Digital Media and Data Privacy Law Blog

North Carolina Superior Court Judge Howard Manning recently ruled on the scope of protection for documents related to the highly-publicized investigation of irregularities in the University of North Carolina football program. The Court held that the majority of communications among attorneys are protected from disclosure, but that other categories of investigative documents must be disclosed as public records of a public agency. The Court also ruled that portions of former UNC football coach Butch Davis’ personal cell phone records must be disclosed.  The Court's rulings ... Read More 

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in favor of broadcasters and content owners against the streaming service ivi, which previously captured and retransmitted broadcast programming over the Internet. The Second Circuit held that ivi is not a cable system and therefore is not entitled to the cable statutory copyright license under Section 111 of the Copyright Act.

Broadcasters initiated the lawsuit alleging that ivi violated the Copyright Act by streaming broadcast programming live over the Internet without consent. ivi argued that it was an online cable ... Read More 

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court released during the last week of its 2011 term its long-awaited opinion in the broadcast indecency cases FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. and FCC v. ABC, Inc. This decision represents an important victory for broadcasters, but, as explained below, leaves several important questions unresolved.

Background

The Fox case arose from the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards shows, in which Cher used the F-word during the live broadcast of the 2002 show and Nicole Richie used both the F-word and the S-word during the 2003 show. Its ... Read More