Public Access Needs Your Help or they will be GONE by July
Senate Bill 998 is in the Community Affairs Committee of the Florida Senate right now.
The bill would allow the telecom companies to unfairly take copyrighted content -- your (independently produced public access) shows -- for their use -- without paying the copyright holder for the content.
The bill would move all PEG channels from the lowest tier. This means, we could be on channel 327 or some high numbers. It also means that people would need to pay higher costs to view the PEG channels.
The bill would create high transmission costs for PEG channels because of its requirements.
Last but totally the worst case scenario -- If this bill passes, ALL access channels -- public, education and government -- will be eliminated on July 1, 2007. This is because there is a requirement for an access channel to air 8 hours of local original content per day not counting replays. ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, TNT, HBO and other commercial networks do not air 8 hours of local original content per day because that it unaffordable. How could we?
Florida Senate
Community Affairs Committee
Mandy Dawson
Steven Geller Mike Haridopolos Gary Siplin
Ronda Storms
Alex Villalobos
Victor Crist Stephen Wise
Rudy Garcia
Anthony Hill
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Ask them to vote against making changes in the PEG channels *public access
*education *government
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I don't remember when I've seen a more concerted attack on peoples' freedom to communicate with each other. In later posts today or this week I will explain what I mean if you don't already know it. An attack on Internet Radio and the FCC meeting. Please ... like the FCC doesn't know that we don't wish the media to be monopolized. hmmmm
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Please email the Senators and be sure they know not to take public access away from the people. It's an all-important outlet.