Last year saw the beginning of the Coalition Government’s shake-up of employment law, with the most significant change being made to the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims, which increased from one year to two years for new employees commencing employment from April 2012. Following other proposals made by the Government throughout 2012, many under … Read more
The High Court has granted an interim injunction preventing the Sun from publishing embarrassing Facebook photos of Edward RocknRoll, who married Kate Winslet in December 2012. The photographs had been taken at a private party in 2010 and showed Mr RocknRoll partially naked, engaged in “rather silly, schoolboy-like behaviour.” They were posted on Facebook by … Read more
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has published an important decision concerning four employees who claimed they had suffered religious discrimination in the workplace, ruling in favour of only one employee. The four employees (who were all practising Christians) had originally brought claims against their respective employers in the UK courts. Having failed in … Read more
The Advertising Standards Authority has been grappling on a regular basis with the difficult issue of public recognition of marketing tweets. The Committee of Advertising Practice last week issued further advice on the subject following the ASA’s finding that a tweet by celebrity Keith Chegwin promoting a Publishers Clearing House competition wasn’t obviously identifiable as … Read more
Photographer Daniel Morel was awarded summary judgment last week in New York in his ongoing copyright infringement claim against Agence France Presse, Getty Images and the Washington Post. AFP and the Washington Post will have to pay him damages after using his tweeted photographs of the Haiti earthquake three years ago without a licence. Whether … Read more
The Government is to introduce legislation so that parody, caricature and pastiche will be permitted on a so-called “fair dealing” basis. It will be revealing to see the detail but it is worth looking at some of the arguments raised for and against the proposal and to speculate about how existing “fair dealing” principles might … Read more
The Editor’s introduction to the IAEL’s 2009 book was written by Julian Bentley. To read the introduction, click here. If you would like to purchase the book, click here.
With great difficulty, even in France! The Court of Appeal in Paris recently handed down a judgment in SAS ALJ Productions v Société Endemol Productions, overturning the court at first instance, which had granted an injunction blocking the exploitation of ALJ’s Dilemme. Endemol claimed that Dilemme reproduced certain key elements from Endemol’s Loft Story and … Read more
This article provides a UK perspective on the professional names used by musical groups and bands and how to try to avoid disputes about who owns them and how much they’re worth. The answer lies in planning ahead by entering into a written agreement dealing with name related matters as well as other pertinent matters. … Read more
Last autumn we presented a seminar on Making Your Business a Success, where we also looked at the legal pitfalls of social media. We highlighted cases where Employment Tribunals had no difficulty in ruling that employees did not have a right to privacy and/or freedom of expression for comments posted on social media, especially where … Read more
