For the film and media distribution industries, this year has been action-packed. Production budgets are skyrocketing and new digital services have been announced or are launching with each passing month. The streaming wars are upon us. Moreover, the FCC recently voted to treat streaming services as “effective competition” to traditional cable providers (or MVPDs), thereby … Continue Reading
Fair use can be one of the most difficult issues that copyright lawyers have to address due to decades of varying court rulings applying the multi-factor balancing test, particularly in the face of new technologies that use, modify, and aggregate data in ways not envisioned under the Copyright Act. The Second Circuit’s February 2018 fair … Continue Reading
In an effort to modernize communications, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) decided to allow cable operators to deliver general subscriber notices required under so-called Subpart T rules (47 CFR §§ 76.1601 et seq.) to verified customer email addresses. This decision was announced through a Report and Order on November 15, 2018. This update is part … Continue Reading
Your client is sued for failure to pay on a contract and says it shouldn’t have to pay because the prices were fixed by a cartel or that it was strong-armed into paying for a “bundle” of services or distribution channels even though it only wanted a subset of the bundle. Is that a defense? … Continue Reading
Expanded Basic. Choice. Choice Plus. Cable and satellite TV customers pay monthly fees for bundled channel packages of different sizes. The packages are becoming “skinnier,” allowing you to customize your service from a set of modules (i.e., the Family package, the Sports package, various language packages, etc.). But each module is still a pre-set bundle … Continue Reading
Since 2008, cable customers have been suing cable operators across the country claiming operators violate the antitrust laws by forcing customers to lease set-top boxes from the operator to access “premium” cable services. Plaintiffs claim that the operators have “tied” one product (the service) to another product (the box) and that the arrangement is a … Continue Reading
Negotiations between television channels/networks and pay TV operators are a breed apart. The stakes are high and the consequence of failure – a “dark” screen – is all too public. But the critical factor that sets these negotiations apart is the actual regulation of the negotiations under three main categories of rules. Broadcasters may invoke … Continue Reading
On August 29th, a Ninth Circuit panel unanimously held that the FTC has no power to challenge “throttling” of unlimited data plan customers by mobile broadband providers as an “unfair or deceptive act.” The panel found that a core source of FTC authority (Section 5 of the FTC Act) does not apply to any “common … Continue Reading