http://www.creativevoices.us en-us programmers@category4.com http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=204 CV applauds the ruling of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Fox v FCC that the FCC policy on broadcast indecency is unconstitutional and harms not only creative media artists, but the American public. In its well-reasoned decision, the Court cited several examples found in CV's Big Chill white paper of the "chilling effect" of the FCC's actions. http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=206 TV broadcast networks and major cable operators with ownership stakes in cable channels continue to squeeze independent TV producers and channels off the air, the Government Accountability Office reports. Creative Voices was pleased to have worked with GAO to document in this important report the chokehold that Big Media has over access to television. http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=203 Creative Voices gives the FCC a standing ovation for its National Broadband Plan, which will unleash billions of dollars in economic development, create over a million jobs, enhance America’s global competitiveness, deliver superior health care and education, reduce energy consumption and environmental degradation, improve public safety and homeland security, reinvigorate democracy, and connect artists directly with their audience, enabling more high quality media choices at lower cost. http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=205 CV filed comments today in the FCC's Open Internet proceeding calling on the Commission to establish clear rules protecting the right of content creators to provide -- and consumers to access -- the Internet content of their choice without restraint or impairment by the Internet Service Provider. This principle of Network Neutrality is crucial for free expression and the future of the Internet. http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=185 Creative Voices had a few choice words to say -- none of them expletives -- after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC's flawed indecency decisions in Fox v. FCC -- the Cher, Nicole Ritchie, and Bono "fleeting expletives" case. As an intervening party in the case, Creative Voices argued that the FCC's arbitrary enforcement of its indecency rules has created a "chilling effect" that harms creative artists and the general public. We look forward to returning to the Second Circuit, at the Supreme Court's invitation, to now try the question of whether the FCC's decision to censor Fox Television for these fleeting expletives violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=202 The Presidential election, our upcoming Supreme Court "indecency" argument, opportunity knocking on media consolidation, and a key Net Neutrality victory -- read all about it in our 3Q newsletter. http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=201 Creative Voices applauds today’s FCC decision to protect and promote an open Internet where consumers have the freedom to access the lawful Internet content of their choice and use the lawful applications of their choice. The FCC decision today marked an important victory in the battle over whether consumers will have the freedom to enjoy the full Internet, or whether they will they be restricted to visiting sites approved by – or in business with – the cable, telephone, or media conglomerate “gatekeeper” that provides broadband Internet access. Because extreme media consolidation and concentration have eliminated so many independent voices and visions from America’s mainstream media, a growing number of creative artists now share their video, music, and creative visions directly with their audience over the Internet. Today’s FCC decision protects these artists from discrimination by broadband providers, promoting more independent and diverse voices in our media. http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=200 Creative Voices applauds today’s ruling by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals that the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency decision and $550,000 fine against CBS in the Janet Jackson Super Bowl halftime case were “arbitrary and capricious,” and therefore unlawful. As both the Third Circuit in this case and the Second Circuit in last year’s Fox v. FCC case (Cher and Nicole Ritchie “fleeting expletives”) found, overly broad FCC decisions on what constitutes “indecency” that arbitrarily overturn decades of Commission precedent put creative, challenging, controversial, non-homogenized broadcast television programming at risk. In many cases, the programs censored are the very programs that parents want their children to watch. http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=193 Creative Voices asked the Second Circuit to do what it did last year in Fox v. FCC: reverse yet another arbitrary and capricious FCC indecency decision that puts creative, challenging, controversial, non-homogenized broadcast television programming at risk. As the Court found in reversing the FCC’s decision in Fox, the Commission’s enforcement of its indecency rules has been vague, arbitrary, insufficiently attuned to the context and quality of the program, and bears no relation to “contemporary community standards,” as the Commission’s own rules require. The FCC’s decision in NYPD Blue suffers from the same flaws and the court should reverse it as well. http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=195 The recent opening of Hulu.com and the MPAA's vehement denunciation of net neutrality are intimately related, a double-barreled shot aimed at the heart of the open Internet. With its back-to-back denunciation of Net Neutrality and its launch of Hulu as its anointed site for streaming TV, films, and video, Big Media's goal is nothing less than to turn today's wide open Internet into a closed system more akin to cable television. The likely result: as we've documented in cable, independent and diverse voices and their content will be inexorably marginalized or silenced. To prevent this Big Media alliance with Big Cable/Telco from cornering and controlling the Internet, it is time for the government to implement reasonable network neutrality oversight that protects consumers and content creators, and preserves the open Internet we enjoy today.