47 U.S.C. § 558
Section 558 · Criminal and civil liability
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 18 court decisions — leading case Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Public Service Commission of Puerto Rico (1990)
Most recently applied in Joe Hand Promotions, Inc. v. Yakubets (March 2014)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Nothing in this subchapter shall be deemed to affect the criminal or civil liability of cable programmers or cable operators pursuant to the Federal, State, or local law of libel, slander, obscenity, incitement, invasions of privacy, false or misleading advertising, or other similar laws, except that cable operators shall not incur any such liability for any program carried on any channel designated for public, educational, governmental use or on any other channel obtained under section 532 of this title or under similar arrangements unless the program involves obscene material.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1992—Pub. L. 102–385 inserted before period at end “unless the program involves obscene material”.
Effective Date of 1992 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 102–385 effective 60 days after Oct. 5, 1992, see section 28 of Pub. L. 102–385, set out as a note under section 325 of this title.
Effective Date
Section effective 60 days after Oct. 30, 1984, except where otherwise expressly provided, see section 9(a) of Pub. L. 98–549, set out as a note under section 521 of this title.