Communications Law Commons^™

Stealth Marketing And Antibranding: The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, Sonia K. Katyal

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brandjacking On Social Networks: Trademark Infringement By Impersonation Of Markholders, Lisa P. Ramsey

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Advertising And Social Identity, Mark Bartholomew

Buffalo Law Review

This essay takes a stand in the brewing legal academic debate over the consequences of advertising. On one side are the semiotic democratists, scholars who bemoan the ability of advertisers to take control of the meanings that they create through trademark law and other pro-business legal rules. On the other side are those who are more sanguine about the ability of consumers to rework advertising messages and point to several safety valves for free expression existing in the current advertising regulation regime. My take on this debate is that the participants have failed to address the impact of advertising on …

Consumer Counter-Advertising Law And Corporate Social Responsibility, Alberto R. Salazar V.

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulating The Airwaves In Israel's Burgeoning Democracy: Why The Israeli High Court Of Justice Should Have Acknowledged Free Speech In The Case Of Arutz Seven, Maya Tarr

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note examines the role of the Supreme Court of Israel in promoting democracy and freedom of speech, highlighting its interpretation of Basic Laws to include these rights. It critiques the Court's analysis in the Hok Habezek amendment case for not adequately addressing freedom of speech, despite its significant rulings in cases like Kol Haam v. Minister of Interior Affairs.

Fcc V. Fox Television Stations And The Fcc's New Fleeting Expletive Policy, Jerome A. Barron

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Article focuses on the Supreme Court's decision in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 129 S. Ct. 1800 (2009). In that case, the Supreme Court upheld an important change in the FCC indecency regulation. In the past, the FCC's policy had been that the broadcast of a single expletive did not violate FCC indecency policy. In order for such fleeting expletives to be actionable, the FCC required that they had to be repetitive and gratuitous. But in 2004, in response to the use of some expletives by entertainers during the Golden Globe Awards, the FCC changed its policy and …

Derailed By The D.C. Circuit: Getting Network Management Regulation Back On Track, Edward B. Mulligan V

Federal Communications Law Journal

As the Internet continues to play a more central role in the daily lives of Americans, concerns about how Internet service providers manage their networks have arisen. Responding to these concerns and recognizing the importance of maintaining the open and competitive nature of the Internet, the FCC has taken incremental steps to regulate network management practices. Perhaps the most significant of these steps was its August 2008 Memorandum Decision and Order in which the FCC condemned Comcast Corporation's network management practices as "discriminatory and arbitrary." In that Order, the FCC required that Comcast (1) adopt new practices that complied with …

Vertical Separation Of Telecommunications Networks: Evidence From Five Countries, Robert W. Crandall, Jeffrey A. Eisenach, Robert E. Litan

Federal Communications Law Journal

The widespread adoption of mandatory unbundling in telecommunications markets has led to growing interest in mandatory "functional separation," i.e., separation of upstream network operations from downstream retail operations. Since 2002, vertical separation has been implemented in five OECD countries: Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In 2008, the International Telecommunications Union noted "a tremendous amount of interest" in functional separation around the world; and, in April 2009, the European Parliament held its second reading on a new regulatory framework that embraces functional separation as an "exceptional measure." While the U.S. does not currently require unbundling of broadband …

Thwack!! Take That, User-Generated Content!: Marvel Enterprises V. Ncsoft, Carl Michael Szabo

Federal Communications Law Journal

Comic-book heroes show us how to be valiant, how to fight for those less fortunate, and, in some circumstances, how to combat those who break the law. Such is the situation in the case of Marvel Enterprises, Inc. v. NCSofl Corp., a battle between user-generated content and the copyright violations that resulted.

While the issue of copyright liability has been seen in hundreds of comments and notes from courts and attorneys alike, the issue of copyright liability on the internet remains an open question that if not addressed, could endanger the protection afforded to authors. Federal and state suits have …

Music As Speech: A First Amendment Category Unto Itself, David Munkittrick

Federal Communications Law Journal

Perhaps the most ubiquitous of art forms, music accompanies daily activities from shopping to jogging. Music permeates modem society, and there is little question it constitutes an integral mode of expression. Despite recognition of music's worth, however, there is little explanation of music in First Amendment jurisprudence. A rationale for First Amendment protection begins with analysis of the particular medium of speech. Through a foray in musical aesthetics and the history of musical censorship, this Note discusses the role of music in political, societal, and individual experience. Music has had an important role in political events, from the fall of …

The Sound Of Money: Securing Copyright, Royalties, And Creative "Progress" In The Digital Music Revolution, Armen Boyajian

Federal Communications Law Journal

Academics and popular critics alike want to distill, reform, or altogether destroy U.S. copyright law as we know it. Much of this stems from animosity toward the old-guard record industry's alleged practices of overcharging consumers, underpaying royalties to artists, and suing teenagers and grandmas. But what those calling for reform all seem to neglect is a tiny but inevitable fact: for the first time in history, composers and recording artists can keep their copyrights.

Tangible media sales are being replaced by P2P file sharing, retail downloads, and streaming Webcasts. Digital technologies and wireless networks have opened prime channels for music …

Putting The Brakes On Libel Tourism: Examining The Effects Test As A Basis For Personal Jurisdiction Under New York's Libel Terrorism Protection Act, Michelle Feldman

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

In The Shadow Of Innovation, Gaia Bernstein

Cardozo Law Review

We are in the midst of the intellectual property wars. Scholars, judges, legislators, corporations, creators, and inventors disagree about the role of intellectual property rights. Yet, surprisingly everyone agrees about innovation - everyone loves innovation. Innovation appears everywhere: in legal scholarship, case law, legislative hearings, newspapers, and blogs. It is uniformly admired and aspired to - though almost never questioned.

Innovation is often assumed to have historically held a central role in the technology regulating legal regime. This Article presents a study of case law, which demonstrates that contrary to common belief, the celebration of innovation is, in fact, a …

Too Much Of A Good Thing: Campaign Speech After Citizens United, Molly J. Walker Wilson

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transitioning To Free Speech: A Case Study On Legal Transfers In Jordanian Jurisprudence, Sarah Joy Gregory

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Interactive Computer Service Liability For User-Generated Content After Roommates.Com, Bradley M. Smyer

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores the future of interactive computer service provider (ICSP) liability for user-generated content under the Communications Decency Act (CDA) after Roommates.com II. Roommates.com II held that a housing website was not entitled to immunity under § 230 of the CDA from federal Fair Housing Act claims, in part because providing preselected answers to a mandatory questionnaire rendered the site an "information content provider" at least partially responsible for creation or development of answers. After examining the historical and legislative origins of ICSP immunity for user-generated content under 47 U.S. C. § 230, this Note argues that courts …

Fcc V. Fox Television Stations And The Role Of Logical Error In Hard Look Review, Samuel G. Brooks

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Masthead Vol.62 No.2 (2010)

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note, Jeffrey A. Lawson

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A "Pay Or Play" Experiment To Improve Children's Educational Television, Lili Levi

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Article addresses both the constitutionality and the efficacy of the FCC's current rules that require broadcasters to air children's educational programming. It argues that, even though the rules would probably pass muster under the First Amendment, they should nevertheless be substantially revised.

Empirical studies show mixed results, with substantial amounts of educationally insufficient programming. This is predictable-attributable to broadcaster incentives, limits on the FCC's enforcement capacities, and audience factors. Instead, the Article advises a turn away from programming mandates. It proposes a "pay or play" approach that allows broadcasters to pay a fee to a fund for high-quality public …

The Broadband Adoption Index: Improving Measurements And Comparisons Of Broadband Deployment And Adoption, T. Randolph Beard, George S. Ford, Lawrence J. Spiwak, Michael Stern

Federal Communications Law Journal

Countries around the world are increasingly concerned as to whether the adoption of broadband technology by their respective citizens is sufficient to support economic growth and social development. Unfortunately, such concerns are often expressed in terms of where a country ranks among its peers by means of raw adoption numbers. Such raw data are often misleading and incomplete. In this Article, we propose a different and more policy-relevant approach to adoption measurement. We develop a value-based Broadband Adoption Index (BAI) that compares the actual value to society that results from the adoption of broadband technology to a target level of …

Protecting The Cloak And Dagger With An Illusory Shield: How The Proposed Free Flow Of Information Act Falls Short, Jill Laptosky

Federal Communications Law Journal

Journalists who use secret sources may be presented with a staggering dilemma-disclose the source to comply with a subpoena or go to jail to protect the source. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), most jurisdictions now recognize that journalists have a privilege not to disclose their confidential sources when compelled to do so by the government. While the degree of the privilege's protection varies across jurisdictions, the fact that such a privilege exists at all may surprise anyone who has read Branzburg, which held that the First Amendment cannot support the existence of the privilege. …

Internet Governance And Democratic Legitimacy, Oliver Sylvain

Federal Communications Law Journal

Even as the Internet goes pop, federal policymakers continue to surrender their statutory obligation to regulate communications in the first instance to extralegal nongovernmental organizations comprised of technical experts. The FCC's adjudication of a dispute concerning a major broadband service provider's network management practices is a case in point. There, in the absence of any enforceable legislative or regulatory rule, the FCC turned principally to the transmission principles of the Internet Engineering Taskforce, the preeminent nongovernmental Internet engineering standard-setting organization. This impulse to defer as a matter of course to such an organization without any legal mechanism requiring as much …

Future Imperfect: Googling For Principles In Online Behavioral Advertising, Brian Stallworth

Federal Communications Law Journal

In a remarkably short time, Google, Inc. has grown from two people working in a rented garage to a pervasive Internet force. Much of Google's unprecedented success stems from online advertising sales which employ behavioral advertising techniques-techniques that track consumer behavior--thereby increasing relevance and decreasing the cost of reaching a targeted audience. In the same span that saw Google's inception and explosive online dominance, the Federal Trade Commission has struggled to define not only the privacy issues involved in online behavioral advertising, but also the practice of behavioral advertising itself. Freed from the restraints of comprehensive federal laws and restrictive …

Behavioral Advertisement Regulation: How The Negative Perception Of Deep Packet Inspection Technology May Be Limiting The Online Experience, Andrea N. Person

Federal Communications Law Journal

Privacy concerns associated with information available on the Internet has become a central focus for policymakers in Washington, D.C., and around the world. Specifically, the use of deep packet inspection (DPI) technology to offer behavioral advertising on the Internet has become the focus of policy discussions. While there are legitimate concerns related to improper use of this technology, the benefits of the proper use of DPI should not be overlooked. This Note asks how increasing regulatory barriers to limit online behavioral advertising could affect the consumer's experience online. To answer this question, this Note first looks at what DPI is, …

An Act Of Criminal Skullduggery: A Critical Analysis Of The Circuit Split Resolved In United States V. Abuelhawa, C. William Ralston

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mrs. Tschetschot's Busted Hand, Poker, And Taxes: The Inconsistent Application Of Tax Laws On A Game Of Skill, George Remennik

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article argues that the U.S. tax system unfairly treats professional poker players by restricting the deduction of gambling losses under Section 165d, despite poker being increasingly recognized as a game of skill. This disparity contrasts with the treatment of other professions, which can fully deduct business expenses. The analysis calls for legislative clarification to align the tax treatment of professional poker players with that of other professionals, ensuring equitable tax outcomes.

Rwanda 94: Theater, Film, And Intervention, Christian Biet

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Caught In The Act Of Picturing, Barbara Villez

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hybrid Vigor: Mashups, Cyborgs, And Other Necessary Monsters, Rebecca Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Does remix matter? This brief comment addresses the critique of importance, arguing that remix culture as well as the popular/mass culture from which it springs are of vital importance to human flourishing, invoking Donna Haraway's concept of the cyborg to investigate the fluidity, dynamism, and monstrousness of remixes and remixers.