NIPC Law

The Jimi Hendrix Experience . Author Warner Enterprise Records  Licence Public Domain Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Court of Appeal (Lord Justices Newey, Arnold and Birss)  Noel Redding Estate Ltd and another v Sony Music Entertainment UK Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 66 (6 Feb2025) This was an appeal by Sony Music Entertainments UK Ltd ("Sony") against Mr Justice Michael Green's refusal to strike out or grant summary judgment dismissing claims by Noel Redding Estate Ltd, and Mitch Mitchell Estate Ltd. for declarations as to the ownership and relief for infringement of copyright and performers' rights in Noel Redding Estate Ltd and another v Sony Music Entertainment UK Ltd [2024] EWHC 128 (Ch) (29 Jan 2024).  Grounds of Appeal Sony appealed on the following grounds:  Mr Justice Michael Green had been wrong to reject Sony's contention that the claim for infringement of performers' rights  was precluded by the transitional provisions contained in s....

Most of us will have eaten so much over Christmas that food is likely to be one of the last things on our minds. Nevertheless, I was put in mind of food yesterday by two things. First, a Linkedin connection with Aunty Bernadette George , the owner of  "Smokey Bites"  whose African and Caribbean catering service is famous throughout London and beyond. Secondly, I read Judge Pelling QC's decision in Bailey and another v Graham and Others   [2011]  EWHC 3098 (Ch) (25 Nov 2011), "the Reggae Reggae Court Case" as the Levi Roots website put it. Aunty Bernadette and Levi Roots are  both known to the legal profession though, in Aunty Bernadette's case, entirely in a good way. One of her testimonials comes from one of my instructing solicitors and her list of customers includes the Middle Temple and "De Silver Chambers" which I assume to be Argent Chambers (the chambers of Herendra de Silva QC ). The Reggae Reggae court case was decided entirely on t...

I know this is not a particularly fashionable point of view but unless we want our arts to be sponsored by the state as in the former Soviet Union the folk who produce and present them to the public need to be paid. Maybe not as much as they used to be before the digital age and probably not as much as they would like, but certainly enough to make it worth their while getting up in the morning.   Those folk include not just the recording companies who have made a lot of fuss and have made themselves unpopular by suing file sharers but artists, particularly those who are trying to establish themselves.    Now I am normally suspicious of pressure groups. As Adam Smith put it  “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” But because of the dramatic changes to the economics of the entertainment industry brought about by digitization - namely the facili...