Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons^™

Myths And Misunderstandings, Michael I. Meyerson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the utility of the Holmsean marketplace of ideas when considering the regulation of different forms of communication technology.

Amending The Oversight: Legislative Drafting And The Cable Act, Michael I. Meyerson

All Faculty Scholarship

The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 ("Cable Act") represented the first comprehensive federal law governing the no-longer new communications technology of cable television. After years of confronting a "patchwork" of federal, state, and local regulation, the cable industry, government regulators, and the public were told that the Cable Act would create a "national policy concerning cable communications," and firmly "establish guidelines for the exercise of Federal, State, and local authority."

Unfortunately, the Cable Act failed to fulfill its numerous objectives. Advertised as a careful balance, the Cable Act was administratively and judicially converted to a lopsided grant of victory …

The Right To Speak, The Right To Hear, And The Right Not To Hear: The Technological Resolution To The Cable/Pornography Debate, Michael I. Meyerson

All Faculty Scholarship

The advent of cable television presented a new opportunity to consider the competing interests on each side of the free speech/pornography debate. This Article attempts to construct an analysis that will be consistent with Supreme Court teaching on how government, under the first amendment, may constitutionally regulate legal obscenity, particularly in the name of protecting those who wish to avoid exposure to such material.

The Article shows how, unlike earlier battles over technology and pornography, cable television presented the novel opportunity to have a technological rather than a censorial solution to this difficult problem.