Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 14, 2011

Last week, the Copyright Office published in the Federal Register the final decision of the Copyright Royalty Board on the statutory rates for Internet radio royalties - royalties paid by webcasters for the noninteractive streaming of sound recordings. As we have made clear before , these are royalties that are paid in addition to the royalties paid to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for the public performance of the musical compositions (see our memo on Using Music in Digital Media , here , that explains

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ABC's of E-Discovery

MARCH 21, 2011

Are you still wondering what metadata is or why it's so important? Then follow this link and read all about it! Craig Ball will explain how metadata is " both information and evidence". craigball.com/metadataguide2011.

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The Paralegal Resource

MARCH 11, 2011

Last summer, in what police have called a domestic dispute, a man walked into an Old Navy store in the middle of downtown Chicago where his girlfriend worked. He pulled out a gun and shot her to death, then killed himself.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 18, 2011

As medical marijuana has become legalized or decriminalized in many states, broadcasters have looked at advertising for the services of clinics and dispensaries as a potential new revenue source. As some community newspapers and other local media have begun to advertise dispensaries in states where medical marijuana is legal, we’ve been asked many times whether broadcasters can start to run such ads as well.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 28, 2011

With April Fool's Day only a few short days away, and with many articles running in the trade press about what stations should and shouldn't do on that day, we thought that we would weigh in with our own legal reminder - no matter what you do, be careful not to violate the FCC's rule against broadcast hoaxes. That rule, Section 73.1217 of the Commission's Rules, prevents stations from running any information about a "crime or catastrophe" on the air, if the broadcaster (1) knows the in

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 18, 2011

The FCC's recent item proposing the adoption of video description rules was published in the Federal Register today setting the deadline for Comments in the proceeding as April 18th, with Reply Comments due by May 17th. As we wrote about recently ( here ), the FCC has initiated a rule making proceeding to reinstate its prior video description rules with certain modifications, as required by the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (Act).

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 6, 2011

Like " Super Bowl ," "Olympics" and "NASCAR," "March Madness" is also a term that is protected by trademark law, and its unauthorized use in commercials could result in legal liability. But the development of March Madness is a bit more interesting, and you can probably thank Brent Musburger for that. The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) has been using the term "March Madness" to describe its state high school basketball tournament since t

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 4, 2011

Yesterday, the FCC initiated a rule making proceeding to reinstate its prior video description rules with certain modifications, as required by the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (Act). The proposed rules would require large market broadcast affiliates of the top four national networks and most cable operators and DBS providers to provide programming with audio narrated descriptions of a television program’s key visual elements beginning as soon as

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 14, 2011

The FCC today released a Public Notice announcing new provisions in its license renewal Form 303S - the form that radio and television stations will be using to file license renewal applications, starting with license renewals for radio stations in DC, Virginia and West Virginia in June. The Notice addressed several changes in the license renewal form - including the addition of certifications concerning whether a station was off the air at any point during the license term for a period of more

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 24, 2011

The start of the FCC's license renewal cycle for radio stations is close at hand, and we have issued an advisory to help radio stations prepare for the process. A copy of the advisory is available here , and contains information about the pre- and post-filing announcements that stations are required to air, as well as information about recent changes to the FCC Form 303-S License Renewal application, and guidance on what radio stations should be doing as they head toward the filing date.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 17, 2011

Under FCC policies, stations licensed as noncommercial educational (NCE) stations cannot conduct fundraising for parties other than the station licensee if such fundraising will disrupt the normal program schedule of the station. So the Jerry Lewis Telethon and similar charitable programming efforts cannot be conducted by noncommercial stations without a waiver from the FCC.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 7, 2011

The FCC's decision in its rural radio proceeding addresses numerous radio issues - some of which seem to provide a solution in search of a problem. In an era where the President has called for agencies to review their decisions to access how they will affect businesses and job creation, some aspects of this rural radio decision appear to be moving in the opposite direction - imposing new hurdles on broadcasters trying to improve their operational facilities.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 6, 2011

Among the many items adopted by the Commission at last week's open meeting was a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) regarding retransmission consent agreements and the carriage of broadcast television stations by cable and satellite providers. Retransmission consent has been a hot topic of late both in Washington and in the national press. During the past year, a few carriage negotiations between broadcast television stations and cable or satellite operators have resulted in interruptions - o

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 31, 2011

The FCC has announced another round of EEO audits - looking at the compliance with the FCC's EEO rules and policies of several hundred radio and TV stations across the country. Those stations selected for the audit (see the list here ) must provide the FCC with the last two year's public inspection file reports, plus all records maintained by the selected stations that back up the data reported in the annual reports.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 22, 2011

Last week, we wrote about the new requirement for a nondiscrimination clause in all broadcast advertising contracts. In the new license renewal applications, broadcasters must certify that they do not discriminate in the sale of advertising time and that their contracts contain the required certification. Today, the Enforcement Bureau of the FCC issued an Enforcement Advisory , answering questions about the new requirement.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 15, 2011

Broadcast engineers are often tasked with much of a station's regulatory compliance, as well as its planning for the future. At last week's Michigan Association of Broadcasters Great Lakes Broadcasting Conference , I did a presentation to the a session of broadcast engineers and others, sponsored by the local chapter of the Society of Broadcast Engineers.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 10, 2011

The FCC recently revised its TV “white spaces” rules to facilitate the use of unlicensed communications devices on spectrum originally allocated exclusively for broadcast television. Although there is still a long way to go before new unlicensed devices are deployed in this spectrum, the recent revision of the rules has triggered an important deadline.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 2, 2011

As the next broadcast license renewal cycle is about to begin in June (see our post here about that process), the last renewal cycle still has not ended despite the fact that the last renewal application due in that cycle was to have been submitted almost 5 years ago. At the NAB State Leadership Conference held in Washington, DC yesterday, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell provided statistics about the hundreds of renewals still pending – principally due to indecency complaints against the

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 28, 2011

The question of the environmental impact of the construction or significant alteration of a communications tower has been a matter of controversy for quite some time. Three years ago, when conservation groups challenged the FCC's procedures on the approval of towers and the consideration of the impact that such towers have on migratory birds, the US Court of Appeals ordered the FCC to include more public participation in the determination of whether those towers required detailed environmental s

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 27, 2011

Broadcasters are inevitably moving toward a digital future - exploiting new Internet and mobile platforms to supplement their traditional over-the-air operations. Last week, I conducted two sessions in Salt Lake City for the Utah Broadcasters Association, one on the legal issues to be considered in connection with broadcasters' use of the digital media, and a second updating broadcasters on all the legal and regulatory issues that they face from Washington with their over-the-air operations.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 7, 2011

Last week, amid the flurry of other actions taken on retransmission consent, rural radio and video accessibility, the Commission released its proposal for revisions to its regulatory filing fees , as it is required to do every two years. The proposed fees for broadcast applications are set out below. No other changes in any of the fees or fee categories are proposed.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 2, 2011

As our colleague Brian Hurh wrote recently on our sister blog, the www.broadbandlawadvisor.com , a federal district court last week granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting the mere retransmission of broadcast television programs over the Internet, without more. The order is not only important for its confirmation of a 2008 Copyright Office decision rejecting Internet retransmission of video programming under Section 111 of the Copyright Act, it also reaffirms the “quid pro quo”

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ABC's of E-Discovery

MARCH 15, 2011

Knowledge Discovery Resources 2011 - An Internet MiniGuide Annotated Link Compilation LLRX.

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Broadcast Law Blog

MARCH 25, 2011

The FCC has issued two Notices of Apparent Liability, each proposing fines of $4000 to TV station licensees, both for airing video news releases ("VNR") in news or information programs without sponsorship identifications. In both cases, the station received the VNRs for free, but was paid nothing for including them in their programming. The station had no indication that any other party supplying the VNRs were paid for providing them to the station.

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