Does Open-Source Software Make The FCC Irrelevant?

[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Daniel Fisher]
Columbia Law School Professor Eben Moglen wants to destroy the Federal Communications Commission. Not as some kind of terrorist act, but because technology is rapidly making it irrelevant. The agency might have made sense in the 1920s, Moglen says, when it was formed to assign specific frequencies to broadcasters so they wouldn't try to drown each other out by cranking up the transmitter power. But a new generation of intelligent radios, combined with equally clever computer networks, is making it possible for anybody to use the airwaves without interfering with anybody else. That raises the question of why Rupert Murdoch, say, needs exclusive access to a slice of the radio spectrum for his Fox television network when he could just as easily put his content out over the Internet for customers to pick up using low-powered wi-fi receivers hooked into the Web. “My goal is to do all of the work it takes to be explaining to the Supreme Court in 2025 why broadcasting is unconstitutional,” says Moglen, who speaks in perfect, rolling sentences. “We have a long march to do, we have a lot of education to do, society has to catch up with our vision of the future, but we are going someplace and the only question is timing and skill in driving.” (Godspeed, Eben!)
http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/10/18/open-source-software-FCC_cz_df...