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On 21 March 2013, the UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom ruled that independent candidates will not get the automatic right to their own party election broadcasts, despite the majority of political parties and broadcasters responding to the consultation believing that they should. But Ofcom will support the Electoral Commission to raise this issue with the British Government in future, in the hopes that the law will be changed in future to widen the access to make such broadcasts. The regulator carried out its wide-ranging consultation over party political/referendum broadcasting, and election coverage...

On 8 May 2013, the UK Advertising Standards Authority published an adjudication finding that a broadcast advertisement was not socially responsible. The UK Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP Code) contains an Article (1.2.), which states that ‘Advertisements must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to the audience and to society’. 29 complaints were received by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) regarding an advertisement for a so-called “pay day loan”. The advertisement, in the name of a company trading as ‘Cash Lady’ was fronted by singer Kerry Katona who had financial problems...

On 22 February 2013 Ofcom (Office of Communications), the UK broadcasting regulator, published its decision to fine broadcasting Licensee Biditis Ltd GBP 30,000 for a number of breaches of the Broadcasting Code. The case concerns the activities of Al-Alamia TV, owned by the licensee Biditis Ltd, which is a satellite broadcaster based in London and broadcasting at various times to southern Europe and the Middle-East. Al-Alamia hosted a beauty contest, Miss Arab London 2011 and broadcast an accompanying television series of the same name on 7, 14, 21, and 29 October 2011. The breaches of the Broadcasting...

On 17 April 2013, the UK Supreme Court overturned earlier decisions of the High Court and the Court of Appeal and decided that reading or viewing copyrighted material online does not require the permission of the rightsholders, despite that fact that a temporary copy is made in the computer’s cache and screen. The case was brought by an association of public relations professionals who use on-line monitoring or search services; a company sends them monitoring reports with the opening words of an article, selected text, and a hyperlink. This requires a licence from the publishers of the newspapers...

The Grand Chamber of the European Court held, by nine votes to eight, that the UK’s ban on political advertising on television did not violate Article 10 of the Convention. The majority opinion in this controversial judgment reflects a somewhat particular approach compared to the Court’s previous case law on political advertising, such as in VgT Vereinigung gegen Tierfabriken v. Switzerland (see IRIS 2001-7/2 and IRIS 2009-10/2). Essentially the judgment in the case of Animal Defenders International v. UK accepts that a total ban on political advertising on television, characterized...