United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc.

529 U.S. 803 (2000)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Congress passed a statute with the purpose of § 505 is to shield children from hearing or seeing images resulting from signal bleed. The statute and its implementing regulations require cable operators either to scramble a sexually explicit channel in full or to limit the channel's programming to the hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. To comply with the statute, the majority of cable operators adopted the second, or 'time channeling,' approach. Appellee Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., challenged the statute as unnecessarily restrictive content-based legislation violative of the First Amendment. Playboy obtained a temporary restraining order (TRO) enjoining the enforcement of § 505. Playboy sought a declaration that § 505 violates the Constitution, and an injunction prohibiting the law's enforcement. The District Court denied Playboy a preliminary injunction. The TRO was lifted, and the Federal Communications Commission announced it would begin enforcing § 505 on May 18, 1997. In March 1998, the District Court held a full trial and concluded that § 505 violates the First Amendment. It imposed a content-based restriction on speech. It agreed that the interests the statute advanced were compelling, but concluded the Government might further those interests in less restrictive ways. The United States (D) appealed.