Breast Flashing/Wardrobe Malfunction Fine Dismissed!

[3113]

Four years after a breast was flashed...some common sense!

Court tosses FCC 'wardrobe malfunction' fine
WASHINGTON -- Federal judges today tossed out the $550,000 fine levied against CBS Corp. after Janet Jackson's breast was briefly bared during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, ruling that the Federal Communications Commission "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in penalizing the network for a "fleeting image of nudity." The decision is another blow to the aggressive indecency policy the FCC has adopted and enforced under chairman Kevin J. Martin and throws the agency's indecency enforcement into further disarray. Last spring, a different federal appeals court struck down FCC rules on so-called "fleeting expletives." The Bush administration appealed and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case in the fall.

With that and the Jackson case tied up in court, the FCC's indecency rules have been in legal limbo, forcing commissioners to let thousands of complaints back up.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled in the Jackson case that the FCC departed from a decades-old policy that said brief and isolated incidents, including impromptu expletives, did not violate rules designed to keep children from seeing indecent material broadcast between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The panel also found that CBS was not liable for the incident because Jackson and fellow performer Justin Timberlake, who pulled off part of Jackson's costume to reveal her breast at the end of their performance, were independent contractors, not network employees. "The airing of scripted indecency or indecent material in prerecorded programming would likely show recklessness, or may even constitute evidence of actual knowledge or intent," the judges wrote. "But when unscripted indecent material occurs during a live or spontaneous broadcast, as it did here, the FCC should show that the broadcaster was, at minimum, reckless in causing the indecent material to be transmitted over public airwaves."

The FCC argued that CBS was reckless in allowing the incident to occur. But the judges sided with CBS, which had argued the incident was unscripted and that the network had tried to prevent it by having "numerous script reviews and revisions" and "several wardrobe checks" and by implementing a five-second audio delay of the broadcast. CBS said video delay technology was not available at the time. CBS said in a written statement this morning that it was "gratified" by the decision and hoped it would lead the FCC to moderate its indecency enforcement.

"This is an important win for the entire broadcasting industry because it recognizes that there are rare instances, particularly during live programming, when it may not be possible to block unfortunate fleeting material, despite best efforts," CBS said.

More here.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

It's about damn time.

Personally, I don't see how constitutionally, the FCC has any power over the content of any broadcasts. They should be purely have regulatory powers over the broadcast frequencies, making sure that one broadcaster don't overstep another broadcaster's signal, or broadcast outside of certain ranges, again, overstepping someone else's signal.

And with inventions like Satellite TV and Cable broadcasting, the need for the FCC is diminished from day to day as less people watch regular broadcast TV, and switch over to cable and satellite.