Communications Law Commons^™

The Collision Of Social Media And Social Unrest: Why Shutting Down Social Media Is The Wrong Response, Mirae Yang

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

With the growing availability of Internet access across the globe, social media has transformed the traditional relationship between government authority and its citizens by providing the people with an innovative and powerful means to harmonize their efforts in expressing their political and social concerns. The importance of safeguarding Internet availability is more critical than ever before as access to the Internet is now the means by which the world communicates, stays informed, and engages in daily tasks. In the face of potential social unrest fueled by social media, the United States must take a preventative approach, one that matches our …

International Cryptography Regulation And The Global Information Economy, Nathan Saper

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

With the meteoric rise of the Internet and e-commerce in the 1990s came great attention to the problems and opportunities associated with cryptography. Throughout that decade, the United States and many foreign countries debated and experimented with various forms of cryptography regulation, and attempts were made at international harmonization. Since then, however, policy-making activity around cryptography has slowed, if not halted altogether, leaving individuals and companies to face a bewildering array of regulations—or, in many cases, to face regulations that are extraordinarily unclear and haphazardly applied.

This Note seeks to introduce the reader to the issue of international cryptography regulation …

Re-Establishing Distributor Liability On The Internet: Recognizing The Applicability Of Traditional Defamation Law To Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act Of 1996, William E. Buelow Iii

West Virginia Law Review

Plaintiffs whose reputations have suffered irreparable injury from the distribution of defamatory statements have generally been permitted by law to recover damages from the enterprises that distributed the publications known to contain the defamatory material. However, when the enterprise that knowingly distributed the injurious content is an Internet service provider ("ISP"), present law denies that same plaintiff recovery. This perception of ISP immunity flows from a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Zeran v. America Online, Inc., where the Court extended certain immunities offered by the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (the "CDA"). …

Deconstructing And Reconstructing Hot News: Toward A Functional Approach, Jeffrey L. Harrison, Robyn Shelton

UF Law Faculty Publications

Hot news is factual, time-sensitive information ranging from baseball scores to the outbreak of war. In recent years, hot news has found its own niche among legal scholars and courts. When deconstructed, though, hot news is simply information and, like most information, it has a public good character. The problem ultimately is that news is non-excludable and non-rivalrous – discoverers or creators of hot news cannot exclude others from using the news and hot news is not destroyed when used. This means it may be produced at levels that are less than optimal.

The critical element in hot news is …

Political Campaigning And The Airways, Harrop Freeman, Stewart Edelstein

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Reporter's Privilege, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Michigan Law Review

Forty years ago, in Branzburg v. Hayes, the Supreme Court made its first and only inquiry into the constitutional protection of the relationship between a reporter and a confidential source. This case - decided at a moment in American history in which the role of an investigative press, and of information provided by confidential sources, was coming to the forefront of public consciousness in a new and significant way - produced a reporter-focused "privilege" that is now widely regarded to be both doctrinally questionable and deeply inconsistent in application. Although the post-Branzburg privilege has been recognized as flawed in a …

De-Regulation As The New Regulation: Telecom's Philosophy Turnabout And The Story Of A Forward-Looking Formula That Brought Back Competition , Christia Crocker

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Relaxing The Rules Of Media Ownership: Localism And Competition And Diversity, Oh My! The Frightening Road Of Deregulation , Kristen Morse

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

S!*T, P*@S, C*^T, F*#K, C*@!S*&!Er, M*!#$*@!*#^R, T*!S - The Fcc's Crackdown On Indecency, Lindsay Weiss

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Satellite Radio: An Innovative Technology's Path Through The Fcc And Into The Future, Adam Cain

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

I Want My Mtv, But Not Your Vh1: A La Carte Cable, Bundling, And The Potential Great Cable Compromise, Holly Phillips

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

It's A Series Of Tubes: Network Neutrality In The United States And How The Current Economic Environment Presents A Unique Opportunity To Invest In The Future Of The Internet , Andrew Seitz

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

It is almost an accident that the Internet developed the way it did. In the late 1990's large internet service providers (ISPs), such as AOL, that had their own proprietary networks failed to fully realize that their business model was becoming obsolete, and instead the Internet developed into the open network that it is today. But is an open network the best model for the Internet? Could more of a free market deliver a better product to the consumer? Broadband providers such as AT&T and Verizon believe that in order to give their customers the best product, they should be …

How Detailed Of An Explanation Is Required When An Administrative Agency Changes An Existing Policy? Implications And Analysis Of Fcc V. Fox Television Stations, Inc. On Administrative Law Making And Television Broadcasters, David Lee

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Privacy And Missing Persons After Natural Disasters, Joel Reidenberg, Robert Gellman, Jamela Debelak, Adam Elewa, Nancy Liu

Center on Law and Information Policy

When a natural disaster occurs, government agencies, humanitarian organizations, private companies, volunteers, and others collect information about missing persons to aid the search effort. Often this processing of information about missing persons exacerbates the complexities and uncertainties of privacy rules. This report offers a road map to the legal and policy issues surrounding privacy and missing persons following natural disasters. The report first identifies the privacy challenges in the disaster context and provides some recent examples that demonstrate how disaster relief information sharing raises unique privacy concerns and issues. It then outlines current missing persons information sharing activities in the …

The Invalidation Of Mandatory Cable Access Regulations: Fcc V. Midwest Video Corp., Robert L. Clarkson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Barometer Of Freedom Of The Press: The Opinions Of Mr. Justice White , Michael J. Armstrong

Pepperdine Law Review

Since the Zurcher v. Stanford Daily decision which was authored by Justice Byron F. White, the news media has become increasingly concerned with its' first amendment protections from governmental searches. Since Justice White has been the voice of the United States Supreme Court on this very issue, the author submits that an examination of Justice White's media related opinions can serve as a "barometer" for the constitutional protections of the news media. The author examines the use of Justice White to the Supreme Court, his staunch adherence to stare decisis, and the historical foundation of the first amendment as they …

National Subscription Television V. S & H, Tv: The Problem Of Unauthorized Interception Of Subscription Television—Are The Legal Airwaves Unscrambled?, Thomas R. Catanese

Pepperdine Law Review

The unending stream of technological innovations that best exemplifies the electronic media has left the law in its wake. Because of rapid advancements in the forms communications may take, the law has sometimes been slow in effectively and rationally affording protection against the piracy of these new types of electronic media. One such type of electronic media is the transmission of over-the-air scrambled broadcasts, more properly "subscription" television, wherein a party pays a subscription fee to receive nonstandard television programming. National Subscription Television v. S & H, TV, in view of prior divided case law, settled the question of whether …

What Your Tweet Doesn't Say: Twitter, Non-Content Data, And The Stored Communications Act, Daniel Shickich

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

A federal district court in Virginia recently held that Twitter users have no privacy rights regarding non-content information associated with their use of Twitter. The court thus affirmed that the government may obtain Twitter users’ Internet Protocol (IP) addresses without notice to the users. The users in this case were alleged to be members of WikiLeaks. The government obtained an order of production in connection with grand jury proceedings, compelling Twitter to turn over IP address data to the government. After Twitter motioned to have the order unsealed, the alleged WikiLeaks members unsuccessfully attempted to intervene to quash the order …

Commercial Speech In Crisis: Crisis Pregnancy Center Regulations And Definitions Of Commercial Speech, Kathryn E. Gilbert

Michigan Law Review

Recent attempts to regulate Crisis Pregnancy Centers, pseudoclinics that surreptitiously aim to dissuade pregnant women from choosing abortion, have confronted the thorny problem of how to define commercial speech. The Supreme Court has offered three potential answers to this definitional quandary. This Note uses the Crisis Pregnancy Center cases to demonstrate that courts should use one of these solutions, the factor-based approach of Bolger v. Youngs Drugs Products Corp., to define commercial speech in the Crisis Pregnancy Center cases and elsewhere. In principle and in application, the Bolger factor-based approach succeeds in structuring commercial speech analysis at the margins of …

The Supreme Court Strikes Down The Public Broadcasting Editorial Ban: Federal Communications Commission V. League Of Women Voters, Michael R. Gradisher

Pepperdine Law Review

In Federal Communications Commission v. League of Women Voters, the United States Supreme Court struck down a statute on first amendment grounds which prohibited public broadcasters from editorializing. Those who favor the deregulation of broadcasting and the institution of a free market system hail the decision as a rare step in the right direction, after years of unquestioned congressional right to freely regulate broadcasting. They point to the Court's apparent willingness to reconsider its historical view of broadcasting, which has always received less first amendment protection than the print medium. However, the Court confirms its longstanding view that broadcasting may …