Communications Law Commons^™

Attacking Brandenburg With History: Does The Long-Term Harm Of Biased Speech Justify A Criminal Statute Suppressing It?, Anuj C. Desai

Federal Communications Law Journal

Book Review: Destructive Messages: How Hate Speech Paves the Way for Harmful Social Movements, Alexander Tsesis, New York: New York University Press, 2002, 246 pages.

A review of Alexander Tsesis's Destructive Messages: How Hate Speech Paves the Way for Harmful Social Movements, New York University Press, 2002. At one level, Alexander Tsesis's thesis is simply one in a long line of arguments about the need to regulate racist speech. Yet on another level, it is fundamentally different from much American literature on "hate speech" because Tsesis draws on a broad historical swath, and because he contends that the United States …

From Diversity To Duplication: Mega-Mergers And The Failure Of The Marketplace Model Under The Telecommunications Act Of 1996, Anastasia Bednarski

Federal Communications Law Journal

"Mega-owners" in the radio regime became possible with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which radically deregulated national and local radio station ownership limits that had been in existence for almost sixty years. The Act reflected Congress's firm belief that a deregulated marketplace would best serve the public interest. This Note argues that the 1996 Act is an example of excessive adherence to the marketplace model, particularly for regulating the radio industry. The Author argues that although a less extreme marketplace model has guided the FCC's regulation of radio since the early 1980s, the current incarnation of the marketplace model is …

Racial Stereotypes, Broadcast Corporations, And The Business Judgment Rule, Leonard M. Baynes

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Le Droit Et Les Reseaux Internationaux D'Information, Joel R. Reidenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Travaux pour obtenir le grade de Docteur De L'Universite Paris I. Discipline: Droit. Sujet des publications: Le Droit Et Les Reseaux Internationaux D'Information

Association For Civil Rights In Israel V. Chairman Of The Central Elections Committee For The Sixteenth Knesset, Ayala Procaccia, Izhak Englard, Tova Strasberg-Cohen

Translated Opinions

Facts: During elections for the sixteenth Knesset, Respondent no. 1 disqualified portions of the election propaganda broadcasts of respondents nos. 2 and 3. These portions were disqualified by the Chairman because they included pictures of the Palestinian flag. Petitioner asserted that this disqualification of the portions constituted an infringement of the freedom of speech of respondents nos. 2 and 3, and an infringement of the voters' right to view political messages uncensored. The Attorney-General, as an amicus curae, asserted that petitioner did not have standing to bring his petition, as the injured respondents could have brought the petitions themselves.

Held: …

Herut--The National Jewish Movement V. Cheshin, Eliahu Mazza, Tova Strasberg-Cohen, Aharon Barak

Translated Opinions

Facts: Petitioner attacked the decision of the respondent to disqualify an election commercial it had prepared for broadcast over both radio and television. The jingle included praise for Yasir Arafat and a call for the expulsion of Jews from Jaffa and Ramle. In addition, the television version of the commercial depicted an Israeli flag, flying over the Knesset, as it changed into a Palestinian flag. The Chairman of the Elections Committee disqualified this commercial, reasoning that the jingle caused severe injury to the dignity of the flag and the national anthem. In the context of the petition, respondent also asserted …

Jazz Photo And The Doctrine Of Patent Exhaustion: Implications To Trips And International Harmonization Of Patent Protection, Daniel Erlikman

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The doctrine of patent exhaustion prevents the patent owner from controlling the further destiny of the patented invention once the owner authorized the first sale or use of the product in the marketplace. In recent years, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit advanced a modified rule of exhaustion, which permits the U.S. patent holder to contractually restrict the first purchaser's subsequent re-use or re-sale of the product. The recent Jazz Photo decision is a controversial and unjustified switch from existing U.S. jurisprudence in the field of patent exhaustion and parallel imports. By applying a territorial rule …

The Biology Of The Broadcast Flag, Susan P. Crawford

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its content affiliates would like all consumer electronics and information technology companies to innovate "according to the rules." The arguments made by the MPAA and its content colleagues in support of national (and, eventually, global) control over the functionality of the devices that manipulate content are fundamentally troubling for the future of innovation and the future of law itself. But the content industry has hit on a very important way of thinking about law. We should pay attention to the evolutionary ecosystem of the law as the background medium in which innovation …

Considerations On The Emerging Implementation Of Biometric Technology, Robin Feldman

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The United States is embarking on widespread implementation of biometric technology, which uses automated methods to identify people based on their physiological and behavioral characteristics. Regardless of how much we invest in establishing standards for reliability of the technology and protections of the data, no system will be foolproof. Biometric determinations will be subject to mistakes, fraud, and abuse through human and technological error, both intentional and inadvertent. We should, therefore, take this opportunity to develop methods for individuals to review and challenge biometric determinations. In particular, this article suggests a doctrinal framework for challenging biometric determinations made by administrative …

The Perils Of Telemarketing Under The Telephone Consumer Protection Act Sending Unsolicited Faxes Costs Dallas Cowboys $1.73 Million, Leaves Dallas Mavericks Under Full Court Pressure, Paul J. Batista

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

In 1991, Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to "protect the privacy interests" of outraged constituents who received annoying phone calls from telemarketers. The Act prohibits sending unsolicited faxes to unwilling recipients, and creates fines up to $1,500 for each individual fax. The Dallas Mavericks have been sued under the Act, creating potential liability of $135 million. Fax broadcasters have unsuccessfully challenged the Act under the First and Fifth Amendments. The Act grants jurisdiction to individual state courts, and a Georgia case has resulted in a final judgment of $11,899,000.

How To Constitutionally Protect Against Virtual Child Pornography, Emanuel Shiarzi

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The improvement of computer graphics and its resulting burden on prosecuting real child pornography led Congress to pass the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996. However, in addition to prohibiting virtual child pornography the CPPA banned many other areas of protected speech and was held unconstitutional in 2002. This article gives an overview of the First Amendment concerns of future virtual child pornography laws, the laws currently being proposed in Congress, and then proposes its own constitutional virtual child pornography law.

China And The Prior Consent Requirement: A Decade Of Invasion And Counter-Invasion By Transfrontier Satellite Television, Mei Ning Yan

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This paper examines and analyzes why the majority of television viewers in China can only have access to domestic television at the beginning of the 21st century, despite direct broadcasting by satellite, which respects no national borders being widely employed in Asia for a decade. By applying national broadcasting rules, this paper argues, the Chinese authorities have successfully given effect to the "prior consent requirement," a concept which was fiercely debated in the international arena and has supposedly long been discarded because of disagreement among nations and technological advances.

Applying Pen Register And Trap And Trace Devices To Internet Communications, Rich Haglund

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This note will explain how the different surveillance methods work: wire taps, pen register and trap and trace devices. It will outline the development of case law and legislation defining what constitutes unlawful searches and seizures involving electronic communications. After explaining how email and internet addresses are collected (and whether the FBI's tool for collection works within the bounds set by the law), this note will discuss the provisions of the Patriot Act that regulate collection of that information. This note will show, using the application of pen register and trap and trace devices to the Internet as an example, …

New Media, New Rules: The Digital Performance Right And Streaming Media Over The Internet, Joseph E. Magri

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Streaming music over the Internet, or what otherwise is known as webcasting or Internet radio, has the potential to become the single most revolutionary means of music transmission ever developed.' In order to appreciate the potential impact of Internet radio, it is helpful to understand that Internet radio has the ability to venture far beyond the at-home personal computer that is tethered to a wall and logged-on to the Internet. With advances in wireless broadband technologies, such as wireless fidelity or Wi-Fi, and the growing availability of Internet content via mobile devices,' Internet radio will soon become widely available on …

Privacy To Be Patched In Later - An Examination Of The Decline Of Privacy Rights, 36 J. Marshall L. Rev. 985 (2003), Matthew Hector

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Covering Women And Violence: Media Treatment Of Vawa's Civil Rights Remedy, Sarah F. Russell

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article analyzes how newspapers described and characterized the civil rights provision over the past decade and shaped the public discourse about the law. The author examines how lower federal courts, and eventually the Supreme Court, categorized the VAWA remedy when deciding whether Congress had acted within its commerce powers. After considering why there may have been resistance in the press and in the courts to VAWA's categorization of violence against women as a civil rights issue, the author concludes by examining the remedies that have been introduced at the state and local level for victims of gender-motivated violence, and …

Examining The Evidence: Post-Verdict Interviews And The Jury System, Nicole B. Casarez

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Although jury deliberations are kept secret, jurors sometimes speak out to the press after the conclusion of a trial about the rationale for their verdict, what pieces of evidence were important to their decision, and similar issues. Some argue that post-verdict juror interviews are harmful to the very foundation of the jury system, because they endanger defendants' fair trial rights, invade jurors' privacy, and distort public perception of jury verdicts. However, others, such as the author, consider these post-verdict interviews important, because they permit the public to gain a better understanding of the verdicts as well as the nature of …

Unmasking Crack_Smoking_Jesus: Do Internet Service Providers Have A Tarasoff Duty To Divulge The Identity Of A Subscriber Who Is Making Death Threats, Jon B. Eisenberg, Jeremy B. Rosen

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Based on a personal experience. During ongoing litigation, the authors' clients began receiving pseudonymous threats by email and on an Internet message board maintained by Yahoo! Inc. This experience led the authors to ask themselves a question: What should lawyers do when their clients receive anonymous death threats electronically during the pendency of litigation? In their case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) determined the identity of the perpetrator and the local United States Attorney's office eventually commenced prosecution. However, pursuant to rules of federal grand jury secrecy, the perpetrator's identity still remained a secret. When the identity was sought …

File-Sharing Copyright, And Privacy, Stephen Keating

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Lawsuits brought by the recording industry against Internet users accused of illegal file sharing raise provocative questions about legal tactics, the piracy of copyrighted material, the openness of the Internet, and the future of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. The history of satellite TV piracy may provide a key to understanding what comes next.

Newton V. Diamond: Measuring The Legitimacy Of Unauthorized Compositional Sampling— A Clue Illuminated And Obscured, Susan J. Latham

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This article discusses how the district court in Newton v. Diamond could have provided the music industry with a path of reasonable determination via which the risk of infringement due to unauthorized digital sampling of a musical composition could be reasonably estimated and prudent licensing decisions made. At the very least, it illuminated a clue through its threshold determination of protectability. However, as the author explains, the court of appeals obscured that clue beneath a conundrum of de minimis use analysis, highlighting the need for courts to settle upon a clear and consistent standard for de minimis use analysis.

How Can They Keep Calling Me - Exemptions And Loopholes In The Telephone Consumer Protection Act And The Need For Further Regulation , Brian W. Stano

Cleveland State Law Review

The first section of this Note examines the relevant federal laws that are already in place to assist the frustrated public in avoiding these unwanted calls. The second section discusses the constitutionality of such legislation and why it is considered to improperly limit the freedom of commercial speech. The third section focuses upon what the states have done to supplement the federal law and increase regulation as well as the proposed changes in the federal law itself. The fourth section analyzes the ineffectiveness of the federal and state regulations in place and specifically argues against the allowance of exceptions in …

Fcc Authority To Regulate The Internet: Creating It And Limiting It, James B. Speta

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Racial Minorities And The Quest To Narrow The Digital Divide: Redefining The Concept Of “Universal Service”, Patricia M. Worthy

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

The future of the United States as a nation depends, in large measure, on its ability to achieve equality for each member of its society. Historically there has been a national policy, known as universal service, of requiring that everyone should be provided the opportunity to receive basic telephone service at an affordable rate, regardless of geographic location or economic status. As computer technology developed, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission appropriately recognized its value. They have, through statutory mandates and regulatory policies, implemented various initiatives to achieve a universally level "playing field" to prevent a gap between information "haves" …

An Economic Analysis Of Domain Name Policy, Karl M. Manheim, Lawrence B. Solum

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

One of the most important features of the architecture of the Internet is the Domain Name System (DNS), which is administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The DNS is organized into a hierarchy of domains. The physical infrastructure of the DNS consists of name servers, which provides the information that directs name queries to the appropriate server. These facilities and devices are scarce resources in the economic sense, since they have a finite capacity and expansion is costly. The name space is scarce because each address (or set of characters) can only be allocated to …

Publishing Privacy: Intellectual Property, Self-Expression, And The Victorian Novel, Jessica Bulman

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

Though typically invoked in legal writing for their portrayals of criminal trials and judicial failings, Victorian authors also probed a more subtle aspect of the law: the interrelationship of privacy and intellectual property. In their novels, this paper argues, these authors treated literary creations as uniquely private expression and used copyright-and the formal control it furnishes over publication-as a model for understanding privacy.

Building Rome In A Day: What Should We Expect From The Riaa?, Valerie Alter

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

When a new technology enters the entertainment market, incumbents may look backwards rather than forwards. Today, peer-to-peer file sharing services enable users to get the weekly chart-toppers for free by downloading desired songs, depriving the record companies of their rightful royalties. The record companies fear that this free online peer-topeer systems will mean the end of the recording industry. In response, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has begun to prosecute individual users, including a 12-year-old girl. However, this approach is problematic, and there are two other potential solutions that may be preferable. First, the recording industry could abandon …

Reflections On The Myth Of Icarus In The Age Of Information, Allen S. Hammond Iv

Faculty Publications

It is economics, policy, law, and indeed, for some, religion that advanced information technology should be eventually accessible to the masses. To this end, the federal and state governments are establishing goals and guidelines for advanced information technology's equitable deployment. Chief among the governments' intended beneficiaries are our children, Generations X,Y, Z, and beyond. The explicit expectation, however, is that every individual and group in our society would benefit from such deployment.

Efficiencies in the computer augmented generation, embedded in the processing and storing of information are expected to enhance education, commerce, the economy, political discourse, individual self actualization, and …

Revisiting The Vast Wasteland, Fred H. Cate, Newton N. Minow

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

“Do-Not-Call-List” Testimony: Before The Senate Committee On Commerce, Science, And Transportation, James Guest

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today. My name is Jim Guest, and I am President of Consumers Union, the independent, non- profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine and ConsumerReports.org, with over ve million subscribers.

How The Overturn Of The Child Pornography Prevention Act Under Ashcroft V. Free Speech Coalition Contributes To The Protection Of Children, Emily D. Goldberg

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note examines the Supreme Court's decision in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, which struck down portions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) as unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The Court ruled that the CPPA's ban on virtual child pornography was overbroad, as it prohibited lawful speech that could have artistic, literary, or scientific value. The decision highlights the tension between protecting children from exploitation and safeguarding free speech, ultimately emphasizing the importance of allowing narratives that confront and address difficult issues like child sexual abuse.