Cox Crow

The Obverse of the First Amendment

[I]f the First Amendment protects my right to say stuff (as long as it doesn't hurt people) then doesn't it also protect my right not to listen to stuff too[?]
—[Ernie the Attorney]

Yes.

Particularly in obscenity cases, one of the arguments in favor of allowing speech is that the viewer, reader, listener, can always remove oneself. Additionally, one of the arguments against billboard advertising of tobacco products is the inadvertent exposure of an illegally targeted market to that form of speech. FindLaw helpfully footnotes the appropriate decisions: Rowan v. Post Office Dep't, 397 U.S. 728 (1970), FCC v. Pacifica, 438 U.S. 726 (1978) and Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 208-12 (1975).

2:20:24 PM # Google It!
categories: Law, Media

Theft from whom?

Zimran Ahmed points out what is being sold here:

Now let's get to the economics. Broadcast TV is where programmers assemble audiences and sell them to advertisers. TV viewers may think content is made for them, but it's not, it's just bait to "aggregate monetizable sticky eyeballs"....
—[winterspeak.com]

Considering that, where's the theft? Does the rat steal the cheese placed on the trap?

TV networks sell time to advertisers. Advertisers buy the time on the assumption that someone is watching, and, further, that of those watching, that a percentage will buy. Then the broadcast is thrown out on the spectra. Some may catch it. A. C. Nielsen estimates the effectiveness of this approach, providing some manner of establishing a fair price. But they measure "likely purchasers" not actual purchases.

Who is being cheated here?

The networks are in the crowd-gathering business. Crowds dissipate.

11:15:34 AM # Google It!
categories: Media