Communications Law Commons^™

The Unexamined Life In The Era Of Big Data: Toward A Udaap For Data, Sean Brian

Sean Brian

No abstract provided.

Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Approaches To Network Neutrality: A Cost Benefit Analysis, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

Many advocates for less intrusive government oversight of telecommunications support the migration from regulation by an expert agency to the use of adjudication remedies largely guided by antitrust/competition policy principles. They believe that competition authorities, or reviewing courts can resolve disputes after they have occurred in lieu of having expert regulatory agencies available to anticipate and resolve problems before they become acute. Such ex post remedies typically determine whether anticompetitive conduct has occurred and what marketplace harm has resulted. Advocates for retaining so-called ex ante regulation believe that an expert agency remains essential particularly in light of fast changing market …

What’S New In The Network Neutrality Debate, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

For over ten years, academics, practitioners, policy makers, consumers and other stakeholders have debated whether and how governments should regulate the Internet with an eye toward promoting accessibility, affordability and neutrality. This issue has triggered grave concerns about the Internet’s ability to continue generating substantial and widespread benefits. Advocates for various outcomes have vastly different assessments about many baseline subjects including the viability of sustainable competition and self-regulation. Consumers become agitated and confused by different framing of the issues, particularly when participants in the Internet ecosystem cannot reach closure on interconnection and compensation issues. Increasingly these disputes trigger temporary degradation …

The Costs And Benefits Of Regulatory Intervention In Internet Service Provider Interconnection Disputes: Lessons From Broadcaster-Cable Retransmission Consent Negotiations, Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

This paper considers what limited roles the FCC may lawfully assume to ensure timely and fair interconnection and compensation agreements in the Internet ecosystem. The paper examines the FCC’s limited role in broadcaster-cable television retransmission consent negotiations with an eye toward assessing the applicability of this model. The FCC explicitly states that it lacks jurisdiction to prescribe terms, or to mandate binding arbitration. However, it recently interpreted its statutory authority to ensure “good faith” negotiations as allowing it to constrain broadcaster negotiating leverage by prohibiting multiple operators, having the largest market share, from joining in collective negotiations with cable operators. …

Internet Protocol Television And The Challenge Of “Mission Critical” Bits., Rob Frieden

Rob Frieden

The Internet increasingly provides an alternative distribution medium for video and other types of high value, bandwidth intensive content. Many consumers have become “technology agnostic” about what kind of wireline or wireless medium provides service. However, they expect carriers to offer access anytime, anywhere, via any device and in any format. These early adopters of new technologies and alternatives to “legacy” media have no patience with the concept of “appointment television” that limits access to a specific time, on a single channel and in only one presentation format. This paper assesses whether and how Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) can offer …

Protecting The Sender: Liability Protection For The Senders Of Electronic Communication, Meredith W. Doherty

Meredith W. Doherty

As the technology of smartphones has progressed, electronic communication has become an integral and portable part of our daily lives. A recent New Jersey case highlighted the issue of holding the sender of a text message liable for injuries resulting from a motor vehicle accident in which the driver at fault was reading a text message from the sender at the time of the accident. This note focuses on the implications of such liability being imposed on senders of text messages as well as the slippery slope that could result, taking all forms of electronic communication, social media and mobile …

Balancing The Scales: Adhuc Sub Judice Li Est Or Trial By Media, Casey J. Cooper

Casey J Cooper

The right to freedom of expression and free press is recognized under almost all major human rights instruments and domestic legal systems—common and civil—in the world. However, what do you do when a fundamental right conflicts with another equally fundamental right, like the right to a fair trial? In the United States, the freedom of speech, encompassing the freedom of the press, goes nearly unfettered: the case is not the same for other common law countries. In light of cultural and historic facts, institutional factors, modern realities, and case-law, this Article contends that current American jurisprudence does not take into …

Drones, Henry H. Perritt Jr., Eliot O. Sprague

All Faculty Scholarship

Abstract

Drone technology is evolving rapidly. Microdrones—what the FAA calls “sUAS”—already on the market at the $1,000 level, have the capability to supplement manned helicopters in support of public safety operations, news reporting, and powerline and pipeline patrol, when manned helicopter support is infeasible, untimely, or unsafe.

Larger drones–"machodrones”–are not yet available outside battlefield and counterterrorism spaces. Approximating the size of manned helicopters, but without pilots, or with human pilots being optional, their design is still in its infancy as designers await greater clarity in the regulatory requirements that will drive airworthiness certification.

This article evaluates drone technology and design …

Drones, Henry H. Perritt Jr., Eliot O. Sprague

Henry H. Perritt, Jr.

Peering Into The Comcast-Netflix Deal, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

Dissolving Innovation In Meltwater: A Misguided Paradigm For Online Search, Bill D. Herman

Bill D. Herman

With the exponential increases in online information, internet search engines have helped fill a substantial and growing need for the capacity to sort through and manage data. News outlets in general and newspapers in particular are among the most socially important sources of online content being indexed, and these outlets are faring rather poorly in the internet economy. Both of these sectors are thus in a precarious, potentially conflicted relationship, with copyright law serving as the primary legal basis for mediating the relationship. A 2013 decision, Associated Press v. Meltwater, is one recent attempt to mediate this relationship. In …

Federal And State Authority For Network Neutrality And Broadband Regulation, Tejas N. Narechania

Tejas N. Narechania

For the second time in less than four years, the D.C. Circuit has rebuffed the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt at imposing network neutrality rules on internet traffic. But in so doing, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the FCC’s theory of jurisdiction based on section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This ruling has the significant effect of transforming a questionable source of authority into what may become the Commission’s most significant font of regulatory power.

Surprisingly, section 706 seems to give the Commission the power to implement a slightly revised set of network neutrality rules. By narrowing the scope of …

Restoring Limits On The Fcc's Ancillary Authority, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

No abstract provided.

The Eye Of The Beholder: Participation And Impact In Telecommunications (De)Regulation, Dorit Reiss

Dorit R. Reiss

The California Public Utilities Commission addressed both pricing deregulation and universal service in telecommunications during the last decade. Both decisions had a similar cast of characters, and similarly elaborate processes. In relation to price deregulation, the utilities positions were accepted on every issue addressed; in relation to universal service, consumer organizations’ positions were accepted in about 60% of the issues. This article tells the story of how those decisions were made, and examines the reasons for the difference in impact. The article examines and reject an explanation of capture; accepts in part a focus on the influence of the commissioner …

Pinterest And Copyright's Safe Harbors For Internet Providers, Michael W. Carroll

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Has the time come to substantially revise the Copyright Act to better adapt the law to the ever-evolving digital environment? A number of influential sources appear to think so. If their initiatives gain momentum, it will be important to consider lessons learned from the first such effort fifteen years ago when Congress made far-reaching changes to copyright law by extending the term of copyright for twenty years and by enacting a package of reform proposals known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). This Article intertwines the story of one important provision of the DMCA - safe harbors for Internet …

Sender Side Transmission Rules For The Internet, Tejas N. Narechania, Tim Wu

Tejas N. Narechania