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IowaFM started off as a pretty simple concept - provide
high-quality content in a radio format with an eclectic community,
focusing a new media localism. We seek to connect a wealth of Iowa's
unheard talents to the airwaves: together creating a new localism
restoring the intimacy of the FM-Stereo radio listening experience
and its a fun way to get to know one another.
The idea manifested from a long-shot application into an amazing
reality thanks to the phenomenal input of a determined group of
individuals who asked for nothing in return - volunteers who came and
put up the application and legal fees, volunteers who put up drywall,
volunteers who came in and set up servers, and volunteers who show up
7 days a week to create the outstanding programming that makes the
community listen.
This is the start of what we're calling IowaFM - a framework for
all the stuff that goes into creating a quality media outlet
IowaFM wants to hear from you
- To provide timely and accurate reports of local and state events, including weather, news and community happenings;
- To provide a forum open to all residents of the area for the discussion of public issues;
- To provide music and entertainment for our audience;
- To provide a diversity of programs designed to educate and inform;
- To promote the general well-being of the area;
- To train local residents to use the medium of radio to express their thoughts, feelings and talents
IowaFM, Inc.
224 N. Dubuque St.
Iowa City, IA 52245
319.248.5050
IowaFM's operations, guidelines and
underlying philosophies owe a lot to the Free and Open Source
Software movements, and the associated spin-offs such as Creative
Commons. There are a number of reasons for this, chief amongst which
is the whole premise behind Community Radio.
IowaFM's founders building these facilities and station have a
clear mission of Community. The Community Radio license under which
IowaFM seeks to operate is not just a matter of convenience and cost.
The main purpose is to give voice to a rich and unique community.
Our vibrant community seeks to join a worldwide wealth of
Community Radio stations providing a vehicle for every group to
broadcast their ideas, their music, as themselves!
IowaFM's Community mission is deigned so that everything the
organization does is transparent, simple to replicate and accessible
to every person in the immediate community. Given that IowaFM is a
relatively unique mix of artists, educators, farmers, visionaries,
and revolutionaries the question of easy access for this broad
listener and contributor base virtually requires that the barrier to
entry be virtually zero. This is where Free and Open Source software
steps in.
At IowaFM we believe that all the software we use to produce and
broadcast our shows MUST be available to anyone in the community.
This means that they must be able to customize the software, get the
latest versions, and not have any restrictions on it's use. There are
a number of reasons why these requirements are essential, and these
are addressed very well in other places. But in order for our
community to be able to participate in our project, they needed to be
able to produce content with virtually no barrier to entry, and yet
provide the highest quality.
This is exactly what solutions like Audacity, Ardour, and the
entire Ubuntu Studio suite is provided.
The other side of the coin is the creations that IowaFM airs.
IowaFM encourages the use of Free/Open Source Software for creating
and disseminating our broadcast material. But should not this
broadcast content be just as accessible as the tools which we used to
produce it?
We believe it should, and therefore encourage the use of Creative
Commons licenses for all our hosts' content. The license that IowaFM
adopts is the Creative-Commons-By-Non-Commercial-3.0 license, which
basically states that everything we have the rights to “provide for
the public consumption and may be redistributed without restriction
so long as there is no commercial use of the content.”
Your permission to mp3 shows on our Audioport-Archive welcomes
other non-profit community stations to spread your content far and
wide. This does not allow others to profit from IowaFM hosts'
content without permission.
