APPEALS COURT TOSSES FCC INDECENCY RULING Brooks Boliek – Hollywood Reporter The federal appeals court in New York on Monday (June 4) tossed out a key FCC indecency ruling that said a slip of tongue gets a fine for indecency, telling the commission it failed to follow precedent and was inconsistent with prior decisions.
According to commission officials, the court sent the order back to the Washington, allowing the panel to get another stab at writing the rules. In its decision, the commission decided that language used by Cher and Nicole Richie during the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards was indecent and profane, but decided that similar language used in a 2004 episode of "The Early Show" wasn't indecent because the program is a news show.
While the commission declared the '02 and '03 Billboard Music Awards shows indecent, they did not issue a fine because the program aired before the commission ruled that versions of the words are automatically actionable. That ruling came in response to U2 singer Bono's utterance of a version of the word "fuck" during the 2003 Golden Globes broadcast.
In the Bono decision, the commission changed its definition of "fleeting" use, deciding that a certain word can be so vile that it runs afoul of the nation's indecency laws.
Monday's decision is one of three free-speech cases that the court is expected to decide soon. The Bono case and the decision on Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show are due out of the New York circuit and the one in Philadelphia, respectively. |