Last Friday (27 July 2001), The Independent Television Commission (ITC) announced that it had fined London Weekend Television £100,000 for breaches of the ITC Code of Programme Sponsorship in relation to the ITV series, Club@vision. Club@vision was aimed at young people and included features on music, clubs and celebrities. The ITC received a complaint in … Read more
By deciding that “free” public access broadcasts of “listed” sporting events on terrestrial television is paramount and overrides the need to maintain “undistorted competition” (represented by competition law, free movement of goods and respect for property rights), the House of Lords will have enabled much of Whitehall to depart on holiday with relief. The judgment … Read more
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights enshrines the right of an individual to respect for his or her private life. This right was already recognised in the Press Complaints Commission code which provides: “Everyone is entitled to the respect of his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence. A … Read more
Copyright is a property right which by definition comes into conflict with a fundamental human right: the right of freedom of expression. The Court of Appeal decided this week that on rare occasions freedom of expression will “trump” copyright, giving a public interest defence to a copyright infringement claim. The Sunday Telegraph published extensive extracts … Read more
The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was enacted principally to protect people against stalkers. However, the Act was drafted to cover a wider set of circumstances than the phenomenon of stalking, and there has been some debate as to how wide a set of activities will be caught by the criminal offence. The media was … Read more
The House of Lords has upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision last year that Marks and Spencer did not infringe copyright in “typographical arrangements of published editions” by copying and distributing daily press cuttings provided by a monitoring agency. Newspapers assign copyright in their typographical arrangements to the NLA, which then licenses companies to copy … Read more
An injunction is a court order which requires someone either to do something, or to stop doing something. Anyone who breaches an injunction risks criminal sanctions. Injunctions are commonly made to prevent breaches of confidence. An injunction can be served on individuals or companies who are not parties to the proceedings, making them aware of … Read more
