Search results : 808

The House of Lords Communications Committee released its report on Media Convergence on 19 March 2013. The report focused on the increasing convergence of different media including television and broadcasting, and the traditional print media, in large part due to technological advances, particularly the Internet. The report highlighted the fact that the lines that had previously delineated these areas, to some extent, are becoming increasingly blurred. Newspapers through video content, and broadcasters through written, are using the Internet to encroach upon the traditional territories of each...

In its judgment of 28 February 2013, the High Court ordered six leading internet service providers (with a 94% market share of UK internet users) to block access to three peer-to-peer file-sharing websites called KAT, H33T and Fenopy. This follows earlier High Court decisions requiring blocking of other sites (see IRIS 2012-7/25 and IRIS 2011-9/21). The case was brought by ten leading record companies on their own behalf and on that of other members of the recorded music trade associations. The three websites each operate a substantial profit-making business in file sharing, especially in music....

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, has decided that a number of sponsorship credits were in breach of its Broadcasting Code. These are credits that identify the sponsors of programmes, as is required for reasons of transparency. Indeed, the Code requires that sponsorship is clearly identified by credits that make clear the identity of the sponsor and the relations between the sponsor and the sponsored content. However, credits do not count as part of the advertising permitted under the AVMS Directive, and in order to prevent the credits from effectively becoming extra advertising, they must...

If a service in the United Kingdom constitutes a “video-on-demand” service, it should so notify ATVOD - the Authority for Video on Demand - so as to come under its regulatory jurisdiction regarding editorial content and pay an annual fee. Interpreting the criteria in concrete cases is, in the first instance, the responsibility of ATVOD; however, it is the UK regulator Ofcom which has the ultimate legal responsibility and so an appeal lies to it. VOD criteria (in implementing the Audiovisual Media Services Directive) are retrofitted through the Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2009 and the...

On 7 March 2013, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a preliminary ruling in the case ITV Broadcasting and others v. TVCatchup. The judgment was issued on a request made by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. At national level, the case involved a dispute between ITV Broadcasting and other commercial TV broadcasters on one side and TVCatchup, another broadcasting organisation, on the other side. TVCatchup offers an Internet TV broadcasting service that allows its users to watch, via the Internet, live streams of TV broadcasts from other broadcasters. Users can...