Monologue on internet radio, censorship, and Sirius deal

We got an announcement to make here. We got an announcement. We got something crazy going down. Check it out. We got three shots of vodka. That's coming through courtesy of Skid Row Radio. Skid Row? Skid Row Studios. That's right. Skid Row. Skid Row Studios. Skid Row Studios in the house. We're recording live tonight. And we're broadcasting as well from King Eddie's. Come get your shot of vodka. That's too easy. That's too easy. That's too easy. That's too easy. That's too easy. content on the internet and you know something that we do here at the studio you know we haven't made a dime off of what we're doing here at the studio everything we do is free the people that record here and produce their shows here it's free we're not against making money we certainly would love to at least make enough money to keep the studio going and and I would love to make enough money here to be able to give back to the people who make make this place possible which is all the show hosts and the great ideas that come in here and and you know we we've been extremely fortunate and I say the same thing to everybody you know it's it's the whole if you build it they will come scenario and and that's what happened you know we we put this myself and Joel my business partner who lives up north you know we put put our resources together and you know I tried to handle some of the tech side and and and he handles some of the the the big ticket items that you know like rent and and things like that but everything that we've done here has been out of pocket and it makes me wonder you know along with censorship on the internet free content you know what direction are these things gonna go in because regardless of what we would love to do and you know I wish information could remain free and and we could just do this for fun and somehow be able to eat and and continue to have great shows and great guests but at some point you got to wonder like you know what's going to happen if you if you believe in in in freedom of speech and and freedom of information how do you make enough money just to keep things going I don't want to be rich I don't want to I have no dreams of luxury cars and and huge mansions I I want to make enough money to keep things going and to just be able to do something that I enjoy doing so the the shows that we produce that you know a terrestrial radio station would produce and and and you know I'm I know that we're not radio veterans and and we still got a long way to go before we compare ourselves to to some of the great talk radio stations out there But I know that a talk show host gets paid very well. They have a team of people that put together their show and research their show. And they're supported by a huge corporation, if you're with a big company. And there's tons of money being tossed around for a medium that is definitely on its way out. I think the availability is the only barrier right now to internet radio. You need to be able to lean over in your car and turn on an internet radio station for it to really be a seamless acceptance by generations of people who are used to spinning the dial for their favorite radio station. Anyway, I'm kind of... diverging a bit here, but I have to ask these questions all the time. Like, what can we do? We're producing this great content. What can we do to get more listeners to remain censorship-free and allow our shows to develop organically? I have seen hosts that on day one, they had no idea what was going on. And, you know, this is a performance just like anything else. That's why I'm so nervous to get on the mic because I realize that there's a talent to doing this and to keep it interesting. And that is a talent in itself. Keep things moving. Keep it interesting. Keep your listeners listening. And that's a hard... That's a hard thing to do. Especially because there are so many options out there these days. It's no longer the problem of a hundred channels and nothing on. It's a million channels and nothing on. And from every subject you could possibly think of. So it's tough. How do you shine through? How do you break through? How do you... How do you... How do you... How do you... How do you... How do you... How do you... How do you get other people to care about what you're saying as opposed to these 10,000 other people that are saying the same thing but in a slightly different way? You know, I don't know. I think what we did here is unique. We built a radio studio. We produce these shows like radio shows. We're doing the best we can. Again, you know, it's rough around the edges because none of us have... any experience in the radio industry. So we're reinventing the wheel in a lot of different places here simply because we're learning on our own. This is self-taught radio here. Anyway, the thing that... what I started to talk about is the Congress comes up with these bills once in a while. We're going to censor the Internet. I think from a technical perspective, what would you have to do in this country to truly have total control over the Internet? And I've worked for many Internet providers. I've worked for tons of Internet companies. I mean, I know how these things work. And to put the right tools in place just to have that level of control, it just seems like an impossible task. And... And... It always makes me laugh when I hear these bills going through Congress. And it's like, what are you going to do if you pass this bill? How are you going to actually stop people from bypassing whatever measures you have? And the, you know, the vigilante hacker community would have your ass in a sling in a second. I mean, if you think anything that they've done, up to this point, is astounding or somewhat... It's nothing. It's nothing. I have a feeling that the people that are in the right places that actually do know what they're doing, I'm not talking about what we refer to in the community as script kitties, you know, where they kind of find some pre-made script that does something, and they just kind of run this program and, you know, lots of fun. You know, I made this website go down or whatever. I'm talking about people that actually do know what they're doing that are in control of making the Internet work. And I can't see how some of these people would just lay down and kind of allow something like this to happen. Or people will always find a way. They'll use some kind of way to get through. They'll use some kind of way to get through whatever protections were put in place. I mean, as a young kid, your liquor cabinet, you know, you're going to find a way to get in that liquor cabinet. Either somebody's going to slip up and forget to put the lock on, or you're going to find a way to pick the lock and find a way to sip that bourbon without anybody finding out. And it's the same way with any kind of censorship. And even... Even the censorship laws that exist today, there is always ways around it. So I have this strong belief that we should just stop trying to control information. Information is always going to get into the hands of those that seek it. It's our nature. We need... We have a desire to understand something on a deeper level. And this kind of goes along with the hacker culture. I guess you could say is, you know, if you talked to gung-ho hacker guys, they would say that it's an exploration of knowledge. They get into a system and they try to understand it. And, you know, some of the... I guess you would call white hat hackers out there, you know, will let a system administrator know of their vulnerabilities before they take down a system. Or whatever, you know. It's more, you know, I got that root. I got that login and it works. Other people just want to destroy systems and whatever. You know, it goes across the board. But what are you going to do to control the internet? What are you going to do to control information? We've been fortunate enough, recently, to get a contract with Sirius Radio. Sirius XM Radio. That place has like 17 different names. So I don't know what they want to be called this week. And probably violating some kind of contract by just talking about this. But initially, you know, we thought, here's an opportunity. We worked with them previously. We had a few shows that we, we broadcasted live out of our studio via Skype connection back to their studio. We went to their studio. Had a great time, you know. Their studio's really nice. I would say that technically we're actually on par with their studio. And maybe more advanced in some ways. But the studio itself was very nice. As I told some of the people over there at Sirius that I was very jealous. Of their lighting in their studio. When you come into our studio, it looks like you're being interrogated for like child rape or something. It's just bad. We need better lights. But through this deal, you know, me and Joel said, fuck it, you know, let's try to see if we can make some money off of this. I mean, they're kind of, it felt like an upgrade in the relationship. Maybe this is the time that we try to get them to cough up a little dough because now we're handing over content. Well, we hired a lawyer and guy wrote up this great contract that, you know, we were like, oh, this is a great deal for them. They're essentially getting 15 show hosts when you combine all the shows they want together. Um, because some of our, our hosts or shows have six hosts. They're getting all these hosts. They're getting, you know, 16 hours of content a month. Um, great deal for them. You know, give us a little something. Well, it didn't take long. I mean, the email was like, we don't pay for content. Let us know when you want to sign the original contract that we sent you. Um, or, you know, eat shit pretty much. You know, we're trying to, you know, we're trying to, to do something here. We were able to at least verify that we still own our content. And, um, you know, that that's good because at least we have ownership over our content technically. Um, it's going to help us to get more listeners by, by being able to talk about Skid Row Studios and advertise our shows on the shows that are being rebranded. Um, yeah. Rebroadcast it on Sirius radio. So, you know, at no point were we like, fuck you, you know, we're not going to do it because we have no leverage and we know that. But we thought, hey, here's a chance. Well, can, can Sirius really get away with that forever? I mean, can you get away with not paying for content? I don't know. Um, they're certainly, uh, really really really really really really really really really really and then Sirius is a great match for us because we don't censor and they don't expect us to people pay a subscription to Sirius Radio it's just like paying a subscription to HBO for cable or special channels on cable and that gives them the ability to control their content and present adult material and mature audiences only type material and so that works out well for us what happens when terrestrial radio kind of fizzles away and internet radio is the most prominent way to disseminate information on an audio or video level what happens when terrestrial goes away and the FCC no longer really has a purpose at least for the radio band I mean the FCC can't regulate something that nobody gives a shit about anymore so are they gonna try to shift is there going to be an FCC of the internet I don't see how that's possible but I can definitely see them trying when you control somebody when you control something you simultaneously create a an entire market for that thing that you're trying to control and that's anything we control we outlaw certain drugs well that creates a market for not only black market you know shady drug dealers but it also creates a market for the big pharmaceutical companies because they get the stamp of approval from society as to what is socially acceptable to consume as a drug so make sure all these bad drugs you know that are unregulated and somewhat uncontrollable because of their existence on the black market keep those outlawed and here's our alternative to some of those drugs now I'm not talking about you know crack isn't gonna cure your cold but you know there are some illegal substances and I think marijuana falls into this category where they do have some medicinal value I'm never gonna be one of those guys that says marijuana cures cancer I think that's ridiculous and irresponsible but if you're a cancer patient and you're getting chemotherapy every day and you feel like you can't even eat because your insides are being radiated and you smoke a joint and that lets you get some food down what is wrong with that? that seems strange to prohibit such a thing but anyway it creates a market any control creates a market FCC is not going to like it when they know that it's a bad thing and they're not going to like it when they know that it's a bad thing and they're not going to like it when they know that it's a bad thing when they know that it's a bad thing when they know that it's a bad thing when they know that it's a bad thing when they know that it's a bad thing when there's no longer enough people who give a shit about terrestrial radio to make their jobs worthy so it's a strange thing and I really wonder what's going to happen in terms of and I don't think this is in the too distant future I'm talking next five years next five, ten years terrestrial radio is going to be dead I mean it's just going to it just doesn't make sense anymore the amount of information that you can harvest from your internet listener as opposed to your sitting in the middle of nowhere receiver of an RF signal there's no comparison and I say this because I say this all the time that we're we as in the internet radio community is just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up and I think that's when when we're going to have plenty of business opportunities and plenty of opportunities to license content and do all the things that radio is doing now we're just not going to have a bulky transmitter to worry about and that's been my goal for Skid Row Studios since day one is I want to have that ergonomic environment of a radio studio that's why we use real broadcast consoles and real broadcast mics and real broadcast processors and phone hybrids and everything here is a radio station without a bulky transmitter and the audience potential with internet radio is huge um anyone in the world in the country can listen to your internet radio station um you will never get that with terrestrial radio and it costs clear channel communications so much money to own all these stations all across the country that generally do and play the same type of thing but they have to duplicate it everywhere so they can gather that massive listener base really really really really really really really really some massive layoffs. Anyway, internet radio and freedom of speech, censorship, censoring the internet in general, I'm really curious as to how that would even happen. I'm going to take a short break. When we come back, maybe we'll talk about how China does it. China, if you know anything about China, they have what people call the Great Firewall, which is kind of a funny play on the Great Wall and what a firewall is. A firewall in computer terms is something that filters certain types of information. So this computer, isn't able to talk to this computer or this type of website based on its content or how it's rated, isn't able to get through. It's a way of controlling information. And the way they make it sound is there's this one computer that is the gateway for all the internet in China and they're running some kind of firewall on it. I'm sure it's far more... More complex than that, but it's interesting. I'll take this break and come back. Listen to Skid Row Studios anytime, anywhere with the Skid Row iPhone app for your smartphone. Skid Row Studios. Real internet radio. Who's that news? Nora Ephron died this week. It was the first thing she's done in a while that wasn't funny. And Katie Holmes is finally finishing her five-year search for a good divorce lawyer. She and I can finally go out in public. It was like he studied for the part of you're a heterosexual in love and then went out and completely played it wrong. That's interesting because I was going to say that that marriage was less believable than Katie Holmes and Batman. But that's the weekly wrap-up. Every Sunday, seven o'clock Eastern, four o'clock Pacific time at skidrowstudios.com. Tune into the Love Byte where all your kinky desires, come true Sundays, three to four p.m. Pacific time at skidrowstudios.com. All right. So we were talking about kind of overall, like what censorship means and how to deal with it. And I think that's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. I think it's a really good question. on the internet, zoom in on that and fucking vaporize that guy. I don't know. It's just weird to think about the resources necessary to enforce something like that. And what does it do? I mean, does it stop? I don't know. What does it control? All it does is it frustrates people who may be using those things for legitimate reasons. That's the problem with censorship too, is that it is such a blanket statement. If we deem this to be inappropriate, we have to apply these same rules to everybody. It's this Doug Stanhope bit that it reminds me of where he says, he says that drunk driving tests should be individual. Not everyone is going to slam into a wall after two beers. But, you know, technically, according to the breathalyzer, you know, you're over your limit, so you're fucked. Yet a, you know, 19-year-old...