Here’s a feel-good story, from the NY Times:
A San Francisco talk radio station pre-empted three hours of programming on Friday in response to a campaign by bloggers who have recorded extreme comments by several hosts and passed on digital copies to advertisers. The lead blogger, who uses the name Spocko, said that he and other bloggers had contacted more than 30 advertisers on KSFO-AM to inform them of comments made on the air and to ask them to pull their ads.
The funniest part of this story is the ham-handed approach of ABC, which owns the radio station. These guys really, really don’t get the internet.
The comments were also posted on Spocko’s Web site, spockosbrain.com. In response, ABC Radio Networks, which owns KSFO and which in turn is owned by the Walt Disney Company, sent letters to the site’s service provider, demanding the clips be taken down from its servers. The provider complied, raising the issue of what constitutes fair use of copyrighted material by a critic…. Spocko’s campaign became more widely followed when his blog was taken down by his Internet service provider, 1&1 Internet, of Chesterbrook, Pa., after ABC lawyers sent the company a cease and desist letter on Dec. 22.
And guess what happened then?
the material “is being distributed all over the Internet.”
And now the story has gone national, first to national blogs, then to Media Matters, and today to the New York Times. Congrats to the legal eagles at ABC, who have created a national embarrassment for their client out of a little story that never should have left San Francisco.
Hilarious.
Any IP scholars out there?
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Seems like it must fall under fair use, because I hear excerpts from shows played across the media on occasion, e.g., OxyRush Limbaugh’s coda when he went off to rehab.
…but Spocko’s problem was that Disney, which owns the station, was also targeting Spocko’s ISP. From a business standpoint, the ISP, which apparently is a fairly small one, is not going to go to bat for a very small blog, and risk having to spend lots of money to have to do so.
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Disney’s actions are substantially the equivalent of the SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuits that more than a few companies have filed against individuals who opposed company policies (expansion, etc.) in city and town councils, state legislatures, etc. Those SLAPP lawsuits claimed libel, but there was actually no libel.
through which a blogger can buy legal insurance against SLAPP suits. Disney’s claims were without merit, but it’s expensive to pay a lawyer to prove it.
Although the 1st Ammendment does, and should, protect the right of even low-road types to spew their verbal effluent, – it is only the bloggers, and not the MSM, who will continue to expose the hate, the lies, and the hypocrisies of these radio cockroaches.
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Hate-fueled mouth breathers like randi rhodes on the left, and michael savage on the right, are like poison on the airwaves. The more disinfectant that can be poured on them, the better.
Savage (nee Weiner) is clearly a psychotic fascist. I’ve not listened to Rhodes much – is she anywhere near a left-wing equivalent of the Savage Weiner?
She is not to everyone’s taste though. Some love her. I can’t take more than half an hour usually.
…has a one hour show that she stretches out to some 3 hours.
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Stephanie Miller is much better, in that she has the same effect, but she and her company are much more entertaining.
Yes, GEO, she is as far left as Savage is right, to answer your question.
Michael Savage leads hate huge rallies advocating violence. He wouldn’t know a fact if it bit him. There’s no comparison between him and Randi Rhodes, though many of those on the right like to pretend there is, to feed the intentional lie of false equivalence.
Tell me how THAT relates to legal discrimination? Or is that just an ‘intentional lie of false equivalence’? I won’t say anything about Cindy Sheehan’s progressive, perpetual rally as a vehicle of hate, especially against Isreal.
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Steve – the point is – Savage AND Rhodes represent fringe views (just because you might happen to concur with one doesn’t make it any less fringe).
Here’s a sample speech.
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MLK is most remembered for his work on desegregation and equal rights. However, it his work during Vietnam is also relevant to his holiday methinks.
was not created for his views on the Vietnam War, but for his personal commitment and sacrifice for civil rights.
it’s not called “civil rights movement day.” It’s called “Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.”
was created for Dr. King’s entire legacy, which included his opposition to the Vietnam war. In fact, GOP Senator Jesse Helms led the fight against the MLK Holiday in part because of Kings opposition to Vietnam. Reagan also opposed the MLK holiday, but it had a veto proof majority, so RR signed it.
I’ve been following it over the weekend at dailykos, glad to see some national attention.
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Viva la spocko.
don’t want the attention. Whenever I hear one of their sorry screeds, it’s usually full of the facist rhetoric that their target audience seems to enjoy so much. If someone calls them on it (as in this case), their words magically become “metaphorical”. They’re taking a page right out of “Goldwater Republican” Michael Savage’s playbook, replete with eliminationist fantasies. Hey, they’re satirists. Like Lenny Bruce!
because the clips have been sent to advertisers, many of whom have pulled out. Considering how many of the clips openly advocate violence, none of these people should be on the air anyway.
…what it is, is an issue of the attention of the advertisers, and what the advertisers believe might be the possible impact on their business from being associated with the right-wing talk show radio haters.
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What Spocko was doing was following in the obvious footsteps of John Avarosis (now of americablog.blogspot.com, then of StopDrLaura.com) of informing the advertisers of what they are advertising. Like Spocko, Avarosis was able to get more than a few advertisers to pull their advertising from not only “Dr.” Laura Schlessinger’s projected TV project (and to get the TV program moved to less desirable late night time slots in many areas in which it was aired) but as a by-product also to get the advertisers to also pull their advertising from her radio show. Her radio show went downhill quickly. I don’t know whether she’s still on in Boston, but the last time I listened to her (for laughs) a few years ago, most of her advertisers were conservative christian operations. A christian bookstore. A christian hairdressing salon (as though hair dressing is associated with a religion). It was amazing how quickly her star had fallen. And the ultimate irony is that conservative christian operations would advertise on a program run by a self-described Jewess.
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Let’s understand American media. The issue isn’t whether or not the radio wingnuts want the media attention. The issue is whether or not the advertisers, who give the radio wingnuts their radio megaphone, want to be associated with giving them their megaphone. That is the issue. And, apparently, more than a few of them don’t.
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BTW, just to remind you, the wingnuts have used threats of advertiser boycotts for a number of years to try to keep gay characters off TV programs. In the 1980s, the TV program 30 Something had two sympathetic gay characters–that is, they weren’t criminals, drug addicts, self-destructive, pedophiliacs (remember the Dr. Welby, MD, episode from the 1970s?) suicidal, or the like. The wingnuts objected to the advertisers, and the characters were quickly pulled. Advertiser boycotts have a long history, mostly begun by the wingnuts. The wingnuts will bleat to the hills, but what the wingnuts have learned to their detriment is that, what goes around, comes around.
I must be showing my age! I gather it – i.e. “wingnut” is a pejorative, but other than that it tells ME nothing at all!
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“Peter” what DO you mean when you label someone a “wingnut”???
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Deb Sirotkin Butler
Amberpaw@aol.com
…a person with nutty ideas from an extreme end of the policial spectrum.
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Many on BMG have called me a wingnut, but really, they have no idea. They should meet some of my internet acquaintances! Likewise, some of them think BMG is full of wingnuts, and I say to them…you have NO idea…
No, they really do have NO idea. Thanks.
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I’d like to agree, but after reading the Times article, the wingnut radio hosts seem more defiant than contrite. Of course that could be more bravado, but they’re still on the air and getting plenty of free publicity for their hate rants.
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In the last 15 years or so, right wing hate jockeys have grown like bacteria, taking cues from Rush, Savage, Hannity et al. The success of that model is undeniable and owes a hat tip to Father Coughlin. If advertisers were truly worried about being associated with hate mongers, Rush wouldn’t be making $25 Million a year and having lunch with Dick Cheney.
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Kudos to Spocko for defiantly taking on the facists among us, but as long as there remains an enthusiastic audience (and wingnut apologists), advertising dollars will be sticky.