Court condemns double standards

I am glad someone does. There sure is a lot of it about:

"CBS did not breach the federal government's decency rules when Janet Jackson's breast was briefly exposed in a routine during the 2004 Super Bowl half-time show, a federal appeals court sitting in Philadelphia has ruled. The court found that the Federal Communications Commission had unevenly applied its standards for judging whether broadcast content was indecent when it fined CBS $550,000 for the notorious "wardrobe malfunction." It said many other examples of broadcast nudity had gone unpunished before the incident, which triggered widespread viewer complaints.

Singer Jackson's right breast was briefly exposed - for about one-half of one second - at the end of a sexually suggestive dance routine during the halftime show, as her co-performer Justin Timberlake ripped away her bustier.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, calling the finale of the dance routine a "deceitful and manipulative act," said that the dancers had submitted a script and participated in rehearsals that gave no hint of what would really happen during the halftime show.

The majority opinion also said CBS could not be held liable for their conduct because Jackson and Timberlake were functioning as independent contractors.

Yet the court said that because the FCC had overlooked on numerous other occasions examples of broadcast nudity it was in effect changing the rules in the middle of the game. "In finding CBS liable for a forfeiture policy, the FCC arbitrarily and capriciously departed from its prior policy,'' wrote chief judge Anthony J. Scirica. "Moreover, the FCC cannot impose liability on CBS for the acts of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, independent contractors hired for the limited purposes of the halftime show."

Source

And it's also exceptionally refreshing to see that the modern custom of blaming everybody but the actual guilty party got a knock on the head.