Beam Us Up

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that one of the people that helped me get started was NTodd, keeper of Dohiyi Mir, and if you're a regular reader of NTodd, you know that one of his frequent commenters is Spocko, who is a media critic and had a blog called Spocko's Brain. (Full disclosure: Spocko has commented here several times, I believe.) Spocko has waged a war against a San Francisco radio station, KSFO. Online Media Daily picks up the story from there.

KSFO features hard right-wing talk show hosts who endorse torture, call for the public hangings of New York Times editor Bill Keller and other journalists, and demand that callers mock Islam. They also mock their own advertisers--calling Chevrolet, for example, "sh!tty," or recommending that Sears' Diehard battery be attached to an African-American's testicles.

Spocko not only recorded the programming and posted audio files on his site, but also sent letters to advertisers on the station, including AT&T, Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard, and others--pointing out the station's content and directing them to his blog to hear proof through his audio files.

Since Spocko began contacting advertisers, they have departed KSFO in droves. Netflix, MasterCard, Bank of America, and most recently, Visa have pulled their advertising from the station. According to Spocko, Federal Express, AT&T and Kaiser Permanente are weighing their departure as well.

Here's where it gets nasty. KSFO is an affiliate of ABC, which is owned by Disney. Last month attorneys for Disney sent a cease-and-desist order to Spocko's internet service provider, 1&1, to stop using audio files claiming that violated copyright. Spocko kept on posting them, claiming fair use. On Tuesday, January 2, fearing all the legal trouble that one of the world's largest corporations can muster, 1&1 pulled the plug on Spocko's Brain.

Ah, foolish Disney. They have yet to appreciate the power that a small band of bloggers and the internet can muster. Daily Kos has picked it up, as have a lot of other bloggers, including, of course, NTodd. Some allies of Spocko have begun to fight back, beginning with -- what else -- a blog, Online Blogintegrity, to chronicle the battle and rally support by taking action. This could not only be a landmark case in broadcast law and the fair use doctrine, it may teach Disney a lesson in keeping an eye on what their affiliates do. I'm not sure you want to put Mouseketeer ears on the image of attaching car batteries to the testicles of black men.

And this is where the blogosphere can prove its worth. A lot of little voices working together make a hell of a lot of noise, and Disney can't stop all of us. To quote another rebel from another fictional universe, "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers," and to reach back even further into film history, recall the words of Victor Laszlo in Casablanca: "If you strike us down, hundreds, thousands will rise to take our place. Even Nazis can't kill that fast."

Let the fun begin.