Sometimes copyright cases are more philosophical than other lawsuits. Take two recent cases, one about a monkey's rights over a photograph, and the other about who owns the rights to silence. On Jan. 6 U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled against the People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals, who were suing on behalf of a 6-year-old monkey, Naruto. Photographer David Slater handed Naruto his camera in Indonesia in 2011, and the monkey took the camera, and snapped a selfie. The judge ruled that Naruto does not have any copyrights. "I'm not the person to weigh into this," Orrick said. "This is an issue for Congress and the president. If they think animals should have the right of copyright they're free, I think, under the Constitution, to do that." In November Business Insider reported about the case of DJ Detweiler, and how Soundcloud took down his cover version of John Cage's "4'33" composition. The song is famously silent, although DJ Detweiler's version's silence was, "was not a track of silence and was taken down because it included Justin Bieber's What Do You Mean without the rights holder's permission," according to Soundcloud. D.J. Detweiler told Business Insider that it was meant, "to start a conversation about copyright for fun," saying the take down was part of the performance.

Radio Today is starting an online radio stream aimed at radio professionals, as a radio station about radio. The station will be based in the U.K. with podcasts such as the RadioToday Programme, Radio Stuff, Earshot Creative Review, and The Media Podcast and presenters include former Real Radio presenter Guy Harris at ‘breakfast’, ex-Atlantic 252 DJ Enda Caldwell in afternoon drive time and freelance 5 live journalist Stuart Clarkson reporting radio news, with RadioNewsHub.com providing hourly updates. The station will also air live radio events, and award ceremonies, and conferences. “It’s always puzzled me why the radio industry doesn’t have a radio station of its own," said Roy Martin, Radio Today's Founder and Managing Editor.

In 2014 The New York Times profiled the prototype of a tool that records various kinds of internet content. At the time it was called Colloq, and was aimed to be, “As close as possible, you’re going to get the experience of interacting with the actual site,” said Jon Ippolito, a professor of new media at the University of Maine who advised Rhizome, a non-profit arts group, in designing the project. “It is reconstructing it, bit by bit, in a technology that is very close to the original and allows users to explore it interactively the way they could with the original.” Now, Jan. 4, Rhizome was awarded a two-year, $600,000 grant to underwrite the development of what has become Webrecorder from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Webrecorder will save content from formats that may not linger on the internet. Remember Friendster or Myspace? Anything shared there ten years ago is lost currently in the Facebook world. "In 1999, Rhizome founded the ArtBase, a distinctive collection of technically diverse born-digital art. In 2009, recognizing the fragility of these system-dependent works, we created a digital preservation program to care for them.... we look forward to leading further innovation in the field of digital preservation through the Webrecorder project," said Zachary Kaplan, Rhizome’s Executive Director. An early version of Webrecorder is available at webrecorder.io.

Radio France and Deutschlandradio shut down their medium wave transmissions at the end of 2015. While in the United States the Federal Communications Commission is trying to save AM by rebroadcasting AM stations on FM radio, in Europe, authorities are moving away from the frequencies. Medium wave is the part of the radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. In Europe the medium band ranges from 526.5 kHz to 1606.5 kHz, with channels spaced every 9 kHz, while in North America it extends to 1705 kHz, with 10 kHz spacing. The AM band can travel farther then FM, as the waves are larger, but it is also much noisier, with much static. Radio France and Deutschlandradio both said listener numbers have dwindled significantly on the band, and shifted programming to FM, digital, and Internet broadcast outlets.

DJ Earworm's annual mash-up of the year in pop music, for 2015.
Next week, David Bowie releases "Blackstar."

The Columbia Paper reports about a new study released by the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College. “Drone Sightings and Close Encounters: An Analysis,” studied 921 radio-controlled incidents in the national airspace between December 2013 and September 2015. There were 327 incidents in which drones presented some level of hazard to manned aircraft, and 90 of those involved commercial jets, according to coauthors Dan Gettinger and Arthur Holland Michel. “We are looking to furnish stakeholders and the public with a reliable, data-driven guide to the potential risks posed by drones to manned flight,” Gettinger said. The Center for the Study of the Drone was founded in 2012, to expand the public’s understanding of the opportunities and challenges associated with the development and proliferation of unmanned technologies. Read the full story in The Columbia Paper.

Wave Farm Radio Top 100 2015

Ranked from airplay, and a poll of Wave Farm programmers.

100) Bruce Springsteen, "The Ties That Bind: The River Collection" (Columbia)
99) Ryan Adams, "1989" (Pax-Am)
98) M.I.A. "Sirens" single
97) F.K.A. Twigs, "M3LLI55X" (Young Turks)
96) RJD2, "STS Instrumentals" (R J Electrical Connections)
95) Salad Boys, "Scarce Tracks" (Chunklet)
94) Bill Orcutt and Jacob Felix Heule, "Colonial Donuts" (Palilalia)
93) Derek Piotr, "Bahar" (Bit-Phalanx)
92) Wilco, "Star Wars" (dBPM)
91) Co La, "No No" (Mexican Summer)
90) Charlie Hunter and Bobby Previte, "We Two Kings"
89) Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Dvorak "New World/Varese Ameriques
88) Prince, "Baltimore"
87) Miley Cyrus/The Flaming Lips "Dead Petz"
86) Mac McCaughan, "Non-Believers" (Merge)
85) The Chills, "Silver Bullets"
84) Prurient, "Frozen Niagara Falls" (Profound Lore)
83) Bill Fay, "Who is the Sender?"
82) Silent Isle, "Surrounding the Dragon" EP
81) DJ Sotofett & Karolin Tampere, "Nondo" Original Mix (feat. Maimouna Haugen)
80) Bryce Dessner and So Percussion, "Music for Wood and Strings" (Brassland)
79) Herbcraft, "Wot Oz" (Woodsist)
78) Kreng, "The Summoner" (Miasmah)
77) Chris Stapleton, "Traveller" (Mercury)
76) Holly Waxwing, "Peach Winks" EP (Cascine)
75) Torres, "Sprinter" (Partisan)
74) Grimes, "Art Angels" (4AD)
73) Jenny Hval, "Apocalypse, girl" (Sacred Bones)
72) Courtney Barnett, "Sometimes I Just Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit" (Marathon)
71) Kode9, "Nothing" (Hyperdub)
70) Heikki Koskinen, Mikko Innanen, Teppo Hauta-aho, "Kellari Trio" (Edgetone)
69) Amanez, "Africa" (Now-Again)
68) Sufjan Stevens, "Carrie and Lowell" (Asthamatic Kitty)
67) Run the Jewels, "Meow the Jewels" (Mass Appeal)
66) The Weeknd, "Beauty Behind the Madness" (Universal)
65) Sauna Youth, "Distractions" (Upset the Rhythm)
64) Walter Donnaruma, Michael Bisio, Adam Siegel, "On Track"
63) Valet, "Nature" (Kranky)
62) Colleen, "Captain of None" (Thrill Jockey)
61) Michael Gibbs and NDR Big Band, "In My View" (Cuneiform)
60) Terroir Abstract various, "Drones and Soundscapes" (City Noises)
59) Godspeed You Black Emperor!, "Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress" (Constellation)
58) Liturgy, "The Ark Work" (Thrill Jockey)
57) Prefuse 73, "Every Color of Darkness" (Temporary Residence)
56) Container, "LP" (Spectrum Spools)
55) Boredoms, "Wow 2" (Disk Union)
54) Panda Bear, "Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper" (Domino)
53) DJ Earworm, "Drone"
52) Max Richter, "From Sleep" (Deutsche Grammophon)
51) Romare, "Projections" (Ninja Tune)
50) Christian Scott, "Stretch Music"
49) Alabama Shakes, "Sound and Color"
48) Fantasma, "Free Love (Soundway)
47) Matt ''MV'' Valentine, "Midden Mound" (Coney Island Audio)
46) Foodman, "Couldwork" (Orange Milk)
45) Mary Halvorson, "Meltframe" (Firehouse 12)
44) Sun City Girls, "Torch of the Mystic" (Abduction)
43) The Mountain Goats, "Beat the Champ" (Merge)
42) Chris Forsyth and Koen Holtkamp, "The Island" (Trouble in Mind)
41) Olivia Block, "Aberration of Light" (NNA)
40) Meg Baird, "Don't Weigh Down the Light" (Drag City)
39) Pigeons, "The Bower"
38) Sunn O))), "Kannon" (Southern Lord)
37) Bjork, "Vulnicura" (One Little Indian)
36) Belle & Sebastian, "Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance" (Matador)
35) Rabit, "Communion" (Tri Angle)
34) Circuit des Yeux, "In Plain Speech" (Thrill Jockey)
33) Mantana Roberts, "Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee" (Constellation)
32) PBK and Jim O'Rourke, "Unidentified Again" (Pica Disk)
31) Oliver Lake and William Parker, "To Roy" (Intakt)
30) Wire, "Wire" (Pinkflag)
29) Destroyer, "Poison Season" (Merge)
28) Dan Friel, "Life" (Thrill Jockey)
27) Six Organs of Admittance, "Hexadic" (Drag City)
26) Wolf Eyes, "I Am A Problem: Mind In Pieces" (Third Man)
25) Stanley Cowell, "Juneteenth" (Vision Fugitive)
24) Erykah Badu, "But You Caint Use My Phone (Mixtape)" (Motown)
23) The Deep, "Psychedelic Moods" (TTW)
22) MV & EE, "Alpine Frequency" (Feeding Tube Records)
21) Jiln, "Dark Energy" (Planet Mu)
20) Yo La Tengo, "Stuff Like That There" (Matador)
19) Pan Sonic and Charlemagne Palestine, "Mort Aux Vaches" (Staalplaat)
18) Joshua Abrams, "Magnetoception" (Eremite)
17) Elvis Perkins, "I Aubade" (Mir Image Reproduction)
16) Universal Indians and Joe McPhee, "Skullduggery" (Clean Feed)
15) Lightning Bolt, "Fantasy Empire" (Thrill Jockey)
14) Rachel Grimes, "The Clearing" (Temporary Residence)
13) Four Tet, "Morning/Evening" (Text)
12) Flying Saucer Attack, "Instrumentals 2015" (Domino)
11) Jim O'Rourke, "Simple Songs" (Drag City)
10) Kendrick Lamar, "To Pimp a Butterfly" (Interscope)
9) Holly Herndon, "Platform" (4AD)
8) Mbongwana Star, "From Kinshasa" (Nonesuch)
7) U.S. Girls, "Half-Free" (4AD)
6) Zs, "XE" (Northern Spy)
5) Noveller, "Glacial Glow" (Fire)
4) Kamasi Washington, "The Epic" (Brainfeeder)
3) Oneohtrix Point Never, "The Garden of Delete" (Warp)
2) Matthew Shipp, "The Conduct of Jazz" (Thirsty Ear)
1) William Basinski, "Cascade" (Musex)

WGXC Programmer Top 10 Lists for 2015

LunarMoss
1) Charlemagne Palestine - Bells Studies
2) Matt Valentine - Midden Mound
3) David Borden - Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments
4) Alex Calder - Strange Dreams
5) Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe & Ariel Kalma - We Know Each Other Somehow
6) Jessica Pratt - On Your Own Love Again
7) Phil Collins - My Heart's In My Hand, and My Hand Is Pierced, and My Hand's In The Bag, and The Bag Is Shut, and My Heart Is Caught (15)
8) Jack Name - Weird Moons (5)
9) Disappears - Irreal
10) Valet - Nature

The Magic Stranger, "Puff!" Thursdays, 9:30-mid
1) The Electronic Hole - ST (LP on Radich) /30 Pts.
2) The Beat of the Earth - This Record is an Artistic Statement (LP on Radich) /20 Pts
3) U.S. Girls - 'Half Free' (LP on 4AD) /5 Pts.
4) The Deep - 'Psychedelic Moods' (3xLP on Lion) / 10 Pts.
5) Search Party - 'Montgomery Chapel' (LP on Lion)/ 5 Pts.
6) Big Star - 'Jesus Christ' (10" ep on Omnivore) /5 Pts.
7) The Sonics - '50' (3xLP Box with Bonus! on LITA) /5Pts.
8) Alan Vega, Alex Chilton, Ben Vaughn - Cubist Blues (2xLP on LITA) / 5 Pts.
9) Alan Watts - This is IT (LP on Numero Group) /5 Pts.
10) Alex Chilton - Live at Ocean Club (2xLP on Norton) /10 Pts.

Shelley Weiner, "Wall to Wall" Fridays, 11 a.m.-noon
Kacey Musgraves, “Pageant Material” 30 pts.
Iris DeMent “The Trackless Woods" 30 pts.
Bryan Hymel, “Heroique” 10 pts.
Diana Damrau, "Fiamma del belcanto" 10 pts.
Isabel Leonard, “Preludios”, 10 pts.
“Holiday Harmonies: Songs of Christmas” 10 pts.

Chris Bishop - Vinyl Rundown
1) Last of the Garage Punk Unknowns Vols. 3 & 4 (Crypt Records) 15 pts
2) Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten – Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll (Dust-to-Digital) 15 pts
3) The Contents Are - "Through You" + 7"s (Machu Picchu) 10 pts
4) Long Time Comin' - Lost Sounds from the Treasure State (Lost Sounds Montana) 10 pts.
5) Ho-Dad Hootenany Vol. 2 (Crypt Records) 10 pts.
6) The Squires - "Going All the Way with the Squires" (Crypt Records) 10 pts.
7) Deep "Psychedelic Moods of the Deep" (Lion Productions) 10 pts.
8) Amanaz - "Africa" (Now-Again) 10 pts.
9) The Search Party - "Montgomery Chapel" (Lion Productions) 10 pts.

The Communications Law Blog reports about the deadlines for commercial AM radio stations to file for an FM translator, putting their signal on both formats. This is the main part of the Federal Communications Commission's plan to save AM radio, by putting it on FM radio. AM licensees can acquire and relocate translator stations up to 250 miles away from their current studio. The first modification window is for licensees or permittees of Class C or D AM stations, and is from January 29 to July 28, 2016. Then any AM station is eligible in the second window, July 29 to October 31, 2016. More information about the FCC's AM plan is at https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-revitalization

David Oxenford in the Broadcast Law Blog reports that the Copyright Royalty Board announced Dec. 16 that the royalty rates for anyone to play sound recordings on the internet for public listening fell by a third, the first lowering of fees ever. Commercial webcasters -- and that includes radio stations simulcasting their FM signals -- will pay $.0017 as the per performance (i.e. the rate paid per song, per listener) starting Jan. 1. David Oxenford explained about the royalty rates in an interview Dec. 22 with Triton Digital.

The latest debate among candidates for the Democratic nomination for president was held the Saturday night before Christmas, and so, virtually no one saw or heard much beside the headlines that Hillary Clinton was calling for a "Manhattan Project" among tech giants about encryption, to prevent terrorists from sending secret messages over the internet. While that was the headline, the more telling line may have been, "I don't really know enough about the technology," as it seems like she realizes that, while she wants to demagogue as a candidate, smart voters know that encryption is what keeps your online credit card purchases safe. Clearly, listening to her statement, the woman who may be the next president does not have the magical answer to resolve the debate between privacy and public safety, but hopes that someone in Silicon Valley does.

President Obama signed the 2,000-page omnibus budget bill last week that the Republican-led Congress passed and there is good and bad in it for everyone. Moreover, the bill shows how behind-the-scenes action in Washington D.C. gets done, and how lobbyists can be effective in such a gamed system. Privacy advocates spent the years since 2001 trying to win back freedoms the Patriot Act and other expansions of the surveillance state took away. All that work went up in smoke in a back room in Congress last week. The leaders of the House and Senate bargained behind the scenes, picking and choosing the parts of bills that had passed each legislative body, and crafting them into a gigantic Frankenstein bill, with the help of lobbyists, that the President had to sign or the government shuts down. So those legislative leaders rewrote the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, turning a bill that was returning rights to citizens, into legislation that allows the state to peek a little more into your cell phone. Depending on your point-of-view, that's either good news or bad news. It is probably the opposite news that attempts to undercut the Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet Order, or net neutrality, were left out of this spending bill. The courts, though, still have plenty of opportunity to gut that measure to level the internet playing field.

The Los Angeles Times reported Dec. 17 that the Air Force is now taking enlisted personnel as drone pilots for the first time, because they need so many soldiers to fly the drones. Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, is the military's growing sector. "If you talk to combatant commanders around the world, which I do regularly, and ask them, 'What is the one more thing you need from the Air Force?,' they will always reply, 'I want more ISR,'" said Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James. Enlisted personnel are only handling surveillance so far, not firing missile and killing targets from remote control. Officers, for now, will be the only ones operating MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones. "In fiscal year 2014, the most recent data available, the Air Force trained 180 drone pilots, and 240 veterans left the field," The Los Angeles Times reported.

Click here to play or download an audio version of this report.

Satellite radio disc jockey Howard Stern will not return to earth, as he signed a new five-year deal Dec. 15 for an estimated $90 million per year according to several reports. Before leaving syndicated terrestrial airwaves in 2004, Stern had an estimated 30 million listeners; today SiriusXM, his satellite home, has 29 million potential listeners. Listen to an excerpt of "The Howard Stern Show" from Dec. 16, announcing that he will continue on SiriusXM.

John Anderson at DIYmedia.net has long tracked pirate radio activities in the United States and writes that enforcement efforts from the Federal Communications Commission are at their lowest levels since 2004. But those enforcement actions may be at their highest level of political gamesmanship ever. Most of the FCC's enforcement actions in 2015 -- 76 percent -- were in New York or New Jersey, most around New York City. Earlier this year, plans to cut back the enforcement bureau at the FCC were met by a letter signed by New York and New Jersey Congresspeople with ties to the National Association of Broadcasters, demanding the commission do something about the pirate radio menace. So the FCC reacted: 111 enforcement actions in just ten states in 2015. Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who parrots the NAB stance on pirates, quoted from a leaked 2014 email from an FCC field director saying, “We are scaling back on our response to pirate operations. Barring interference to a safety service, pirates should NOT be given a high priority (If there’s interference to a safety serivce, it’s not a ‘pirate case’ but instead a ‘safety case.'” Anderson, though, puts this all in its proper perspective: "Everybody involved in this little corner of the media policy world is a paper tiger: the enforcement organization and agents themselves, the industry lobbyists who are trying to blow the notion of pirate radio out of all proportion to reality, and the Commissioners who’ve picked up the industry’s crusade for the purposes of making some political hay. None have suggested a meaningful or constructive path away from the status quo — which is all the better for the pirates, who will continue to flourish in spectrum-crevices long considered unserviceable by their licensed bretheren."

FULL DISCLOSURE: John Anderson is on Wave Farm's board.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced new rules Dec. 14, requiring owners of remote-controlled recreational aircraft to register the machines in a national database. With radio-controlled drones predicted to be one of the most popular holiday gifts this year, and an increasing number of the aircraft interfering with the work of aviation, fire, and police officials, the registration process is meant for authorities to be able to track down owners of any flying machines that break the rules. Drone owners will have to fill out an online form with their names, home addresses, and email addresses to the F.A.A., and then affix a registration number to their drone. “Unmanned aircraft enthusiasts are aviators, and with that title comes a great deal of responsibility,” Anthony Foxx, the secretary of the Transportation Department, said in a conference call with reporters Dec. 14. “Registration gives us an opportunity to work with these users to operate their unmanned aircraft safely.” Only American citizens can register a drone at faa.gov/uas/registration/, beginning Dec. 21. Registration will be free for the first 30 days, then cost $5. The rules are for new drones, which must be registered before flight, and previously purchased aircraft, with registration required by Feb. 19, 2016.

France won't be shutting down public Wi-Fi networks or banning Tor, not even during a state of emergency, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said last week. He had to make the statement because the French newspaper Le Monde reported the week before that the government was considering such measures. "Internet is a freedom, is an extraordinary means of communication between people, it is a benefit to the economy," Valls said. "It is also a means for terrorists to communicate and spread their totalitarian ideology. The police must take in all of these aspects to improve their fight against terrorism, but the measures we take must be effective." In the United States, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has suggested he may want to shut down the internet to battle terrorism, and most other candidates have wished for more surveillance on citizens in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris, Colorado Springs, and San Bernadino.

Paul Riismandel in Radio Survivor reports that Art Bell's latest radio return seems short-lived, and ended in conspiracy. Bell wrote a Dec. 11 blog post saying he is, “going to hang it up,” saying a “crazy person” has threatened Bell and his family. During a live broadcast of his "Midnight in the Desert" radio show Oct. 21, shots were fired near his home studio in Pahrump, Nevada. “As you all know I dearly love what I do,” he writes, “but not at the expense of never ending Terrorism (sic).” Bell used to host "Coast to Coast AM" on FM radio, then "Dark Matter" on Sirius XM Radio, and returned with another conspiracy theory-based show, this time online, with "Midnight in the Desert," beginning in July of 2015. Soon, 55 broadcast affiliates, including two shortwave stations, were transmitting the call-in show. Now, though, the show's online syndicator is offering refunds to subscribers.

U.S. FBI Director James B. Comey testified at the "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation" Senate Judiciary Committee hearing December 9, and he said American tech companies are working hand-in-hand with authorities on the war on planning terrorism on the internet. Comey said he had no problems with tech companies not being helpful about sharing terrorist wireless communications. But he questioned the business model of some companies, saying he wishes they would reconsider. Since many companies creating apps and software the U.S. government might not like are overseas, Comey's request seems odd and ineffectual. Listen to his statement to the committee here.

All the work privacy advocates have done since September 11 may be erased with the bullets in San Bernadino recently. Politicians are using that as an excuse to expand surveillance and restrict privacy. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act is a perfect example of what is currently going on in the halls of Congress. The bill began as an effort to roll back the excesses of surveillance, and, now, is being turned into an all-access pass for federal authorities to snoop. The Senate and the House both recently passed versions of the bill that were not raising objections with privacy advocates. House Intelligence Committee members have been working out the differences secretly lately, and are gutting the surveillance restrictions, and opening backdoors for snoops and hackers. “We’ve just learned that the Intelligence Committees are trying to pull a fast one,” Nathan White, senior legislative manager at digital rights advocate Access, wrote in a recent email. “They’ve been negotiating in secret and came up with a Frankenstein bill — that has some of the worst parts from both the House and the Senate versions.” Sources tell The Hill newspaper that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other congressional leaders are behind many of the new surveillance sections of CISA.