D.C. Court Expands Live Streaming

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has voted to live stream any oral argument in any case upon request. It has entertained requests before, but as an exception to the rule. Now the rule will be streaming on request, unless a sufficient case can be made against it.

Chief Judge Merrick Garland announced the vote Tuesday, saying that the court may make exceptions due to case-specific confidentiality concerns.

The court has made audio recordings available since September 2013. Currently they are available by 2 p.m. on the day of argument, which will continue.

Making the arguments more accessible via current communications technologies is appropriate given that the court has principal jurisdiction over challenges to FCC regs, like network neutrality rules.

Requests for live streaming can be submitted to liveaudiorequest@cadc.uscourts.gov.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.