Discussion of FCC, copyright, advertising and other legal issues of importance to radio and television broadcasters and other media companies
Here are some of the regulatory developments from the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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The broadcast trade press is full today with the news that NAB CEO Gordon Smith will be stepping back from that position at the end of the year, to be replaced by current COO (and former head of Government Relations) Curtis LeGeyt. As many will remember, Smith took over the organization over a decade ago during a turbulent time for the industry. At the time, TV stations faced increasing calls for other uses of the broadcast spectrum, and radio stations faced a possible performance royalty on their over-the-air broadcasts of sound recordings. Since then, through all sorts of issues, there has been a general consensus in the industry that its leadership was in capable hands and meeting the issues as they arose.
But many issues remain for broadcasters – some of them ones that have never gone away completely. The sound recording performance royalty for over-the-air broadcasting remains an issue, as do other music licensing issues calling for changes to the way that songwriters and composers are compensated, generally calling for higher payments or different compensation systems (see our articles here on the GMR controversy and here on the review of music industry antitrust consent decrees). TV stations, while having gone through the incentive auction giving up significant parts of the TV broadcast spectrum, still face demands by wireless operators and others hungry for more spectrum to provide the many in-demand services necessary to meet the need for faster mobile services (see our articles here on C-Band redeployment and here on requests for a set aside of TV spectrum for unlicensed wireless users). But competition from digital services may well be the biggest current issue facing broadcasters.…
Continue Reading With a Change at the Top at the NAB as CEO Gordon Smith Plans His Departure – What are the Regulatory Issues That are Facing Broadcasters?
Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the last week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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After a long winter, spring has finally arrived and has brought with it more daylight and warmer temperatures—two occurrences that do not necessarily pair well with keeping up with broadcast regulatory dates and deadlines. Here are some of the important dates coming in April. Be sure to consult with your FCC counsel on all other important dates applicable to your own operations.
On or before April 1, radio stations in Texas (including LPFM stations) and television stations in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee must file their license renewal applications through the FCC’s Licensing and Management System (LMS). Those stations must also file with the FCC a Broadcast EEO Program Report (Form 2100, Schedule 396).
Both radio and TV stations in the states listed above with April 1 renewal filing deadlines, as well as radio and TV stations in Delaware and Pennsylvania, if they are part of a station employment unit with 5 or more full-time employees (an employment unit is a station or a group of commonly controlled stations in the same market that share at least one employee), by April 1 must upload to their public file and post a link on their station website to their Annual EEO Public Inspection Report covering their hiring and employment outreach activities for the twelve months from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.…
Continue Reading April Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: License Renewal, Issues/Programs Lists, EEO, Webcasting Royalties and More
Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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In recent months, we have seen concerted attempts to reign in digital and social media from all along the political spectrum – from Washington, in the states and even internationally. We thought that we would look at some of those efforts and their motivations today. We will look at many of these issues in more detail in future articles.
Towards the end of last year, the Trump Administration sought to strip social media platforms of Section 230 protections because of their alleged bias against conservative speakers (see our articles here and here). A similar perception seems to underlie the recently proposed Florida legislation that seems to create for social media a policy similar to the equal opportunities (or “equal time”) policy that applies to broadcasters – a social media service cannot “de-platform” a political candidate if it allows the opposing candidate access to that platform. That proposed legislation also has announced goals of requiring clear rules for access and editing of political views on such sites. A press release about that legislation is here, though the actual text does not yet seem to be available for review. …
Continue Reading Everyone Seems to Want to Regulate Online Media – But Can They? Setting the Stage- Looking at the Range of Regulatory Proposals
Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
…
During the holidays, we did not get a chance to mention the draft legislation circulated by Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) proposing changes in the Copyright Act, including the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that created Section 512 of the Act – the safe harbor for user-generated content. The legislation also proposes other changes in the law, including changing the structure of the Copyright Office by making it an Executive Branch agency with substantive rulemaking authority, as part of the Commerce Department. The legislation (a full copy is available here and a summary can be found here) was not formally introduced in the waning days of the last Congress. Instead, Senator Tillis released it for public comment with the intent that the draft would be refined based on those comments before being formally introduced for legislative consideration. The Senator is seeking comments by March 5, 2021 from all interested parties to determine how the proposals would affect their interests. Press releases from his office indicate that he is seeking input from a broad array of interests, from the creative community to the tech companies that use copyrighted content to consumers who may find that the platforms they use might police content differently if there are changes in the law.
Reform of the DMCA safe harbor provisions has long been sought by copyright holders who feel that the insulation from liability afforded to tech companies who host content created by others has led to widespread infringement of copyrighted materials. We wrote at length about these issues in 2016 when the Copyright Office itself reviewed questions about user-generated content (see, for instance, our articles here and here). In many ways, the issues with Section 512 are similar to those about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – the extent to which big tech companies hosting user-generated content should be liable for that content and should take efforts to police content on their platforms. Section 230 provides insulation from civil liability other than that which arises under the intellectual property laws (so it protects online hosting companies from liability for matters including defamation or invasion of privacy – see our post here), while Section 512 provides insulation from liability for intellectual property infringement. However, the Section 512 procedures for obtaining insulation from liability are different from, and in many cases are more stringent than, those under Section 230. …
Continue Reading Proposal for Reform of Copyright Act Released for Public Comment – Including Changes for the Safe Harbor for User-Generated Content, the Status of the Copyright Office, and Orphan Works
The Senate this week confirmed Nathan Simington for the seat on the FCC currently held by Michael O’Rielly. It is expected that Mr. Simington will be sworn in as a new Commissioner later this week, allowing Commissioner O’Rielly to serve through tomorrow’s FCC open meeting where he will likely give his farewell comments to the FCC and communications audience. Commissioner O’Rielly has generally been a friend to broadcasters, championing many causes for the industry, including changes to the Children’s Television rules and fighting pirate radio. Broadcasters will certainly miss his voice at the FCC.
Commissioner Simington comes to the FCC with a relatively low-profile background. He has been a lawyer for less than a decade, and his communications background appears to be limited to serving as an in-house lawyer for a wireless service company and working at the NTIA (the administration within the Commerce Department charged with developing communications policy for the administration and oversight over government spectrum). At NTIA, he worked to some degree on the administration’s proposals for the FCC to interpret provisions of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (see our posts here and here) – proposals currently under review by the Commission. His outlook as a Republican appointee seems to generally be a deregulatory one, though his specific thoughts about broadcast regulation have not been set out in any detail.…
Continue Reading New FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington on the Way
