5 April 1994
Norman McLeod
So much, then, for the case for the defence. I want to stress again that I am not advocating that people set up pirate stations or encouraging them to do so. But they will anyway, whatever I say or do, particularly when there is such a glaring mismatch between the demand for spectrum and the legal supply of it.
The case against piracy was put in a big public campaign by RTE, the Irish state broadcaster, in 1984, in the middle of a enormous battle between them and well-muscled pirate operations. If you want to read the whole fascinating story of what happened in Ireland when things got really out of hand, I can strongly recommend the book 'Radio Radio', by Peter Mulryan (Borderline Publications, 38 Clarendon St, DUBLIN 2 ISBN no. 1 870300 03 3).
The RTE campaign listed the following points:
(i) it undermines respect for the law;
(ii) it puts emergency services at risk;
(iii) it interferes with air traffic control;
(iv) it has no legal or social responsibility;
(v) it interferes with legal broadcasting;
(vi) it interferes with legitimate enjoyment of radio and television;
(vii) it puts jobs at risk in newspapers and broadcasting;
(viii) it steals from the work of musicians, singers and journalists;
Respect for the law
The first point - respect for the law - is important. It is not in anyone's interests for complete anarchy to prevail, as it did at various points in Irish broadcasting history. At one point a certain operator was deliberately using up frequencies with multiple simulcasts simply to prevent others doing so. The weak were flattened by the strong and there was no-one to defend them.
This is what - in my naivety - I think the business of regulation should be about. It should be protecting the weak against the powerful and greedy because if it is not seen as doing so, how can it expect to gain respect among ordinary people?
The spectrum does not belong to the Government, nor was it invented by the DTI. It is a natural resource, like the sun and the rain, and it will work for anyone, anywhere, any time. If someone wants to use spectrum in a socially- constructive way, then it would seem to me to be a basic principle of justice that the less you want, the easier it should be to get it.
However, the less you want, the less important you must be, and the less likely you are to have friends in high places. If you want 3 MHz nationwide and your name is Richard Branson you will be taken seriously. If you want ten watts to cover a campus, go to the back of the queue...
If you can sustain a student or hospital station on voluntary effort and 5,000 a year, and run a service commercially on paid effort and 500,000 a year, why is the prospect of a semi-professional station running on 50,000 a year thought to be such an absurd proposal? Virtually no provision exists in the UK for services functioning at around this sort of scale from, say, hundred-watt transmitters. No wonder there are so many pirates!
Any readers wishing to comment on what I have said are welcome to call me on 01 273 684 172 or send e-mail to normac@fastnet.co.uk
Copyright NJ McLeod 1995