The Wall Street Journal has a report that its parent, News Corp., is suspending half the voting rights of its foreign shareholders to reach compliance with a requirement of the Communications Act of 1934 that a broadcaster can't have more than 25% foreign ownership.
That law, enacted when Rupert Murdoch was three years old, is a dinosaur. In 1934 there was no satellite radio or television, no cable television, and no Internet. Why not let any foreigner buy as much stock in any American broadcaster as the foreigner wants to buy? If Americans don't want to watch Saudi or Chinese Communist propaganda, they can always turn off the television, or change the channel.
This is one of the problems with top-down, government-imposed regulation in general — the laws don't change as fast as the technology does.
