Regulation

After a year filled with hearings and forums discussing the risks and benefits of AI as the technology expands into critical sectors, experts say it is time for Congress to act — while some warn that lawmakers are already behind.

Fox Corp.’s effort to protect its WTXF Philadelphia from license revocation just got some new local political support. Pennsylvania State Rep. Morgan Cephas sent a brief letter calling on the FCC to renew the license, which is being challenged over 2020 election reporting that aired on Fox News Channel and Fox stations around the country. The challenge to the license began last summer. Although Fox has asked for prompt renewal, the FCC has not acted.

WGBP has deployed just about every legal argument possible in an effort to win a carriage dispute with Dish Network. Now the station is trying a little humor with the FCC’s Media Bureau staff to get across its point that Dish is blurring the meaning of regulations that are clear on their face. “While these interpretations are clear and unambiguous, Dish effectively asks the Media Bureau staff to stand on one foot, put on a pair of oversized sunglasses, and spin around five times, to try to find a different meaning,” said Wiley Rein lawyer Ari Meltzer, counsel for WGBP owner CNZ Communications, in a Jan. 5 filing with the commission.

The artificial intelligence start-up said that it collaborated with news organizations and that The Times, which accused it of copyright infringement, was not telling the full story.

With the Iowa Republican Caucus happening in mid-January and dozens of additional primaries and caucuses to follow before the 2024 general election, broadcasters need to be aware of the use of artificial intelligence, deepfakes and synthetic media in political advertising and the various laws at play when such content is used. These laws seek to ensure that viewers and listeners are made aware that the person they are seeing or the voice they are hearing in political advertising may not be who it looks like or sounds like.

A congressional committee made the demand of the Commerce Department after the New York Times reported on concerns among U.S. intelligence officials over the Emirati company, G42.

Meta Platforms is pressing a federal district court judge to stay a Federal Trade Commission administrative proceeding that could result in an order prohibiting the company from monetizing teens’ data. In papers filed late last week, Meta tells U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly it will face “irreparable harm” unless he halts an administrative hearing at which the company “will be forced to litigate before its litigation adversary, and without the procedural protections inherent in federal court litigation.”

The suit alleged that the streamer was overly optimistic about its business prospects despite it being aware of the impact account-sharing would have on growth.

OpenAI is firing back at The New York Times after the company was sued for copyright infringement over the use of the publisher’s articles to train its artificial intelligence chatbot. In a blog post, the Sam Altman-led firm said that the Times is “not telling the full story” and claimed it “intentionally manipulated” prompts to make it appears as if ChatGPT generates near word-for-word excerpts of articles.

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments on what tech companies are billing as their version of a challenge to “must-carry” laws, statutes that they say are unconstitutional threats to their First Amendment freedom. The high court’s decision could determine the future of social media and other edge providers to moderate their content.

Cox Communications is set to pay $13 million to settle an Arizona lawsuit that alleged the cable TV company disguised price hikes as “routine fees.” The lawsuit accuses Cox of deceiving Arizonans who bought TV services from the provider to enter long-term contracts by promising a “price lock guarantee” and other fixed pricing “deals,” according to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

A second major cable news channel is seeking an exemption from federal video description rules intended to help millions who are either the blind or visual impaired. Fox News — the top-rated cable network overall for the past eight years — is asking for the exemption from the FCC, joining MNBC in asserting that the agency’s rules have traditionally excluded networks that offer little in the way of recorded programming.

NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt says he’s “tremendously frustrated” with the FCC’s late December decision to reaffirm and tighten its regulations on broadcast ownership. So, what’s the organization’s next move? A full transcript of the conversation is included.

CNZ Communications, owner of WGBP Opelika, Ala., claims that under FCC precedent, Dish needs to carry the station throughout the entire Atlanta, Ga., and Columbus, Ga., DMAs. CNZ filed a complaint with the FCC on Dec. 11 seeking full carriage in both markets. Yesterday, Dish asked the FCC to deny the complaint, saying it was “based on a misreading of the relevant statute, regulations, and FCC precedent.”

Less than a week after Paula Abdul accused Nigel Lythgoe of sexually assaulting her twice over the past 20 years, the So You Think You Can Dance co-creator has been hit with another suit from two other women. However, unlike the action by the former American Idol judge, this latest blow against Lythgoe may not pack much legal punch.

The FCC has held tight to anachronistic structural regulations, dealing a massive blow to broadcasters in dire need of regulatory relief. Localism will be one of the casualties.

TV station owners just got bopped on the beak by the FCC regarding local TV station ownership limits. Could another bloody nose be on the way? It’s possible. That’s the view of prominent broadcast attorney David Oxenford, a partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer in Washington. In a Jan. 2 blog, Oxenford said the Democratic-controlled FCC could take a look at the so-called UHF Discount, which is an FCC rule that allows a single TV station owner to serve more than 39% of TV households nationally. The FCC did not take up the UHF Discount or the 39% statutory cap set by Congress during its most recent quadrennial review of its broadcast ownership rules. “With a fifth commissioner now on the FCC, the UHF Discount could again be considered, particularly if there is a proposed acquisition that places the issue before the FCC by relying on the discount to comply with the ownership rules,” Oxenford said.

The use of content from news and information providers to train artificial intelligence systems may force a reassessment of where to draw legal lines.

The lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles also accuses Lythgoe of sexually assaulting Abdul after she left American Idol and became a judge on Lythgoe’s other competition show So You Think You Can Dance.

Entrenched in the past, the commission has held firm — and even tightened — its deeply out-of-date regulations, dealing a deep blow to broadcasters.

Bookending the Christmas weekend, the FCC’s long-awaited 2018 Quadrennial Review Report and Order was adopted on Friday, Dec. 22 and released Tuesday, Dec. 26.  The commission is required by Congress to conduct a regulatory review of its broadcast ownership rules every four years and was directed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to conclude this particular review no later than Dec. 27 (or to show cause why that couldn’t be done). A gift for some and lump of coal for others, the FCC declined to read a deregulatory presumption into its statutory mandate and largely concluded that the existing rules remained necessary in the public interest.

Meta Platforms on Wednesday pressed its argument that the Federal Trade Commission’s structure, including the way it conducts in-house enforcement actions, is unconstitutional. “The commission’s dual role as prosecutor and judge … is flatly inconsistent with fundamental principles of due process,” Meta argues in papers filed with U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss in Washington. The company is seeking an injunction to halt an in-house proceeding that could result in an FTC order banning Meta from monetizing minors’ data.

X argued that the law improperly compels speech in violation of the First Amendment and is meant to pressure social media companies to remove content the government deems objectionable.