Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Boston University School of Law

1994

1992 Cable Act

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Law

Mandated Access: Commensurability And The Right To Say 'No', Wendy J. Gordon, Anne E. Gowen Jan 1994

Mandated Access: Commensurability And The Right To Say 'No', Wendy J. Gordon, Anne E. Gowen

Faculty Scholarship

Here is the problem as Congress saw it: A distributor of television programming (a cable television operator or a distributor of television programming via other media) cannot thrive unless it can supply viewers with top-rated programming. Few customers want to subscribe to a service that lacks NBC's Seinfeld, the latest episodes of General Hospital, or even PBS educational documentaries. Special provisions in the 1976 Copyright Act gave cable operators some liberty to retransmit broadcast programming. However, that Act created no such liberties for programming originating from within cable companies. Because the national market for programming is dominated by …