Digital media law
Internet law pre- and post-Brexit
To launch a new edition of a legal textbook in the very month that the UK is about to leave the EU – let alone a book focused on the internet at the height of the techlash – may seem a little reckless. Or perhaps not. Internet law stays still for hardly a moment anyway. […]
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Unblocking the resale of digital goods
An edition of the Economist last November was uncharacteristically effusive about the blockchain. On the cover, it called it “The Trust Machine”, and said that it is a technology that “could change the world’. In a lead article, it explains that the “blockchain lets people who have no particular confidence in each other collaborate without […]
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The digital shift – themes shaping the legal agenda
The first industrial revolution, which began in the 1750s, lasted for between 80 to 100 years. The pace of technological change today encourages us to believe that the second industrial revolution (IR2) will be completed at much greater speed. So if we take the mid-1980s as a starting point, with the emergence of optical disk […]
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Conscious Guide to the EU Directive on use of Cookies
A summary of the issues and what it all means for your website Andrew Gray represents Conscious Solutions New rules about the use of cookies came into effect in the UK on 26 May 2011. Many people have asked what impact the new rules will have on Users of their websites and what they need […]
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Importing online contacts and data protection
To say that online networking has revolutionised the way we interact socially and professionally with others is a massive understatement. Social and professional networking services, which did not even exist at the beginning of the 21st century, have become the driving force of Web 2.0 and their growth rate is a simply a reflection of […]
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Google wins AdWords battle – but not the war
The long-awaited European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision as to whether Google’s AdWords service constitutes trade mark infringement has been reached. In 2005 LVMH owner of luxury brand Louis Vuitton successfully sued Google in France for trade mark infringement and was awarded £278,000 in damages. The Paris Tribunal of First Instance agreed with LVMH’s arguments […]
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Cookies and consent
Cookies are plain text files which are usually very small in terms of the amount of information they store but which perform essential functions on the internet. The common feature of cookies is that they are used to distinguish one browser (one person) from another and this can be used for a number of purposes, […]
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Google Books Settlement – an update
Here is an update following the article in the November/December 2009 issue. On 18 February 18 US District Judge Denny Chin, who is considering the terms of the Google Books settlement, announced that he would “end the suspense” by revealing that he would not rule on the settlement just yet. It is reported that there […]
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Digital media law highlights of 2009
Copyright, in various guises, has featured heavily in the media this year, being in the spotlight at both legislative and judicial level, with high profile decisions in UK and EU courts, and numerous papers, reports, consultations and reviews at UK and EU level. In addition, developments in consumer expectations, business models, and technological innovations have […]
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The Google Books settlement
The Google Books settlement, if approved, will constitute a significant development in the area of copyright, particularly digital copyright, in both the US and the rest of the world. Background In 2004, Google announced that it had reached an agreement with a number of US libraries to digitise books and materials held in the collections […]
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Navigating the Web 2.0 safe harbour
One of the key elements of Web 2.0 is that content is created by the users and not the service provider (hence, “user-generated content” or “UGC”). This presents the risk that a service provider could be liable for content which it hosts but did not create. Liability could be for infringement of intellectual property, defamation […]
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Digital media and the law
“Law 2.0”, “digital media law”. Great tag lines but is it all “sound and fury”, signifying nothing new? After all, there are plenty of examples of how existing laws are being applied to the online world. Are the law and Web 2.0 an odd couple fated to be forever out of sync? Alternatively, are we […]
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