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The English High Court has ordered the Internet Service Provider O2 to hand over the personal details of over 9,000 customers to a company acting on behalf of copyright owners and to a pornographic film production company, whilst rejecting similar claims by 12 other copyright owners. Golden Eye International Limited, an organisation acting on behalf of copyright owners, and 13 pornographic film producers sought a ‘Norwich Pharmacal Order’ to compel O2 to give them the personal details of 9,124 O2 customers in order to demand GBP 700 each in damages for alleged copyright infringement, and to threaten...

In his annual budget statement, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that he is extending the tax credit scheme, previously available to film production (see IRIS 2012-1/29), to high-end television productions, video games and animation. This will be subject to state aid approval and a consultation process, but is likely to be introduced by April 2013. The film tax credit scheme was introduced under the Finance Act 2006. Under the provisions of the Act, the credit is available for British films intended for theatrical release costing GBP 20m or less at 20%, which means that tax is not...

A company which sold mattresses made the following claim on one of its websites regarding its products: that they were “as seen on TV”. The sole complainant challenged whether that claim “As seen in” misleadingly implied that the mattress had featured in editorials or product reviews in those media, contrary to rule 3.1 of the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code) which states, “Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.” The company provided a copy of an email requesting a donation of a mattress for a Channel 4 quiz...

BT and TalkTalk, internet service providers, were unsuccessful in their appeal against the decision of the High Court last year that provisions in the Digital Economy Act 2010 were not in breach of EU law (see IRIS 2011-6/20). The provisions impose obligations on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to notify subscribers if their internet protocol addresses are reported by copyright owners as being used to infringe copyright, and they must keep track of the number of reports about each subscriber and must compile on an anonymous basis a list of those reported on. After obtaining a court order to obtain...

The High Court has decided that the operators of The Pirate Bay website and its users are both guilty of infringing the copyright of rightsholders in the music industry. This means that internet service providers can now be forced to block their customers’ access to the site. The case was brought by major record companies against the six major UK internet service providers. The Pirate Bay is a website which enables users to search for and download copyrighted material, including music and films, and the record companies sought an injunction from the court to force the service providers to block...