Communications Law Commons^™

Masthead, Lead Article Editor

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Lead Article Editor

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

À La Carte Cable: A Regulatory Solution To The Misinformation Subsidy, Christopher R. Terry, Eliezer J. Silberberg, Stephen Schmitz, John Stack, Eve Sando

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Although “fake news” is as old as mass media itself, concerns over disinformation have reached a fever pitch in our current media environment. Online media outlets’ heavy reliance on user-generated content has altered the traditional gatekeeping functions and professional standards associated with traditional news organizations. The idea of objectivity-focused informational content has primarily been substituted for a realist acceptance of the power and popularity of opinion-driven “news.” This shift is starkly visible now: mainstream news media outlets knowingly spread hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and the like.

This current state of affairs is not some freak accident. The Supreme Court’s First Amendment …

Ships Passing In The Night: The Communications Act And The Convergence On Broadband, Stuart Minor Benjamin

Faculty Scholarship

The Communications Act of 1934 and its amendments (the “Act”), and the regulations implementing them, have been enormously important to traditional telephony, broadcasting, and multichannel video. Meanwhile, the internet is barely mentioned in the Act. It thus might seem reasonable to conclude that the Act stands as a colossus and that the argument for overhauling it has grown much stronger as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the “1996 Act”) becomes ever more outdated. In this Article I suggest otherwise. Specifically, I make three claims—one descriptive, one a bit speculative, and one normative. The descriptive claim is that significant portions of …

From The Golden Gate To London: Bridging The Gap Between Data Privacy And The Right Of Publicity, Kristin Kuraishi

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Currently, there is no global standard or recognition for the right of publicity. Even within the United States, the recognition, scope, and protections vary by state. As the world becomes increasingly reliant on social media for news, information, communication, and recommendations, micro-influencers and non-celebrities require a way to control their developed and curated name, image, and likeness from unauthorized commercial uses by others. Advertising is occurring more frequently online, and brands recognize the power that micro-influencers have on commerce. Some countries, like the United Kingdom, do not recognize the right of publicity, potentially leaving many individuals without recourse for the …

Media Consolidation & Political Polarization: Reviewing The National Television Ownership Rule, Mary R. Hornak

Fordham Law Review

Local television plays an important role in the democratic society. The medium is viewed as being trustworthy, and it is accessible and uniquely situated to report on matters of local interest. Among other roles, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates firms’ ownership interests in the media through regulations that permit a certain degree of consolidation at both the local and national levels. Since 1996, Congress has mandated that the FCC regularly review broadcast media ownership regulations. Originally, this requirement mandated biennial review. In 2004, however, Congress revised the mandate, requiring review on a quadrennial basis and excluding from such review …

Cacophony Or Concerto?: Analyzing The Applicability Of The Wiretap Act’S Party Exception For Duplicate Get Requests, David Koenig

Fordham Law Review

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“Wiretap Act”) prohibits the intentional interception of an electronic communication. However, “parties to a communication” can intercept a communication without Wiretap Act liability. Parties include the intended recipients of a communication. When internet users navigate the internet, they communicate with websites using GET requests. The users’ GET requests call out to websites and websites respond by providing the websites’ content to the users. During this process, websites receive user data. This data can include information about the website visited, the search terms used to locate the website, and referral data identifying the last web page …

Market Power And Switching Costs: An Empirical Study Of Online Networking Market, Shin-Ru Cheng

University of Cincinnati Law Review

In recent years, states have launched several antitrust investigations targeting digital platforms. A major difficulty in these investigations is demonstrating the extent of a digital platform’s market power. Market power is defined as the control of the output or the price without the loss of business to competitors. As will be explored in this Article, market power is a critical component in an antitrust analysis. On several occasions, courts have adopted the switching costs approach in their analysis of market power. According to this approach, market power may be inferred when the costs of switching from one supplier to another …

Taking Exception To Assessments Of American Exceptionalism: Why The United States Isn’T Such An Outlier On Free Speech, Evelyn Mary Aswad

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

One of the most significant challenges to human freedom in the digital age involves the sheer power of private companies over speech and the fact that power is untethered to existing free speech principles. Heated debates are ongoing about what standards social media companies should adopt to regulate speech on their platforms. Some have argued that global social media companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, should align their speech codes with the international human rights law standards of the United Nations (“U.N.”). Others have countered that U.S.-based companies should apply First Amendment standards. Much of this debate is premised on …

When Free Speech And Privacy Collide: Why Strict Scrutiny Is A Poor Fit For Nonconsensual Pornography Laws, Leah S. Murphy

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Deep Fakes: The Algorithms That Create And Detect Them And The National Security Risks They Pose, Nick Dunard

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

The dissemination of deep fakes for nefarious purposes poses significant national security risks to the United States, requiring an urgent development of technologies to detect their use and strategies to mitigate their effects. Deep fakes are images and videos created by or with the assistance of AI algorithms in which a person’s likeness, actions, or words have been replaced by someone else’s to deceive an audience. Often created with the help of generative adversarial networks, deep fakes can be used to blackmail, harass, exploit, and intimidate individuals and businesses; in large-scale disinformation campaigns, they can incite political tensions around the …

Fighting Chance: Conflicts Over Risk In Social Change Litigation, Gwendolyn Leachman

Cardozo Law Review

Drawing on a case study of marriage equality litigation, this Article examines how practice setting affects the construction of risk and the emergence of conflict in social change litigation. Although private law firms often work collaboratively with social movement organizations to pursue common goals, conflicts also emerge when movement groups oppose “risky” private litigation which could imperil the movement’s ongoing impact litigation strategies. How do attorneys in private firms and social movement organizations vary in their framing of risk in social change litigation? Under what conditions does that variation lead to conflict? The findings show that movement-based LGBT rights attorneys …

Personal Data Privacy And Protective Federal Legislation: An Exploration Of Constituent Position On The Need For Legislation To Control Data Reliant Organizations Collecting And Monetizing Internet-Obtained Personal Data, Giovanni De Meo

Dissertations

In the past twenty years, the business of online personal data collection has grown at the same rapid pace as the internet itself, fostering a multibillion-dollar personal data collection and commercialization industry. Unlike many other large industries, there has been no major federal legislation enacted to monitor or control the activities of organizations dealing in this flourishing industry. The combination of these factors together with the lack of prior research encouraged this research designed to understand how much voters know about this topic and whether there is interest in seeing legislation enacted to protect individual personal data privacy.

To address …

Shenanigans (Internet Takedown Edition), Eugene Volokh

Utah Law Review

Protecting one’s own reputation and livelihood—whether protecting it against lies, against opinions, or against the truth—is likely high on many people’s willing-to-lie-for lists. Making money is, too. Yet though I don’t think of myself as naïve on this score, the sheer magnitude and brazenness of these schemes surprised me. My sense is that it surprised many of my colleagues. Perhaps it surprised you. And this reminder of just how common fraud can be might help keep us alert to shenanigans in many other fields as well— and might help us design systems that deal better with such risks.

Application Of The Due Diligence Principle To Cyber Operations, Tomohiro Mikanagi

International Law Studies

The discreet use of proxies by States renders it difficult to prove attribution to States under the existing rules of attribution. On the other hand, the due diligence principle, if applicable, does not require attribution but can lead to the invocation of State responsibility for cyber operations emanating from the territory of other States. In the Corfu Channel judgment the ICJ recognized “every State’s obligation not to allow knowingly its territory to be used for acts contrary to the rights of other States,” and UN Member States agreed that existing international law applies to cyber operations. However, the UN Members …

Race In The Courthouse: Less Protection As More Equal Protection For Musical Works, Charles Cronin

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

The Three Conundrums: Doctrinal, Theoretical, And Practical Confusion In The Law Of Sexually Explicit Speech, Kyla P. Garrett Wagner, P. Brooks Fuller

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

In First Amendment law, one rarely disputed notion is that sexually explicit speech is less valuable than so-called “core” forms of expression, such as political discourse. This study revives that dispute with a focus on the Supreme Court’s justifications for categorizing sexually explicit speech as “low-value” in the first place. The analysis reveals three conundrums plaguing the Court’s jurisprudence: categorizing restrictions on sexually explicit speech; interpreting the value and harms of sexually explicit speech; and assessing the evidence (or lack thereof) for restrictions on sexually explicit speech. This article explains how these conundrums should be resolved in sexually explicit speech …

Widening The Lens On Content Moderation, Jenna Ruddock, Justin Sherman

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

A “Journey” Through Band Agreements, Jordan M. Whitford

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.