Legal Terms Flashcards
copyright
the exclusive right to use, publish, and distribute a work such as a piece of writing, music, film, or video.
digital millenium copyright act
(DMCA) An act of Congress in 1998 that reformed copyright law comprehensively in tyring to update it for the digital age. Key provisions addressed the circumvention of copyright protection systems, fair use in a digital environment, and Internet Service Providers’ (ISP’s) liability for content sent through their lines; DRM technologies or security codes are used to protect copyrighted works from being illegally copied.
fairuse
Allowable use of someone else’s copyrighted work that does not require payment of royalties, with a number of factors used to determine if somehting falls under fair use or is a ciolation of copyright; an exception to copyright law that allows someone to use an excerpt of a work without paying for its use. Reviews of works or their use in commentary or criticism are examples of fair use.
federal communications act
TheCommunications Act of 1934is aUnited States federal law, enacted as Public Law Number 416, Act of June 19, 1934, by the 73rd Congress, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, codified as Chapter 5 ofTitle 47 of the United States Code,47 U.S.C.§151et seq. The Act replaced theFederal Radio Commissionwith theFederal Communications Commission(FCC). It also transferred regulation of interstatetelephoneservices from theInterstate Commerce Commissionto the FCC.
metcalfe’s law
The value of a network rises in proportion to the square of the number of the people on that network. In other words, the more people who are connected to a network in which they can communicate with each other, such as the Internet, the more valuable that network becomes.
newspaper preservation act
Created in 1970, it is intended to preserve a diversity of editorial opinion in communities where only two competing, or independently owned, daily newspapers exist.
radio act of 1927
An act of congress that created the Federal Radio Commission and that was intended to help establish some sort of regulation and order over the chaos of the largely unregulated airwaves. It helped establish the principle that airwaves were a limites public good and that companies using those airwaves had a duty to act responsibly toward the public in terms of the type of material they broadcast.
sarnoff’s law
states that the value of a network increases linearly with the number of people on it. This applies to mass communication networks such as radio or television networks.
