Court case

The four major broadcast networks have filed a suit in federal court to shut down Locast, a nonprofit streaming service funded in part by AT&T and founded by a Dish Network lobbyist that offers their feeds to subscribers for no charge. CBS, Disney's ABC, Comcast’s NBCUniversal, and Fox argue that Locast is retransmitting the signals of their local TV stations without permission, in violation of copyright law.

San Francisco is challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s move to override a city mandate that apartment and office building owners share in-use cable wiring with broadband providers upon request. On July 22, the city asked the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to undo the commission’s decision to preempt part of a San Francisco law, which bars building owners from interfering with an occupant’s right to choose a communications service.

A federal appeals court in New York ruled President Trump’s practice of blocking some users on Twitter violates the free-speech protections of the First Amendment. The ruling stems from a 2017 lawsuit filed by Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute on behalf of seven people who had been blocked by the president’s @realDonaldTrump account.

The United States Agency for Global Media, the government’s foreign broadcast service, already struggling to clean house after a series of scandals at flagship operations like Voice of America and TV Martí, is now being rocked by two new cases that have raised further questions about its journalistic and financial management. 

The 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Amazon can be sued over third-party sales on its platform, setting a potentially damaging precedent for the company. While Amazon sells goods itself, it also allows vendors to sell their products through its Marketplace platform, taking a cut in the process. In late 2014, a woman named Heather Oberdorf ordered a dog collar from a Marketplace seller, but it broke on a walk, sending the leash flying and permanently blinding her in one eye. The seller hasn’t been found, but Oberdorf sued Amazon, accusing the company of negligence.

President Trump's consistent attacks on free press and access to information, mostly through social media, have forced judges to re-evaluate the rules of political communications in the digital era. First Amendment advocates are waiting for a ruling that will end a two-year-long debate over whether President Donald Trump, and other public officials, can block constituents on social media. Shortly after Trump was elected, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) confirmed that tweets posted by President Trump using his @realDonaldTrump handle are considered presidential record

The Supreme Court on put on hold the Trump administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census form sent to every household, saying it had provided a “contrived” reason for wanting the information. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the splintered opinion. In a section agreed with by the court’s liberals, he said the Commerce Department must provide a clearer explanation. Agencies must offer “genuine justifications for important decisions, reasons that can be scrutinized by courts and the interested public,” Roberts wrote.

The Supreme Court vacated a lower court decision on the Federal Communications Commission's enforcement of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, in the process raising questions about the FCC's ability to enforce other regulations, depending on how they are crafted and what court is reviewing them. At issue is how much leeway the courts and regulated entities have to challenge FCC interpretations and definitions in its decisions, which are regularly challenged in courts. One law firm called it a potentially "landmark" ruling.

The Department of Justice has reached settlements with CBS, Cox, EW Scripps, Fox, and TEGNA Inc. to resolve a Department lawsuit brought as part of its ongoing investigation into exchanges of competitively sensitive information in the broadcast television industry. All five companies are alleged to have engaged in unlawful information sharing among their owned broadcast television stations. Cox also owns Cox Reps, one of two large “Rep Firms” in the industry that assist broadcast stations in sales to national advertisers.