What Exactly Does "Avast" Mean Anyway?

Our protectors of freedom over at the RIAA are picking fights with satellite radio XM and Sirius. This got me thinking. Can someone tell me exactly why a satellite radio station needs to respect international copyright in the first place? It's like the old Thunderbirds episode where Rick 'PTWANG' O'Shea is trapped in space on his pirate radio satellite, happily broadcasting music to the world for a modest profit in advertising revenues. So with international finance and communications the way they are, a small nation of english speaking natives, perhaps on an island somewhere, could fund their whole government with a small satellite playing XM style broadcasts without a monthly fee. Or if without commercials by charging 1/10th what the big boys do. They could sell a yearly unique unlock code for each radio. Perhaps making payments over the net the way the online casinos do.

They would be free from harassment in the US courts. There'd be nothing the RIAA could do about a satellite unless the US wanted to admit to surface to space satellite killer missiles. Consumers would have some choice and "The Man" gets it stuck to.

Fuck'em if they can't take a joke.