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In 1984 the UK Parliament passed the Video Recordings Act. This statute covered not only videos, but also DVDs and some video games. It provided for them to be classified and age-rated by the British Board of Film Classification and also created a number of criminal offences related to the act of supplying this material without classification or in breach of the classification. Since 1984 this system has been a well-established feature of the UK media landscape. During the preparatory work for the Digital Economy Bill currently before Parliament it was discovered that the classification and labelling...

In October 2007, TV Links, a website, was raided and closed down and its administrator arrested. The site had been set up to offer links to other sites hosting films, TV programmes and music videos. It itself was funded by advertising income. During October 2007, Gloucestershire County Council trading standards raided the premises of the administrator, acting in conjunction with investigators from FACT (The Federation against Copyright Theft) and the Gloucestershire Police. It was alleged that the site facilitated or induced copyright infringement by providing links to illegal material hosted by...

On 2 March 2010, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) made public its latest reports on Albania, Austria, Estonia and the United Kingdom, adopted in the fourth round of its monitoring of the laws, policies and practices to combat racism in the Member States of the Council of Europe (for commentary on earlier reports, see IRIS 2009-10: 0/109, IRIS 2009-8: 5, IRIS 2009-5: 4, IRIS 2008-4: 6, IRIS 2006-6: 4 and IRIS 2005-7: 3). A number of key recommendations dealing with the (audiovisual) media and/or the Internet can be distilled from relevant sections of these reports. The...

The consultation carried out by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport on product placement (see IRIS 2010-1: 1/25) has been completed and the Government has decided to permit product placement, subject to restrictions. According to the minister, such conditional approval will permit benefits to commercial television companies and programme makers through extra sources of finance whilst taking account of legitimate concerns. Product placement will be permitted in the four categories of programme set out in the Audiovisual Media Services Directive: cinematographic works, films and series...

In 1976, Lucas Films invited Andrew Ainsworth to create the helmet and armour to be worn by the Stormtrooper characters in the Star Wars films. Lucas Films gave Mr Ainsworth two drawings of the Stormtroopers and a prototype helmet. Moulds were made to produce the helmets and the armour. The moulds were kept and in 2004 Ainsworth set up a website to sell helmets and armour made using the moulds. Most of the sales were made in the USA, although Ainsworth was resident in the UK. Lucas Films sued for infringement of copyright in California. They won the action, were awarded $10 million and now sought...