Top five internet media law legal developments

Associate professor of communications and media law expert, Genelle Belmas, provided insight into the following court cases, which illustrate some of the issues that have arisen between the Internet and the First Amendment.

1. Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (U.S. Supreme Court, 1997) The Supreme Court struck down portions of the Communications Decency Act that attempted to regulate indecent sexual speech online. The Internet, the Court said, should be treated more like a book than like a broadcast TV show. In doing so, the Court set the stage for fairly broad content protection for the Internet.

2. Doe v. Cahill (Delaware Supreme Court, 2005) The Delaware Court outlined a test for when it would be appropriate to unmask anonymous speakers for purposes of suing them for libel. It is a thoughtful test that takes into account the need to preserve anonymity except when there is a clear case for exposing a speaker’s identity, and the test has been widely adopted by other jurisdictions.

3. Comcast Corp. v. Federal Communications Commission (D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 2010) The appeals court found that the Federal Communications Commission did not have the authority to regulate Internet Service Providers’ (ISP) traffic decisions. This decision that could have devastating implications for net neutrality, the notion that all traffic that passes through the Internet should be treated the same. Under the principles of net neutrality, ISPs should not be able to charge more for the delivery of information based on the service or content it provides. This case also makes clear how little we know about who should regulate the Internet.

4. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 This law says that ISPs are to be legally treated as distributors, not publishers, of third-party communications that appear on their sites. That means that Facebook could not be held liable for libel if one person libels another on a Facebook page. The person who posts the libel could be sued, but not Facebook.

5. Digital Millennium Copyright Act This law provides copyright protection online. Under the DMCA, copyright holders may request that infringing material be removed by ISPs; if the ISP complies, it cannot be sued for contributory infringement. Both Section 230 and the DMCA provide protections against liability for ISPs.

Originally published in the Daily Titan on November 9, 2010.