Topic
V First Amendment
* freedom of speech
* marketplace of ideas
V Exemptions to First Amendment Protection
V Defamation
* Libel vs. Slander
* false declarations against private citizens
* damaging reputations
* actual malice for public figures
V Political Speech
V equal time
* broadcasting
V political candidates for public office
* can purchase air time
* lowest price
* must offer all bona fide candidates
V Fairness Doctrine
* coverage for controversial issues
* give voice to opposing views
V Obscenity
* Miller v. California
V three-prong test
* Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
* Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law
* Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value
V Indecency
* FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978)
* only applies to broadcast radio and television
* language that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards…sexual or excretory activities or organs
* safe harbor period
V Violence
* v-chip (1998)
* effects of media on children
V rating system
* movies
* television
* video games
V Commercial Speech
* less protected than non-commercial speech
V rationale for regulating film industry in 1915
* special capacity for evil
* misleading commercial speech
* advertises a product or service for profit or for a business purpose
* misleading commercial speech
V Federal Trade Commission:
* likely to mislead the consumer
* consumer is acting reasonably
* omission, falsehood, or representation is “material” or likely to affect actual purchase decisions
V Intellectual Property
V innovator’s monopoly
* encourage new ideas by allowing inventors and artists to profit
V fair use
* making it possible to synthesize fresh ideas from old ones
* public domain
V Patents
* inventions
* exclusive rights for 20 years
* demand royalties
V Copyright
* “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors…the exclusive Right to their…Writings.”
* copyright infringement
* Copyright Term Extension Act (1998)
V Digital Millennium Copyright Act
* prohibits anti-circumvention
* Piracy
V Ownership
V Monopoly
* where a single company controls an industry
V Oligopoly
* where a few companies dominate an industry
V Sherman Anti-Trust
* corporate trusts of the Gilded Age
* limits monopolies
* prohibits restraints of trade
V vertical integration
* company owns key assets in multiple aspects of a single industry
V horizontal integration
* company owns many outlets of the same kind of medium or dominates a market on its own
V cross-ownership
* diversity of ideas
* a single company to own radio, television, and newspapers in the same area
* Telecommunications Act (1996)
* limited TV–newspaper cross-ownership (2008)
V network neutrality
* requires Internet providers to treat all of the data that passes through their networks on an equal basis
* prevent them from favoring their own content
V FCC rules (2011)
* wireline Internet carriers
* wireless carriers
V broadcast regulation
* intrusive medium
* scarcity argument
V Federal Communications Commission
* charted in 1934 (Federal Communications Act)
V Five Commissioners
* Robert McDowell
* Julius Genakowski
* Mignon Clyburn
* issues licenses
* promotes localism
* public interest, necessity and convenience