Perhaps it wasn’t the most pressing case on the docket, but we would still like an explanation for the ruling on the 2004 Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction” coming down right now. Hey appeals court: we’re working on a post about the Olympics. We’ll have it done by October 2009. Cool? In any event, it has been determined that the Timberlake/Jackson shenanigans, which directly led to Pacman Jones being suspended, were not worthy of a fine. From the AP:

A federal appeals court on Monday threw out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp. for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson’s breast-baring “wardrobe malfunction.”

The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity.

The 90 million people watching the Super Bowl, many of them children, heard Justin Timberlake sing, “Gonna have you naked by the end of this song,” as he reached for Jackson’s bustier.

The court found that the FCC deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so “pervasive as to amount to ’shock treatment’ for the audience.“

Now we can get back to more pressing questions like, “Is Justin Timberlake awesome or merely outstanding?”

Also, in a completely unrelated story: does anyone have a croquet set that we could borrow by, say, noon tomorrow?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.