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and Sound Communications Policy

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Of Note...

Communications Forum

Former FCC chairman Michael K. Powell

Former FCC chairman Michael K. Powell, president and CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, speaks at a Communications Forum luncheon in Washington on Dec. 14.  » Read More

Friends & Benefactors Awards Banquet

Robert McDowell and Rodney Smolla

FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell (right) receives The Media Institute's Freedom of Speech Award at the Institute's Friends & Benefactors Awards Banquet in Washington on Oct. 18.  Presenting the award is Rodney A. Smolla, president of Furman University.  Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T, received the Institute's American Horizon Award.  » Read More

Meredith Baker, John Orlando Join Media Institute Board of Trustees » Read More

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Issue Watch

Megaupload users' data may get zapped this week
» Read More

PIPA Senate vote to be delayed, Reid announces
» Read More

Website Megaupload shuttered on piracy charges
» Read More

Issa Introduces OPEN Act as Alternative to SOPA
» Read More

 
 

Media & Communications Policy Blog

The Truth Behind Google’s 
Copyright-Bills Hysteria

by Patrick Maines

Though the final chapter in the legislative history of the copyright bills hasn’t yet been written, a couple things are obvious even now: The tech industry has demonstrated great political clout through the mobilization of its users and fan base; and the industry lobby, led by Google, will say and do pretty much anything to advance its commercial interests….
» Read More

A Court Strangely Conflicted
About Indecency

by guest blogger Prof. Laurence H. Winer

Here’s a question the late language maven, William Safire, might have pondered listening to the recent Supreme Court oral argument in the Fox and ABC broadcast indecency cases.   What is truly “indecent” in the normative, Webster’s Third sense of the word as “not conforming to generally accepted standards of morality”….  » Read More

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Intellectual Property Issues

Court Uses Human Cannonball To Shoot Hole
In Gannett’s First Amendment Claim

by Rodney A. Smolla, President, 
Furman University

In Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association v. Gannett Co., Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected a claim by Gannett that its newspapers had a First Amendment right to broadcast high school athletic games…. » Read More

When a Work Debuts on the Internet, 
What Is its ‘Country of Origin’ – Part II

by Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, 
Columbia University School of Law

This column follows on the entry of Aug. 29, 2011, which addressed the international copyright law status of works first disclosed in digital format over the Internet, and not subsequently “published” in hardcopy formats.  The prior column concluded….  » Read More

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» First Amendment

» Journalism

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