Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 919

529US3

Unit: $U60

[09-26-01 12:39:04] PAGES PGT: OPIN

844

UNITED STATES v. PLAYBOY ENTERTAINMENT
GROUP, INC.
Breyer, J., dissenting

call responses, faulty installations, blocking failures, and
other mishaps, leaving those steps as signiﬁcant § 504 obsta-
cles. See, e. g., Deposition of J. Cavalier in Civ. Action
No. 96–94, pp. 17–18 (D. Del., Dec. 5, 1997) (“It’s like calling
any utilities; you sit there, and you wait and wait on the
[t]hree weeks, numerous phone
phone .
calls. . . . [E]very time I call Cox Cable . . . I get different
stories”); Telephonic Deposition of M. Bennett, id., at 10–11
(D. Del., Dec. 9, 1997) (“After two [failed installations,] no,
I don’t recall calling them again.
I just said well, I guess
this is something I’m going to have to live with”).

[It took]

.

.

.

Further, the District Court’s actual plan for “better no-
tice”—the only plan that makes concrete the majority’s “bet-
ter notice” requirement—is fraught with difﬁculties. The
District Court ordered Playboy to insist that cable operators
place notice of § 504 in “inserts in monthly billing statements,
barker channels . . . and on-air advertising.” 30 F. Supp. 2d,
at 719. But how can one say that placing one more insert
in a monthly billing statement stuffed with others, or calling
additional attention to adult channels through a “notice” on
“barker” channels, will make more than a small difference?
More importantly, why would doing so not interfere to some
extent with the cable operators’ own freedom to decide what
to broadcast? And how is the District Court to supervise
the contracts with thousands of cable operators that are to
embody this requirement?

Even if better notice did adequately inform viewers of
their § 504 rights, exercise of those rights by more than 6%
of the subscriber base would itself raise Playboy’s costs to
the point that Playboy would be forced off the air entirely,
30 F. Supp. 2d, at 713—a consequence that would not seem
to further anyone’s interest in free speech. The majority,
resting on its own earlier conclusion that signal bleed is not
widespread, denies any likelihood that more than 6% of view-
ers would need § 504. But that earlier conclusion is un-
sound. See supra, at 839–840. The majority also relies on