy access to the web. If I was saying we should ONLY
webcast, I would hope that you all would call me an idiot and insensititive to the
mission of the IMC. But I'm not doing that.
4 - Lastly, as Petri noted, the terrestrial license and the web are not really
associated, and the guidelines and repurcussions are slim if existent at all. Plus,
let's be frank here, they have to catch you first.
5- I find it frankly humourous that we are constantly deferring to Prometheus --
"they're the experts we should do what they say" and now when they are
overwhlemingly suggesting we stream RFU we are backing off? Why?
If this debate drags out forever, fine, but I think we are being very shortsighted if we
don't at least prepare for the possibility while we have a blank slate and the
technical expertise to do it. If we don't ever turn it on, then fine, but if we (OR OUR
SUCCESSORS down the road) decide to do it later, we should make it as easy as
possible.
--donovan
---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 16:44:25 -0500
>From: Sascha Meinrath <sascha at ucimc.org>
>Subject: Re: [Rfu-barnraising] Re: {leti} Re: the automation question
>To: Andrew Ó Baoill <andrew at funferal.org>
>Cc: leti <leti at lists.prometheusradio.org>, WRFU Mailing list
<rfu at lists.chambana.net>, rfu barnraising <rfu-barnraising at lists.chambana.net>
>
>Hi all,
>
>Andrew and I should go grab a beer so I can get a better feel for his concerns;
>but I and other folks are definitely interested in setting up streaming. I'm
>not sure I buy that streaming would necessarily negatively impact the quality
>and/or community grounding of the station -- at WEFT, we streamed for quite
some
>time and only stopped because the price increased. I haven't heard of any
>negative repercussions from streaming, and unless someone can make the case
the
>WRFU would be differentially impacted, I think WEFT provides us with a fairly
>good (local) precedent. Also, just so it's noted somewhere, we decided at last
>night's Barnraising meeting to do streaming during the Barnraising, that part of
>things is a go.
>
>Either way, I think there's a core group of folks who would be very interested
>in learning about streaming and how to set this sort of system up -- so we
>should definitely do that. Long-term, it could be that WRFU decides not to
>stream their signal; however, other stations (such as WEFT) may be interested
>and this is an opportunity to demonstrate how this works. Since we already have
>a server infrastructure available through the IMC, I think it makes all the
>sense in the world for us to set this up for the Barnraising and see what
>happens down the road.
>
>--Sascha
>
>Andrew Ó Baoill wrote:
>> I appreciate your suggestion. However, there are numerous reasons that
>> WRFU has not yet decided to do this.
>>
>> First, WRFU will truly be a bare-bones station. We actually don't have
>> the cash to run our basic service, let alone to commit ourselves to the
>> additional copyright fees associated with streaming. WRFU and the IMC
>> only have limited bandwidth available, so streaming would be a heavy
>> load, or require rental of additional bandwidth.
>>
>> Second, some of us have concerns about the impact that streaming has on
>> the nature of a community radio station. Since WRFU is an autonomous
>> consensus-based operation, it is important that we examine this issue
>> and come to agreement among ourselves before moves are made on this issue.
>>
>> Third, about those concerns. Jon Bekken, in an essay in Seizing the
>> Airwaves, mentions in passing the impact that increased power (and
>> therefore range) has on the role that a community station plays, using
>> our local WEFT as an example. Not all the concerns raised there follow
>> through to internet streams, but many do. With all due respect, WRFU is
>> a station for Urbana, not for the next town over. As far as I am
>> concerned, we are concerned, primarily, with providing space for
>> self-expression by members of our community. Some see community radio
>> as more concerned with providing content to listeners, and in this case
>> streaming to the world can be seen as a benefit. For those who want a
>> station to be firmly anchored in its community - either in terms of
>> content produced, or in being a space in which all listeners can aspire
>> to becoming an active participant, streaming becomes more problematic.
>> For some more detailed, if still preliminary, thoughts on issues raised
>> by these technologies you can see my recent post:
>> http://funferal.org/mt-archive/001098.html
>> or an earlier article, concerned more particularly with digital radio
>> in Europe:
>> http://www.tuppenceworth.ie/ArtsEnt/radiodab.html
>>
>> Fourth, running a webstream for the special event that is the
>> barnraising, may differ, and is something we can examine at WRFU's
>> meeting this Tuesday. Of course, while it could be a useful publicity
>> element of the barnraising, it could also undermine the station's
>> ongoing policy, should it adopt one.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> On 27 DFómh 2005, at 15:49, Andy Gunn wrote:
>>
>>> i _highly_ recommend that you stream your signal over the internet.
>>> if you don't, you are cutting out a potentially huge audience. your
>>> signal is only 100 watts, so people in even the next town over may
>>> not be able to hear you. with a stream - they will have the option
>>> of tuning in at least when they are by a computer with an ethernet
>>> connection.
>>>
>>> i really think the fees are minimal - a few hundred dollars a year.
>>> i know many stations that stream without any legal troubles
>>> whatsoever, and some of them don't pay the fees at all.
>>>
>>> it will be a relatively simple task to set up a streaming encoder
>>> during the barnraising - we will have techs running all over the
>>> place who will want things to do. i would ask that at bare minimum,
>>> we set up a computer to stream the launch of the station - we can
>>> publicize it on our sites and tell people to tune in via email. if
>>> you want to turn it off after the barnraising, that is up to you.
>>>
>>> -a
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, 26 Oct 2005, andrew baoill wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> We've left streaming to one side for the moment, for both practical
>>>> reasons, and because some of us have broader philosophical concerns
>>>> about the issue.
>>>>
>>>> While the donation is welcome, can we wait until after the
>>>> barnraising to engage with this issue? I would like to give the topic
>>>> the attention it deserves, but there are so many other things at the
>>>> moment I don't think we have time to take on additional issues.
>>>>
>>>> Andrew
>>>>
>>>> On 26 DFómh 2005, at 14:32, Sascha Meinrath wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> The Acorn Active Media Foundation is planning to donate use of one
>>>>> of our servers for streaming (and integrating this into the CUWiN
>>>>> wireless network). We have some parameters we're operating under
>>>>> but would also love help setting this up to your specs. We've just
>>>>> finished building the system and making sure it takes the server
>>>>> software we're loading onto it. We'll probably follow something
>>>>> along the lines of:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialAudioStreaming.html
>>>>>
>>>>> But if there are techies on the list who would like to be involved
>>>>> with this effort (especially during the craziness of the
>>>>> barnraising), drop me a line.
>>>>>
>>>>> In solidarity,
>>>>>
>>>>> --Sascha
>>>>>
>>>>> Andrew Ó Baoill wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> You would take an output from the console and feed it to an input
>>>>>> on the soundcard if you wanted to record the station (or other
>>>>>> console output) onto the computer, or to create a webstream, etc.
>>>>>> Andrew
>>>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>> | Andy Gunn - Technical and Training Organizer |
>>> | Prometheus Radio Project - prometheusradio.org |
>>> | andy at prometheusradio.org 215-727-9620 |
>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> | Come to our next radio station Barnraising and community wireless |
>>> | congregation! November 11 to 13, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. |
>>> | Prometheus Radio Project * UC Independent Media Center * WRFU-LP |
>>> | Check http://www.prometheusradio.org/urbana/ for more details! |
>>>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Rfu-barnraising mailing list
>>> Rfu-barnraising at lists.chambana.net
>>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/rfu-barnraising
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Andrew Ó Baoill
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>> Inst. of Communications Research, U. of Illinois
>> Communications / Participatory media / Political action
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>> andrew at funferal.org / baoillo at uiuc.edu
>> aim: funferal at mac.com
>> +353-87-241-7003 / +1-(217) 384-3142
>> http://funferal.org / Galway, Ireland / Urbana, IL, USA
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Rfu-barnraising mailing list
>> Rfu-barnraising at lists.chambana.net
>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/rfu-barnraising
>>
>>
>
>--
>Sascha Meinrath
>Policy Analyst * Project Coordinator * President
>Free Press *** CU Wireless Network *** Acorn Active Media
>www.freepress.net * www.cuwireless.net * www.acornactivemedia.com
>_______________________________________________
>leti mailing list
>leti at lists.prometheusradio.org
>http://lists.prometheusradio.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/leti
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Donovan Finn
Graduate Research Assistant: Land Use Evolution and Impact Assessment Model (LEAM) (www.leam.uiuc.edu)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
310 Noble Hall
1209 S. 4th Street
Champaign, IL 61820
dfinn at uiuc.edu
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