Category: Mass Communication Law

Blog product reviews regulated by the FTC

More transparency coming to blog reviews under new FTC rules – Ars Technica

In another application of media law on the larger public, the FTC has asked bloggers to disclose when they are being compensated or get a “freebie” when doing product reviews. This makes perfect sense, especially given that the FTC has agreed to only investigate the most egregious cases. Still, confusion over the law may quell some speech–perhaps it’s a good thing that already I announced that “I ♥ my Mac” on Facebook a few weeks ago.

Can you retransmit info from police scanners?

Anarchist arrested after tweeting out the fuzz to protesters – Ars Technica

The FBI arrests a man for Tweeting police locations during the G20 summit, and goes on to search his home.

I’m not aware of the case/legislation history on possession of police scanners, or regarding what information can be retransmitted, but is a troubling turn of events. Journalists, for one, are quite reliant on scanners to quickly get on location as stories unfold. Other than time and intent, it’s difficult to parse their actions from those of the tweeting protester. In First Amendment terms, going down the road of intent has been traditionally viewed as a slippery slope.

The author of this article closes by remarking that “Maybe it’s time for protest organizers to start moving back to lower-tech, less trackable methods of communication.” I would instead argue that actions such as these need to be challenged.

Amazon: Amusing us to death

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices – NYTimes.com

In a rather “Big Brotherish” move, Amazon.com recently removed access to 2 digital editions of books by George Orwell.

On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.

In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.

The funny thing about this story is that, while Orwell’s 1984 portrays the intrusion of governmental power into our lives, it’s really restrictive copyright laws encouraged by the content industries that made this possible. It looks as though Postman’s Huxleyan prediction was indeed much more correct! If books follow the trend of music–away from physical media–we can expect this loss of control over things we “buy” to happen more often because you never really own anything but an “implied license” use it (with a number of restrictions). Yet, as long as we’re entertained, there’s little chance anyone will protest.

Edit: here is some more detail