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Janet Jackson’s 2004 Super Bowl halftime wardrobe malfunction is back in the news — and it turns out that showing a breast on TV for nine-sixteenths of a second isn’t indecent after all.
A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the $550,000 fine levied against CBS, saying that the FCC “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in issuing the fine.
“The Commission’s determination that CBS’ broadcast of a nine-sixteenths of one second glimpse of a bare female breast was actionably indecent evidenced the agency’s departure from its prior policy,” the court found, per the Associated Press. “Its orders constituted the announcement of a policy change — that fleeting images would no longer be excluded from the scope of actionable indecency.”
CBS was not using a delay for the Super Bowl; NFL games and other live events are now shown on a delay.
A PDF of the full 102-page ruling is available here.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:16 am
I thought this was a football site not a site that props up judges who think they make the laws. Oh I forgot, you’re an left winger Florio. Vote early vote often is your moto.
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July 21st, 2008 at 11:24 am
Goodness, Florio. You’re a 1/4 step away from TMZ with that story. I’m sure your proud.
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July 21st, 2008 at 11:27 am
Common sense only took 4 years on this one, not bad not bad. Things are lokoing up!
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July 21st, 2008 at 11:57 am
Technically, the FCC’s order was vacated and the case remanded for further proceedings.
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July 21st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Does this mean that we’ll be seeing A LOT more nudity on TV, in 1/2 second increments flashed on the screen in the middle of our favorite shows? Subliminal messages, anyone? I think there’ll be A LOT more wives, with more frequent headaches after this ruling.:)
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July 21st, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Subliminal bewbs!!! Nothing to see here.
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July 21st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Subliminal bewbs. Nothing to see here.
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July 21st, 2008 at 12:28 pm
did sumwon say breasts?
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July 21st, 2008 at 1:13 pm
YES! Now I can legally see 9/16th of a second of boobies!
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July 21st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Does that mean that there will be a lot of quick breast shots that last a half a second?
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July 21st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
That’s funny, I don’t think it was actually even a “bare female breast.” She was wearing some kind of jewelry on it from what I remember.
I’d love to send the FCC members over to the UK or mainland Europe to watch TV for a while. If they thought Janet Jackson’s sub-second “boob flash” was bad, I think they’d end up sobbing in the fetal position after watching one night of broadcast TV over there.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
July 21st, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Im not a Pats*** fan, but didnt the Patriots*** win that Superbowl.
Wingnut
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July 21st, 2008 at 1:31 pm
you know, in other civilized countries, they show breasts on TV all the time
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July 21st, 2008 at 1:38 pm
janet jackson’s teats 1
decency 0
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July 21st, 2008 at 2:04 pm
“It was a Fumble”
-Rodney Peete
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July 21st, 2008 at 2:27 pm
The right wing in this country lives for crap light nipplegate and opposing gay marriage. That kind of stuff distracts from the lousy job they have done in power the past eight years.
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July 21st, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Yeah, Tits are back!
(my technical analysis)
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July 21st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Janet Jackson’s breast was not the coming of the apocolypse. Someone needs to tell the over the top conservatives that God CREATED breasts! Sure they have a sexual purpose, but their main purpose is for nursing infants. A breast will not lead us down the road to hell.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 21st, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I think the FCC and Court erred fundamentally when referring to Ms. Jackson’s surgically augmented and pierced protuberance as a ‘breast’. On closer examination, it appears to be nothing more than a silicone-engorged pimple on the upper quadrant of her ribcage.
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July 21st, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Kid Rock wore an American flag stitched into a shirt during the same show and nothing was said. This veteran was instantly pi$$ed when I saw that. My son was serving in the Air Force during that show and called before 1/2 time ended expressing his extreme displeasure at Rock’s desecration of our flag.
Rock wearing the flag at all was way more offensive than anything Janet and Timberlake did with her wardrobe and momentary star burst.
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July 21st, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Is it too much to ask to not have sex in everything? The SB is the biggest TV show of the year and kids are going to be watching. If it was just young horny guys in the audience, then the ratings would be a fourth of what it gets. Of course, the NFL knows that, so they’ve made sure that it’ll never happen again. They’ve got a golden calf in the SB, and they’re not going to wreck it to concentrate on pleasing “The Real Life” crowd.
Besides, it was more than the supposed “malfunction” — the whole dance routine was pretty much a simulated sexual assault. The pierced nipple was merely the final part of a really inappropriate show.
And CBS deserves the fine since they put the hacks at MTV in charge. They’re not exactly a network of taste or restraint. Plus, the MTV executives were running around telling everyone to definitely watch the halftime show with a lot of winking to the other media. They knew exactly what was going to happen.
And yes, Rock was offensive too. But I doubt the FCC would get anywhere with a fine for that. Desecrating the flag is one of the “rights” our judicial overlords recognize these days. Obscenity still occasionally gets zapped so the FCC had a chance to make that stick.
Finally, the judges are silly for complaining about a policy change. Policies are changed all the time. That’s why their policies, not Articles in the Constitution.
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July 21st, 2008 at 7:36 pm
SEX SELL’S
Kid Rock was there?
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July 22nd, 2008 at 2:17 am
Florio, I went to that link for the ruling you provided on the 102 page ruling and a question I have for you is…
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