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Final proposals on the provision of conditional access services for digital television were published by President of the Board of Trade, Ian Lang, at the end of November 1996. Previous plans were published on 26 June 1996 ( see IRIS 1996-8: 15), and have been the subject of intensive consultation with broadcasters, manufacturers and other interested parties. The current proposals have been developed by the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), the Department of National Heritage (DNH), the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) and the Independent Television Commission (ITC). They are made under...

Article 177 of the Broadcasting Act 1990 was invoked recently by the National Heritage Secretary under which a foreign satellite service may be proscribed if, in the view of the Independent Television Commission, it is regarded as unacceptable and the Secretary of State believes that the order is in the public interest and compatible with the UK's international obligations. The order, which must be laid before Parliament, was against Rendez-vous; it proscribes the service in the UK, i.e. it makes the supply of smart-cards and programme material, advertising for or on the channel or any other service...

The UK Government made in its 1995 White Paper Competitiveness, Forging Ahead , the commitment to ensure that future EC legislation on copyright would promote the competitiveness of UK industry (para 15.39). Meanwhile, however, the UK has not yet implemented all the current (five) EC Copyright Directives. Until now two statutory instruments (SI) have been issued amending the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act, so as to implement those directives. First, The Copyright (Computer Programs) Regulation 1992 (No 3233) implements the provisions of Council Directive No 91/250/EEC on the Legal Protection...

A computer specialist at the University of Birmingham used the computer to which he had access in the course of his employment to store data which permitted him to display indecent pictures of children on the screen and make prints thereof. The question before the court was whether the images so stored constituted `photographs' under Section 1 of the Children Act 1978 and whether the distribution of the images was an offence under the 1959 and 1964 Obscene Publications Act. Generally, the question was: if these Acts were passed at a time that Parliament could not have envisaged the technical capabilities...

The Barclay brothers, publishers of The European, sought to challenge the interpretation of Section 143 of the Broadcasting Act 1990, which refers to the power of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission to adjudicate on complaints alleging infringement of privacy arising out of programmes which had been broadcast. The question was: would it be competent to seek an adjudication in respect of material which had not yet been broadcast? What was the scope, in other words, of the adjudicative power of the BCC? The judge, who commented that in England and Wales there are no general constraints on the...