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On 22 November 2017, the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) in London, which is part of the Business and Property Court of the High Court of Justice, considered in Martin & Anor v Kogan & Ors the nature and extent of the defendant’s contribution to the writing of a screenplay, and whether that contribution was sufficient to give rise to joint authorship in a copyright work within the meaning of section 10(1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The dispute arose between Nicholas Martin, a professional writer of film and television scripts, and Julia Kogan, a professional operatic...

On 18 December 2017, Ofcom issued its notable decision concerning privacy and the identification of individuals mentioned in criminal investigations. On 20 April, 2017, theindependent commercial television channel, ITV, broadcast an episode of Detectives, which is a factual programme that follows police detectives as they investigate crimes. In this episode, they show extracts of a police interview with Mr Lazenby, who is suspected of committing rape. During the police interview, the detectives ask Mr Lazenby whether he is in any relationships and whether they involve sexual intimacy. Mr Lazenby...

The BBC receives around 250 000 complaints per year. It is required by its Charter to have a complaints framework which provides “transparent, accessible, effective, timely and proportionate methods” of making sure that the BBC is meeting its obligations and resolving problems. It has issued a detailed document setting out a framework and procedures for handling complaints. The BBC commits itself to several key principles in the handling of complaints. In summary, these are that complaints should be made to the BBC itself first in almost all cases, before they are taken to Ofcom, the regulatory...

Ofcom has produced its first annual Diversity in Broadcasting monitoring programme, by considering the diversity within television broadcasters as regulated by Ofcom. A similar report on the radio industry will appear too. The report focuses mainly on the five main UK broadcasters, namely the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky and Viacom (which owns Channel 5). As part of a broadcaster’s Ofcom licence, it is a condition that they take measures to promote equality of opportunity in employment. Ofcom has stated that unless there is accurate monitoring, it will be unclear as to the level of compliance by broadcasters...

Further to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s reference to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to investigate the impact on media plurality and broadcasting standards of the proposed acquisition by 21st Century Fox Inc of the shares of Sky Plc ( Sky) (see IRIS 2017-9/15), on 10 October 2017, the CMA issued its timetable and Issues Statement. Fox already has about 39% shareholding in Sky, whilst the Murdoch Family Trust (MFT) owns 39% of Fox and 39% of News Corporation, which fully owns News UK — the publisher of The Sun and The Times. Sky owns and operates Sky...