As often happens in indecency cases, the legal issues in CBS Corp. v. FCC are a good deal more stimulating than the incident itself.
Three-and-a-half years after an ill-advised Super Bowl halftime stunt in 2004 gave America a nine-sixteenths second view of Janet Jackson’s right breast, the regulatory and legal fight over the Federal Communications Commission’s record indecency fine has arrived at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and a lot more is at stake than the $550,000 that CBS had to pony up before appealing the commission’s sanction. Oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 11.
