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During a criminal investigation of two military officers under the Official Secrets Act 1989 for passing information on the Cabinet security committee to the broadcaster BSkyB, the police sought disclosure of evidence from the broadcaster. This included copies of all e-mails between the officers and the broadcaster. After hearing the police and the broadcaster, the court issued a production order. However, a further application, based on secret information, was made by the police for further evidence; the broadcaster was not present before the court and objected to the application. On 12 March...

The United Kingdom’s plan to grant tax relief to producers of video games is in line with the state aid rules of the European Union. In the UK there is a group of four corporation tax reliefs aimed at the creative industries. These reliefs increase the amount of allowable expenditure for a company, with the aim of stimulating cultural production. Film tax relief was introduced in April 2007 and two additional reliefs were introduced in April 2013, for animation and high-end television programmes. On 27 March 2014 the European Commission approved the introduction of aid for producers of video games. Aid...

Since the Defamation Act 2013 (the Act) received Royal Assent in Parliament on the 25th April 2013, on the 1st January 2014 saw the implementation. As flagged in a previous IRIS article (see IRIS 2013-7/16), the Act has addressed various criticisms of the existing defamation laws by shifting the emphasis more in favour of the publisher than the subject of a publication. As previously reported, the Act introduces the defence of statutory truth replacing justification (see Section 2 of the Act). The new defence succeeds even if one of the imputations is not substantially true; provided that the imputation(s)...

In a decision published on 17 February 2014, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) upheld in part a complaint by an individual in which she claimed that her privacy had been breached through the broadcasting of a fictional drama by the broadcaster ITV that closely mirrored the circumstances of her father’s murder. ‘Mrs A’, as she is referred to in the decision to guard against further intrusions of her privacy, submitted the complaint to Ofcom in response to the airing on ITV of the television detective show “Scott & Bailey” on 22 May 2013. The plot of the episode in question was striking in its...

The adjudication by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), dated 19 February 2014, concerns a television advertisement for a mobile app, called "Nude Scanner 3D". It had been placed by Jesta Digital GmbH t/a Jamster. It was shown during six episodes of a programme called “Hollyoaks.” The advertisement portrayed a “clothed woman holding an umbrella. A hand appeared which held a mobile phone. The phone then 'scanned' the woman which revealed her naked with her breasts and crotch blurred [pixelated] out. The naked image then rotated, showing the woman from the waist up.” There was a voice- over...