Let It Bleed: Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc. v. United States - Adult Programming, Cable Television and the First Amendment - An Analytical Comment

Abstract

Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc. (Playboy) and Graff Pay-Per-View, Inc. (Graff), challenged constitutionality of § 505 of Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA see infra) based primarily on premise that statute was not a narrowly tailored and least restrictive means of promoting government's interests as well as under a statutory vagueness theory. The defendants in this action are United States; Federal Communications Commission (hereinafter, FCC); United States Department of Justice; and Attorney General of United States, Janet Reno (collectively, the government). Playboy did not deny that almost all of their programming was to some degree sexually oriented, in contrast to other entertainment channels that less frequently display sexual scenes or programming, but contends that as their content is merely indecent and that CDA's § 505 only addresses indecent content, it does not meet strict scrutiny standard required for such content-based speech regulation, and as such, is unconstitutional under First Amendment.