Supreme Court Refusal Means ISPs Are Not Common Carriers

Masem writes "In another Supreme Court refusal to hear a case, a ruling from a lower court stands that AOL and other ISPs are not considered to be common carriers (akin to telephone and cable services), and therefore may not be regulated by the FCC. This can be taken both ways, but moreso on the better side: ISP competition will still be a major factor, helping to keep connection prices low."

Comments

Re:A refusal to hear != assent.

[Masem]

I do agree that not hearing the case is not the same as approving or disapproving of the lower court ruling.

However, until a different case enters the SC arena, the lower court ruling stands in the lower court's region. I believe that the original suers were from TX, meaning that the ruling that AOL and ISPs in general aren't common carriers only applies to (pretty much) TX.

It also gives some legal precident for actions in other states if it warrents it. This case, not so much so, but take the DeCSS case, ruled in the NY circuit court. ONLY in this area does the Kaplan ruling apply, but if the MPAA wanted to go after someone in Seattle, they have a good start on a prior case. Sure, the judge for that district need not follow Kaplan's ruling, either.

As you said, the ruling means not much more than nothing. It does state the lower court ruling stands, and that it is sound. But it also implies that there is nothing in the ruling or the case that trends on established US Constitional rights or laws. In cases where the answer should be obvious to techies, the SC saying nothing is a good thing, and possibly shows that they do have some understanding of technology and where it is going. It's cases where the SC refuses to hear the case, and the case itself is iffy (Sony vs Connectix is a good example), then there's questions of why the SC didn't take it, and not taking it may lead to more harm than good depending on the lower court ruling. What if, after appeals, the SC let Kaplan's ruling stand on 2600 because they didn't want to take it?

A refusal to hear != assent.

[E1ven]

as rjh said in responce to previous article a refusal to hear does not mean they agree with the ruling.
There is a multitude of possible reasons to decline a request. What follows is his original positing, reprinted without permission:

This is something which arises so frequently that it's become a major annoyance to the Court. The Court will deny cert ("deny cert" == "refuse to hear arguments") on a case, and presto, the popular press and most of America thinks that means anything.

It means nothing.

Denying cert only means the Court won't hear arguments. It doesn't mean the Court thinks the legal reasoning is correct; it doesn't mean the Court is approving the lower court's decision; it doesn't mean anything .

Many cases are denied cert because their legal issues are not as clear as the Court would like ("bad cases make for bad law", as the axiom goes), or the Court wants to give it a few years to let legal scholarship tackle the issues, or the Court thinks this is an issue which Congress will soon issue "direction" (read: legislation) on, or... any of dozens of reasons.

It is tremendously unwise to think that the Court's denial of cert means anything, no matter what the Court says in their response.

Don't get happy; the Court hasn't done anything for us.

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[gavinhall]

Posted by polar_bear:

The FCC regulating Internet services is the very last thing I would ever want to see. They should not be able to regulate ISPs or anything on the Internet anyway - the whole excuse for the FCC is that radio and televison frequencies are limited commodities and therefore need to be regulated and divvied up by the government - to make sure radio stations don't try to lay claim to a frequency by just squatting there, for instance. However, the FCC has gone far beyond that and has really fubared radio for everyone. Ever wonder why all radio sounds alike? It's probably because most radio stations are owned by conglomerates that just apply cookie-cutter formulas to stations, and corporations are now allowed to own more stations in one area than ever before.

In the early days of radio it was a fairly democratic medium, the barriers to entry were small and many enterprising people started up small stations. However, the trend has been towards creating regulations that raise the barrier of entry, require much more massive equipment and basically bar anyone but the wealthy from starting a radio station. Of course, this has the nasty side effect of limiting your options when it comes to listening to radio. Just try to get a license to run an FM or AM station to broadcast to the area of a small town. More than likely you will be unable to because the FCC only wants you to have a license if you are going to run a large transmitter. Never mind the fact that is not in the best interest of the public - the rules and regs of the FCC are shaped by special interest groups who have the money to lobby them.

If the FCC started regulating the Internet in any way, it wouldn't be long before the heavies started lobbying for rules that would be prohibitive for small businesses or publications on the Net.

Sorry - I used to work in radio and I have an intense hatred for the FCC and what they've done to radio.