Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, is being sued in a London court for copyright infringement. Plaintiffs Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh claim that aspects of the mega-hit novel were cribbed from their non-fiction book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Brooke talks first with Katherine Rushton, ...

In recent weeks, the intended overhaul of the Telecommunications Act seems to have shriveled into a minor revision, as such issues as network neutrality and video franchising slide on and off the table. Now, committee members are weighing the power of the baby bells (not quite babies anymore) against the ...

Newspapers around the world reprinted sections of Pope Benedict's first encyclical this week. No problem. But if you'd like to use a portion of the Pope's writing in a book you're working on - get ready to pay up. The Vatican publishing house will henceforth enforce copyright fees on the ...

Brooke and Bob have an update about the case against two civilians charged with leaking, and a bit of news about a lawsuit against one of our recent interviewees.

In a couple of weeks, Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is scheduled to go on trial for the crime of insulting his country. European Union officials now debating Turkey’s application to join the group have decried the prosecution as an affront to freedom of expression. But some of those critics come ...

This week, FCC chairman Kevin Martin suggested that consumers should be allowed to pick and choose "a la carte" which cable channels come into their homes. The cable industry cried foul. As Los Angeles Times reporter Jube Shiver explains to Bob, the debate has confronted one group with an especially ...

Broadcasters are legally required to serve “the public interest.” But as long as the FCC equates “public interest” with “local interest,” the result is likely to be hours upon hours of crime reporting, which only exacerbates implicit racism in viewers. At least that’s what UCLA law professor Jerry Kang thinks. ...

Lolita follows the travails of an older man obsessed with a young girl, and was first published … in 1916? 42 years before Vladimir Nabokov's novel, a short story by Heinz von Lichberg titled "Lolita" was published in Germany. Was Nabokov a plagiarist? Or did he suffer from cryptomnesia? Brooke ...

Before suspects were taken into custody in the July 21st London bombings, the media frenzy was well under way. But immediately after the arrests, civil liberties groups complained that the sensational coverage was jeopardizing the suspects' right to a fair trial. The fact that Fleet Street capitulated to those complaints ...

A Christian station here, a Christian station there. But together, religious broadcasters account for well over half of the low-power FM licenses granted by the FCC. And now, they've banded together to create de facto networks. Does this sort of large-scale mobilization by religious broadcasters defeat the intent of low-power ...

Earlier this month, a judge in California ruled that three bloggers must divulge the source of information posted on their websites. The information detailed soon-to-be released Apple hardware, and had been leaked by Apple employees. The bloggers claimed that they were protected from having to testify by California's "shield law." ...

This week, President Bush promoted FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin to chairman of the agency. Because he's already on the FCC, confirmation hearings won't be necessary. And so Martin, a shrewd political strategist and a hawk on indecency, becomes the person with the most influence on media regulation - with no ...

Last month, the FCC hit Fox stations with the largest ever aggregate fine for indecency on TV. The offending material was a scene on the short-lived reality show "Married by America," involving strippers and whipped cream. Regulators said the move was triggered by 159 citizen complaints. But Buzzmachine.com blogger Jeff ...

A reporter in Providence, Rhode Island this week joined the ranks of reporters facing jail time for refusing to disclose a confidential source. Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press executive director Lucy Dalglish weighs in on what it portends for the health of American journalism.

Last week, a photographer for a Missouri student newspaper was assigned to cover a campus political rally. During the event, she inadvertently photographed a theft in progress. The student offered to show the image to the police, but instead, they confiscated her camera. And with that, the incident entered the ...

Do you like how the public airwaves are being used? FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, for one, emphatically does not. As the Republicans gathered last month in New York, Copps decried the networks' skimpy convention coverage. And in condemning the general state of broadcast television, he heartily bit the hand that ...

The media issues at stake in the presidential campaign have thus far mostly centered on which candidate reads more newspapers. But recently John Kerry hinted that he also has big plans for shaking up the FCC. Mike talks to Editor & Publisher reporter Mark Fitzgerald about what national media policies ...

A judge found five reporters in contempt of court this week for refusing to divulge their sources for information besmirching the reputation of Chinese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee. And journalists were slapped with yet more subpoenas in the investigation into the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame. Media reps ...

Most of us still remember the old weekly test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Its ungodly tone and stern warning that "this is only a test" was a nice way to say “no, the ICBMs are not on the way." In the post-Cold War era the possibility of nuclear war ...

This week, Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed King of All Media, announced that he'll soon be leaving Infinity Broadcasting. In fact, he'll be leaving terrestrial broadcasting altogether and taking his act to Sirius Satellite Radio, where the FCC can't touch him. Sirius is betting $100 million a year on the deal ...