NIPC Law

Author Jaggery Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2-0 Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert Pablo Star Media Ltd v Bowen [2017] EWHC 2541 (IPEC) (13 Oct 2017) The above photograph is of a pub in Tenby where Dylan Thomas left the manuscript of Under Milk Wood   on a stool.   Under Milk Wood is a radio play about the residents of a fictional village called Llareggub. I am told by those proficient in the language that Llareggub means nothing at all in Welsh but the letters do mean something in English if the spelling is reversed. "Llar eggub"    less the first 3 letters spelt backwoods with the addition of the particle "-ation" I thought of Llareggub when I read Judge Hacon's judgment in the appeal from Deputy District Judge Vary's decision in Pablo Star Media Ltd v Bowen [2017] EWHC 2541 (IPEC) (13 Oct 2017) where the learned Enterprise Judge dismissed a copyright owner's appeal against Deputy District Judge Vary...

A few years ago it became possible for photo libraries to sniff the Internet for unlicensed copies of their photographs. When they found one they demanded pretty steep damages for copyright infringement. Often the owners of the websites were decent people who had acted in the sincere belief that they were entitled to use the snaps. Frequent questions at my IP clinics were: "Have they got a case?" and "Do we really owe them that much." Judge Birss QC's documents only decision in  Hoffman v Drug Abuse Resistance Education (UK) Ltd [2012]  EWPCC 2 (19 Jan 2012) answers both those questions.. Why the Case was Conducted in Writing The reason why this was a documents only decision is  that the defendant went into liquidation before the acton came on for trial. Even though the liquidator advised him that no creditor was likely to get a dividend, the claimant asked for judgment.  Rather than put the parties to further expense, the judge ordered amended particula...

In our very first NIPC newsletter which we published in June 1997 I wrote a case note on Mr. Justice Lloyd's decision in  Creation Records Ltd. and Others v News Group Newspapers Ltd   [1997] EMLR 444, [1997] EWHC Ch 370, (1997) 16 Tr LR 544. In that case Mr. Noel Gallagher of Oasis and others applied for an interlocutory injunction to restrain The Sun from offering for sale and selling a poster of Oasis that featured a photo of an elaborate set that included a white Rolls Royce in a country club swimming pool. The Sun's photograph was very similar to the photograph that appeared on an Oasis album cover. The similarity arose because The Sun's photographer shot the same scene at roughly the same time and from the same angle as Mr. Gallagher's photographer but he did not reproduce any part of Oasis's print or negative. The learned judge held that the plaintiffs had no arguable case for infringement of copyright though he accepted that they had an arguable case for br...