The world of online music is evolving at a global breakneck pace. Millions of people are Pandora-ing, Turntable-ing, and Spotify-ing away. They're sharing their music choices on their mobiles via Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm. Users, developers, and entrepreneurs are redefining the very nature of broadcasting for the foreseeable future.

But over at the Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau, it's as if this revolution isn't even happening. In the spirit of Javert, the obsessed police inspector in Les Misérables, the law must be enforced. And the law doesn't focus on reigning in the waves of deep packet inspection that ISPs still deploy throughout the United States. It's about fining unlicensed radio stations like the one run by Dan "Monkey Man" Roberts called "Pirate Cat," a radio cafe operation that ran a "broadcast station without a license issued by the FCC on 87.9 MHz in San Francisco, California," according to the agency's Forfeiture Order.

The fine is $10,000, but that money may never show up at the US Treasury, according to pirate radio enforcement expert John Anderson speaking to Jennifer Waits, who follows the ongoing Pirate Cat drama over at the Radio Survivor blog. The agency's overall forfeiture collection rate "is pretty abysmal," Anderson explained. The last time the Commission even bothered to check its success rate, it clocked in at about 25 percent. And after five years of stalking a "recalcitrant pirate" who won't pay up, the FCC has to file a civil lawsuit for judgment.

As for winding up in the pokey, Waits' colleague Paul Riismandel notes that FCC charges are civil, not criminal. Only two states extend enforcement that far. "Unless you live in Florida or New Jersey, don't be spooked into thinking you're likely to go to jail, even if the FCC catches you red handed," Riismandel observes.

Given all the frenetic activity in the Internet world, does this sort of slugfest even matter anymore? Judging by the swarms of activists who keep starting unlicensed analog radio stations every year, it sure does. The Pirate Cat story is about filling a need that remains largely unmet by the Internet and conventional radio since the Clear Channel ascendancy. People still want old school radio stations. They want local brick-and-mortar places where they can actually hang out and share music not on Facebook or Spotify, but in real-time physical proximity of each other. They want to have coffee, or go out on a date—maybe even call the station to say hello.

That's why the Pirate Cat radio drama keeps happening.

A loose liberal reading

Even by pirate radio entrepreneur standards, Daniel Roberts is a bit of a hellion. By one account, he and his entourage of almost three dozen DJs ran an unlicensed operation in San Francisco for about a decade before the regulatory yogurt hit the fan. Around 2008, the Pirate Cat team added a "quaint cafe" to the 21st and Florida Street operation, serving up lattes on a corner storefront.

Rebellious music flowed from the station and the cafe via DJs with names like Pixie and "Dr. Hal." The cafe/radio establishment was even reviewed by chef Anthony Bourdain on his travel channel show, No Reservations.

All this was a hit with the city. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors awarded Pirate Cat a certificate recognizing the operation's "trailblazing efforts toward freeing the airwaves from corporate control, providing the community with training in radio broadcast skills, empowering voices ignored by traditional media outlets, and contributing to the advancement of the city's coffee culture."

How did the monkey tribe justify this defiance of federal regulatory authority? Roberts contended that Title 47 Section 73.3542 of the United States Federal code somehow provided him with a loophole:

(a) Authority may be granted, on a temporary basis, in extraordinary circumstances requiring emergency operation to serve the public interest. such situations include: emergencies involving danger to life and property; a national emergency proclaimed by the President or the Congress of the U.S.A and; the continuance of any war in which the United States is engaged, and where such action is necessary for the national defense or security or otherwise in furtherance of the war effort.

"The loose liberal reading of it is that if the President declares war then it is our civic duty to keep up communications with each other," Daniels explained.

Not so fast, says the FCC

It's no surprise that the FCC found this dubious interpretation wanting. The notices about unlicensed broadcasting began showing up at Pirate Cat's door in mid-2009. According to the FCC, not only was the operation running on an unauthorized signal, but on a frequency below the allocated FM dial:

The PCR [Pirate Cat Radio] website also mistakenly claims its unlicensed operation is sanctioned by Section 73.3542 of the Rules, 47 C.F.R. § 73.3542. We note that authority to operate pursuant to this Section must be granted by the FCC, and that the burden is on the applicant to show the required 'extraordinary circumstances' to support such a grant There is no record that Roberts and PCR have ever received such a grant of authority from the Commission. Additionally, the frequency used without authority by Roberts and PCR is 87.9 MHz, which is not allocated to the FM broadcast band,

On Halloween of that year Pirate Cat announced that the team would go online and drop the over-the-air signal. The craziness one associates with these sort of operations continued, however, including Roberts' ham-handed bid to merge operations with a community radio station in the nearby coastal town of Pescadero. This was followed by a revolt of his staff, which has since renamed itself the PRC collective and changed the operation's name to Mutiny Radio in July.

But that FCC fine never quite went away, and last Friday it formally showed up at Roberts' door, even though the over-the-air aspect of the setup was long gone. Now, there's a lot of tricky back-and-forth between the FCC and Roberts about whether he ever really "operated" the Pirate Cat signal, and what the word legally means.

None of this will change the bigger picture . In Boston, the Commission had to seize equipment to get the Daz Hits community radio revolt under control. Even though Congress has given the FCC the ability to license more Low Power FM stations, most of these won't appear in big cities. Expect to hear more monkey men over the airwaves in the near and distant future.