American court in sensible ruling shocker. The US Appeals Court has ruled that the American media regulator the FCC was wrong, that's right, wrong in fining the CBS company $550,000 over the whole Nipplegate palaver.
As you'll all remember, America was outraged when, during the 2004 Super Bowl half time show, Justin Timberlake ripped off a bit of Janet Jackson's costume to reveal a bit of breast. The American public, including children (never forget the children) saw at least five nano-seconds of said breast before CBS - who broadcast the Super Bowl that year, and whose then sister company MTV produced the half time show - diverted their cameras elsewhere. The FCC, almost as outraged as middle America about the whole thing, pushed to fine CBS as much as was possible under US decency laws, mainly by fining it for each of the TV networks that syndicated the broadcast around America.
CBS paid the fine, but appealed the ruling, on the basis its producers were not aware that the "wardrobe malfunction" would occur, and that they responded rapidly once it had done, ensuring a minimum amount of Jackson boob was seen.
And yesterday the US appeals court agreed that, given those facts, the record breaking fine issued by the FCC was inappropriate. Chief Judge Anthony Scirica said the FCC had "arbitrarily and capriciously departed from its prior policy" that exempted fleeting broadcast material from actionable indecency violations, while adding that "the FCC cannot impose liability on CBS for the acts of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, independent contractors hired for the limited purposes of the Halftime Show".
So there you have it. It was all Janet and Justin's fault, and the American public should take it out on them, not poor old CBS. Actually, given Janet Jackson's record sales post-Nipplegate I think the American public already have been taking their anger out on her a bit. But not cheeky Justin of course, the whole debacle doesn't seem to have done him any harm, despite it being him that coined the joke phrase "wardrobe malfunction" when initially responding to the routine, before realising just how mad people were about the whole thing.