Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!chinacat!balkan!dogface!bei
From: bei@dogface.austin.tx.us (Bob Izenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Cable Censorship
Message-ID: <05ec51w164w@dogface.austin.tx.us>
Date: 30 Jun 91 07:11:08 GMT
References: <1991Jun28.002632.27854@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Distribution: na
Lines: 34

paulf@umunhum.stanford.edu (Paul Flaherty) writes:

> So frankly, if you
> don't like the communtity resource, go buy a dish -- it's cheaper in the
> long run, and you have access to anything you can pay for.

	Is it cheaper?  I have a few (non-rhetorical) questions about this.
Do any of the satellite channels that you receive scramble their signal?
If so, what costs are associated with receiving the signal in your home?
What's the period of time that you would receive the same channels through
your cable company (if you didn't have the dish)?  How much would you have
paid to the cable company, assuming constant rates, over that period?
 
> However, the existence of said 
> channel offended religious officials in a Bible Belt state, who then 
> filed suit against AE and the uplink company, which proptly stopped uplinking
> AE.

Boy, what a terrible precedent!  The satellite channel reached a few more
places than the community or communities in which the offended clerics resided.
Instead of regulating the reception of the signal in their region, they felt
that they were justified to decide the fitness of the company's programming
for everyone who could possibly receive it, whether they shared the same
views and/or geography as the officials or not.
If I'm offended by some of the screamin' Jesus money machines that plague
the satellites and get them cut off at their uplinks, I doubt that my use
of the same tactics would seem fair to those who filed the suit.
-- Bob

     Opinions expressed in this message are those of its author, except where
              messages by others are included with attribution.

                       Bob Izenberg [ ] bei@dogface.austin.tx.us
                 home: 512 346 7019 [ ] CIS: 76615.1413@compuserve.com