Federal Communications Law Journal articles from May 2000

Federal Communications Law Journal archives from May 2000

Joint Statement of Sumner M. Redstone Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Viacom Inc. and Mel Karmazin President and Chief Executive Officer of CBS Corp.(*).
May 1, 2000... Viacom CBS I. INTRODUCTION On September 6, 1999, Viacom Inc. and CBS Corporation agreed to combine the two companies in a merger of equals. Sumner Redstone will lead the new company, to be called Viacom, in his continued role as...

Viacom-CBS Merger: Media Competition and Consolidation in the New Millennium.
May 1, 2000... Media Access Project I start with six propositions. First, we have the best system of broadcasting in the world because of--not in spite of--Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that have limited the size and reach of...

The CBS-Viacom Merger: Impact on Journalism.
May 1, 2000... Society of Professional Journalists I. INTRODUCTION "There exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry."(1) With the September 7, 1999, announcement by Viacom...

CBS-Viacom and the Effects of Media Mergers: An Economic Perspective.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION Like other large-scale mergers between media corporations, the proposed CBS-Viacom combination has attracted a great deal of public attention. It immediately rose to the top of the national news agenda when announced in...

Growing Media Consolidation Must Be Examined to Preserve Our Democracy.
May 1, 2000... The proposed acquisition of CBS by media giant Viacom, along with the recent wave of mergers among media companies, raises some very troubling questions for our system of representative democracy and is an issue that deserves a much wider...

Structural Regulation of the Media and the Diversity Rationale.
May 1, 2000... Structural regulations of the media--such as the multiple ownership rules--play a useful role in media governance in the United States. Under Chairman William E. Kennard, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has struggled, in a climate...

From Consumers to Users: Shifting the Deeper Structures of Regulation Toward Sustainable Commons and User Access.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION Constructing our information environment as one composed of information "from diverse and antagonistic sources"(1) has been a central focus of structural regulation and its First Amendment justification for half a century....

Reflections on the FCC'S Recent Approach to Structural Regulation of the Electronic Mass Media.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION Today's media marketplace showcases the rapid development of the new medium of the Internet, the consolidation of old, established mass media, and the combination of the two. The merger of CBS and Viacom represents the...

When Channel Surfers Flip to the Web: Copyright Liability for Internet Broadcasting(*).
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION This Article argues that retransmission of video and television (TV) broadcasts on Internet Web sites should benefit from some system of compulsory (or statutory) copyrights. However, the applicability of a compulsory...

Limiting Tort Liability for Online Third-party Content Under Section 230 of the Communications Act.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION On December 2, 1999, the New York Court of Appeals resolved a long-running dispute pitting Prodigy, one of the nation's largest online service providers (OSPs),(1) against Alexander Lunney, a teenage boy scout.(2) The...

Application of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to Intrastate Telemarketing Calls and Faxes.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION They wake us up in the morning; they interrupt our dinner at night; they force the sick and elderly out of bed; they hound us until we want to rip the telephone right out of the wall. ... . ...

Editorial Rights of Public Broadcasting Stations vs. Access for Minor Political Candidates to Television Debates.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION Television has been an increasingly predominant player in American election politics over the years, especially with presidential elections in the United States. In 1993, Newton M. Minow, director of the Annenberg...

The Availability of the Fair Use Defense in Music Piracy and Internet Technology.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION As technology advances, musical artists and the recording industry face new challenges for protecting the copyrights of their works. Much of the new technology is inexpensive and readily available on the Internet, often at...

Interpreting the Copyright Act's Section 201(c) Revision Privilege with Respect to Electronic Media.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION "Both the language and the legislative history of section 201(c) suggest that when in doubt, courts should construe the rights of publishers narrowly rather than broadly in relation to those of authors.... [O]ne must bear...

Business-only E-mail Policies in the Labor Organizing Context: It Is Time to Recognize Employee and Employer Rights.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION Technological advances are expanding the medium and increasing the speed of communication. Society is adapting and so must the law. The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) reflects these changes in many aspects, including a...

A Leap Forward: Why States Should Ratify the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act.
May 1, 2000... I. INTRODUCTION As a new century dawns, the American economy continues to evolve. Long gone are the days when the United States dominated the world economy by manufacturing goods. Today, our economy depends much more on services and...

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace.
May 1, 2000... Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, by Lawrence Lessig, Basic Books, 1999, 230 pages. I. INTRODUCTION Just as Rachel Carson's classic Silent Spring awakened the world to environmental pollution in 1962, Larry Lessig's insightful Code...