In alt.censorship, mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us writes:

>``The airwaves'' (propagation of energy in the electromagnetic spectrum)
>constitute a limited resource.  This resource can only be used when the
>users cooperate.  Establishing this cooperation is the purpose of such
>agencies as the FCC.

But the FCC is only one of many ways to establish cooperation. For
example, for real estate, even for rare real estate such as in
Manhattan, we use a system of public and private ownership and
leasing.

This was the system in the U.S. from 1922 to 1925 and it worked well.
See _Tribune Co. v. Oak Leaves Broadcasting Station_ (Cir. Ct., Cook
County, Ill., 1926), reprinted in 68 Congressional Record 216 (1927)
for an example of a court applying standard common law property
principles to resolve conflicts (without the need for content
control).

So why do we have an FCC instead of some alternate scheme?  Well there
was interference in 1926 and 1927, around the time the Radio Act of
1927 was being considered by Congress. Senator Key Pittman of Nevada
suggested at the time that this interference was caused to pressure
Congress. He said on the Senate floor on Feb. 18, 1927:

  Oh, yes; of course the radio broadcasters of this country want this
  bill passed. Does anyone doubt that? Do not Senators know that
  nearly every telephone company in the United States in every little
  town is getting someone to send a telegram saying, "Pass this bill"?
  What do the senders of those wires know about it? Why was it that
  just recently broadcasting concerns of the West all changed their
  wave lengths, sometimes a hundred degrees, to have them conflict,
  and the next they said, "If you do not pass this bill, you will have
  that same condition for another year"? Why have we not had that for
  a year? Why does it happen just now?

  Mr. President, I do not believe I am naturally suspicious, but when
  telegrams pour in from all over the United States to Senators from
  people who know nothing about this legislation, and cannot know
  anything about it, urging its passage, I know the stimulus comes
  from somewhere, and where should the stimulus come from of the
  passage of this bill?

  The bill is fair to only one institution. It is fair to the monopoly
  that will be created under it.
[68 Congressional Record 4111 (1927).

Senator Robert B. Howell of Nebraska said at the time (on the floor):
"As this bill now stands, it is what the great radio interests want."

See Thomas Hazlett's article in the _Journal of Law and Economics_,
133, 145 (1990) for more evidence that the interference problems of
1926 were precipitated in principal part by government and by
cooperator broadcast industry efforts.

Why did Congress go along?

   Again and again Representatives and Senators raised concerns not
   about inference (which was in fact a secondary matter for those
   debating the radio act) but about the pervasive, instantaneous, and
   influential nature of the new medium. Congress appears to have been
   fixated on the great promise of the medium, to have feared it use
   as a political weapon against incumbents, and to have wanted to
   prevent industry leaders from having the discretion to deny giving
   political candidates access to the airwaves. [Regulations that
   the FCC still enforces. -cmk]

   Once again, those in power had set the stage for a recurrence of
   the monopoly rent/content control _quid pro quo_ established in the
   time of Henry VIII [with newspapers-cmk]. The only major difference
   was in the sophistication of the dialogue. Unlike Henry VII, the
   American politicians of the twentieth century had artfully covered
   their true intentions with a more digestible public interest
   coating.
     -- Jonathan W. Emord in _Freedom, Technology and the First Amendment_
        [A wonderful book on this topic.]

- Carl