Given that the name of this site is CommLawCenter, our focus is generally on communications law and regulation. More accurately, however, our focus is on legal developments that affect the media and telecom industries, even when they emanate from entities other than Congress or the FCC. This is particularly true…
The FCC announced this afternoon that “effective immediately, [we] will no longer allow visitors into our facilities, absent special permission from the Office of Managing Director.” However, that announcement, strange as it would be under normal circumstances, was of no particular importance. That’s because the same document noted that, starting…
Back in 2015, I wrote a post on CommLawCenter discussing the prevalence of interns in the communications industry, and the Department of Labor’s crackdown on businesses illegally failing to pay their interns. That crackdown began in 2010, with the DOL applying a rigid six-part test to determine whether an intern…
Under a new federal law, businesses are forbidden from restricting, prohibiting or penalizing consumer-posted reviews of the business or its goods and services. The Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016 goes into effect tomorrow, March 14, 2017, and declares unlawful any “form contract” that prohibits or restricts the ability of…
What a difference a day makes. As previously discussed in CommLawCenter, the Department of Labor announced in May a change to its overtime regulations. That change would more than double the minimum salary needed to qualify an employee as exempt from overtime pay, and was scheduled to go into effect…
But there are treatments available. When the Department of Labor announced in May that it would more than double the minimum salary needed to qualify an employee as exempt from overtime pay on December 1, 2016, you could hear the collective gasp from businesses nationwide. That sound echoed even more loudly…
Interns are a perennial part of the media landscape, and you have probably heard a lot over the last few years on the subject of unpaid interns. Specifically, that unless they qualify as genuine interns under a six-part Department of Labor (DOL) test, businesses are required to treat them (and…
While it has been around since 2009, Bitcoin has seen substantial media coverage in the past few months. Media outlets (as well as many other businesses) have been increasingly dabbling in the Bitcoin world, if for no other reason than to show they are up to date with the latest…
Being businesses built upon the value of information, and working constantly to create new business models aimed at monetizing that information, the communications industry tends to be very careful about letting any form of information leave the building. That, along with the highly competitive nature of the industry, means many…
With the unprecedented popularity of social media, employees have increasingly used LinkedIn and other online forums to network for business and social purposes. When the line between personal and business use is blurred, litigation may ensue. A federal court recently ruled that an employer did not violate federal computer hacking…