The marketplace and technological changes that have occurred since the last major revision of the Communications Act in 1996 have rendered existing law and policy woefully outdated, if not obsolete. In the past fifteen years there has been a switch from analog to digital services, from narrowband to broadband networks, and, most importantly, from a mostly monopolistic to a generally competitive environment. In Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age: The Next Five Years, some of the nation's most eminent scholars explain why communications law and policy should be changed in response to these profound marketplace transitions. And, as importantly, the contributors explain how law and policy should be changed. There are many specific reform proposals offered in this collection of essays. Given the competition that has developed across most communications markets, the recommendations generally call for less government regulation and more marketplace freedom. With its forward-looking proposals, the book should be particularly valuable not only for academics and students, but for policymakers and law practitioners as well. Topics covered in the chapters include broadband and Internet policy, net neutrality regulation, spectrum policy and spectrum auctions, wireless regulation, universal service reform, public media reform, a new Digital Age Communications Act, and the political economy of communications reform. The contributors, each of whom is a recognized expert on the subjects they address, are: Representative Marsha Blackburn, Michelle Connolly, Seth Cooper, Ellen Goodman, Daniel Lyons, Randolph May, Bruce Owen, James Speta, and Christopher Yoo.

The growing presence of digital technologies has caused significant changes in the protection of digital rights. With the ubiquity of these modern technologies, there is an increasing need for advanced media and rights protection. Media Law, Ethics, and Policy in the Digital Age is a key resource on the challenges, opportunities, issues, controversies, and contradictions of digital technologies in relation to media law and ethics and examines occurrences in different socio-political and economic realities. Highlighting multidisciplinary studies on cybercrime, invasion of privacy, and muckraking, this publication is an ideal reference source for policymakers, academicians, researchers, advanced-level students, government officials, and active media practitioners.

This is the Foreword to a book, "Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age -- The Next Five Years," which I edited and which is published by Carolina Academic Press in Durham, NC. The Foreword describes the contents of the book's nine chapters, which cover a broad range of current communications law and policy topics, including net neutrality, spectrum policy, spectrum auctions, wireless regulation, universal service, public media, and the political economy of communications law reform. At a time when the communications/Internet marketplace is undergoing rapid change as a result of dynamic technological advances and increasing competition across most segments, the book's Foreword provides a good context for understanding today's most important communications policy issues and the choices confronting communications policymakers going forward. Of course, the individual chapters discuss these issues in depth. In addition to myself, contributors to the book are: Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Michelle Connolly, Seth Cooper, Ellen Goodman, Daniel Lyons, Bruce Owen, James Speta, and Christopher Yoo.

This fully revised third edition brings a fresh approach to the fundamentals of mass media and communication law in a presentation that undergraduate students find engaging and accessible. Designed for students of communication that are new to law, this volume presents key principles and emphasizes the impact of timely, landmark cases on today’s media world, providing an applied learning experience. This new edition offers expanded coverage of digital media law and social media, a wealth of new case studies, expanded discussions of current political, social, and cultural issues, and new features focused on ethical considerations and on international comparative law. Communication Law serves as a core textbook for undergraduate courses in communication and mass media law. Online resources for instructors, including an Instructor’s Manual, Test Bank, and PowerPoint slides, are available at: www.routledge.com/9780367546694

The Internet brings opportunity and peril for media freedom and freedom of expression. It enables new forms of publication and extends the reach of traditional publishers, but its power increases the potential damage of harmful speech and invites state regulation and censorship as well as manipulation by private and commercial interests. In jurisdictions around the world, courts, lawmakers and regulators grapple with these contradictions and challenges in different ways with different goals in mind. The media law reforms they are adopting or considering contain crucial lessons for those forming their own responses or who seek to understand how technology is driving such rapid change in how information and opinion are distributed or restricted. In this book, many of the world's leading authorities examine the emerging landscape of reform in nations with variable political and legal contexts. They analyse developments particularly through the prisms of defamation and media regulation, but also explore the impact of technology on privacy law and national security. Whether as jurists, lawmakers, legal practitioners or scholars, they are at the front lines of a story of epic change in how and why the Internet is changing the nature and raising the stakes of 21st century communication and expression.

America needs a new communications law fit for the Digital Age. More than twenty years has passed since the last major revision to the Communications Act. Since then, the communications marketplace has been dramatically reshaped by increasing competition and technological convergence centered around Internet-based voice, video, and data services. Yet innovation and investment in high-speed broadband networks are constrained by regulatory restrictions that sometimes date back to the 1930s, or even earlier. The need for a modernized law is all the more pronounced given the Federal Communications Commission's historical reluctance to remove outdated regulatory restrictions. In the past, the FCC often has sought to regulate new digital communications services in competitive markets without clear statutory justification or sufficient economic analysis. Delay in adopting a modernized Communications Act runs an increasing risk of chilling innovation and investment, impeding market competition, and harming consumer welfare. A vibrant future for digital communications services and the Internet requires reform that is pro-innovation, pro-free market, pro-consumer, and consistent with the rule of law. Based on those guiding principles, #CommActUpdate - A Communications Law Fit for the Digital Age offers a roadmap for a comprehensive update of federal communications law. The book is comprised of six scholarly responses submitted by the Free State Foundation to an earlier congressional process considering an overhaul of the Communications Act, along with a Preface and lengthy up-to-date Introduction providing a wealth of background information and context. The book prescribes specific reforms for areas such as broadband policy and Internet oversight, competition policy, network interconnection, spectrum management, universal service, and video services regulation.

A thoroughly updated, comprehensive, and accessible guide to U.S. telecommunications law and policy, covering recent developments including mobile broadband issues, spectrum policy, and net neutrality. In Digital Crossroads, two experts on telecommunications policy offer a comprehensive and accessible analysis of the regulation of competition in the U.S. telecommunications industry. The first edition of Digital Crossroads (MIT Press, 2005) became an essential and uniquely readable guide for policymakers, lawyers, scholars, and students in a fast-moving and complex policy field. In this second edition, the authors have revised every section of every chapter to reflect the evolution in industry structure, technology, and regulatory strategy since 2005. The book features entirely new discussions of such topics as the explosive development of the mobile broadband ecosystem; incentive auctions and other recent spectrum policy initiatives; the FCC's net neutrality rules; the National Broadband Plan; the declining relevance of the traditional public switched telephone network; and the policy response to online video services and their potential to transform the way Americans watch television. Like its predecessor, this new edition of Digital Crossroads not only helps nonspecialists climb this field's formidable learning curve, but also makes substantive contributions to ongoing policy debates.