STOP STREAMING AND LISTEN: FIGHT POST-GOVERNMENTAL-CONTENT-CONTROL STREAMING MEDIA BREAKS UK LAW - FIND OUT WHY NOBODY WANTS TO CARE... Streaming media deliver video or audio content over the web. But streaming media are very different from the web. In the UK such formats force BT to breach the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Act. To the grass-roots activist web-critics, this might be the right (and most likely only) time to pull the plug and prune the web. Alternatively we could happily stream on and witness how independent media production will be pushed to the periphery of the new order. Here is one of many scenarios... THIS TOOL IS NOT A REBEL TOOL! OR: WHAT IS TODAY'S WEB POTENTIAL? We are still crouching in the eye of the storm. The first momentum of web history has passed, crashing through the myth- making machines of popular cultural theory. Today, some members of the old-time hacker scene are pulling out of the in- ternet - dismissing its currency as a tool for radical change since the increasing commercialisation has allegedly blunted the tool. Those one-track net activists have moved their battle grounds, yet their natural opponent - the state - only per- ceives a possible danger in the not-so-far-away-future, not today... and certainly not in the mythological mid 1990s... This is the eye of the storm. It is quiet. Naturally, this is the time where everyone is tweaking strategies and tools. The government is struggling with issues of content regulation, legislation and copyright issues; software developers achieve *real* good qualities of compression; the independent media scene establishes waterproof networks of information exchange (for free); big corps beef up their websites, ready to go, but not quite going yet. Everyone talks about merging: platforms, corporations, software, equipment, distribution, strategies, power, media. On-line initiatives are overvalued on the stock market. Nevertheless, all search en- gines have been sold... When we re-enter the tornado (turnover, spin, carousel, this time it will be real!) one tool will be at the centre of the new, flash web-reality: streaming media. What is the first case of the worst-case scenario? Correct me if | am wrong, please! PUSH PUSSYCAT: KILL, KILL! - OR: HOW STREAMING MEDIA BREAKS UK LAW After the revolution hype calmed down, an increasing number of sceptics appeared on the horizon, holding many convinc- ing arguments about surveillance, neo-liberalism and consumer society up their sleeves. However, none so far has actu- ally pondered the possibility of diverting or even stopping the internet avalanche. It seems like a ridiculous thought, but let's just stick to it for a few of paragraphs... Shall we stop it now? Want to pull the plug on the web? To those who had enough and have long been looking for ways to shut the whole *thing” down: thank the inevitable invention of streaming media (audio and video) and go to your nearest court today! Better do it today, because the thing about outdated telecommunications legislation is that they are in urgent need of change. Next year it might be over (it most probably is!). So it's now or never... Here is a little hint for UK residents: the Telecommunications Act 1984 and the Broadcasting Act 1990 prevent public telecommunications operators from conveying or providing entertainment services nationally to homes. in other words: BT is theoretically in breach of the ‘broadcast ban' when more than one viewer watches the same broadcast over the Internet. A website providing scheduled programmes or simply streaming their radio or TV channel online creates a situation in which this is the case, almost by default. An awkward wormhole in the telecommunications and broadcasting legislation, deriving from parameters which were not predictable at the time.