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On 6 December 2012 four music companies (EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal) launched a fresh legal bid aimed at blocking access on the part of Irish Internet users to the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay. This is the first legal action taken under the controversial copyright injunction law that was introduced in February 2012 (see IRIS 2012-4/31). The European Union (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2012 permit the owner of the copyright or a related right in a work to apply to the High Court for an injunction against an intermediary whose services are used by a third party to infringe...

At 10:00 am on 24 October 2012 Ireland’s analogue television signal was switched off. Analogue technology had been used to transmit and receive television signals in Ireland since television broadcasting started in 1962. This completes Ireland’s digital switchover from analogue to digital television services and meets the European Union target of 2012 for analogue switch-off. The switchover was coordinated with the digital switchover in Northern Ireland. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Irish Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the United Kingdom’s...

On 12 October 2012 the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) announced the outcome of consultations on the revision of the General and Children’s Commercial Communications Codes (see IRIS 2011-7/29). The revised Codes will deal, in particular, with the approach to be taken to products that are high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS). The BAI is required under section 42 of the Broadcasting Act 2009 to develop advertising codes to protect the general public health interests of children and may prohibit the advertising in a broadcasting service of a particular class or classes of foods. Prior to the...

At their September and October 2012 meetings, the Compliance Committee of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) upheld a series of complaints made by viewers of Psychic Readings Live, which is broadcast by TV3. The complaints were made in accordance with section 48 of the Broadcasting Act 2009 and claimed that the broadcasts breached a number of sections of the BAI General Commercial Communications Code (see IRIS 2011-7/29). Commercial communications for fortune tellers and psychic services are permitted under section 8.10 of the BAI General Commercial Communications Code, provided that the...

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner has lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court against a High Court decision in EMI v. Data Protection Commissioner. The High Court judgment of 27 June 2012 found that an enforcement notice, issued by the Commissioner, directing the Internet service provider, Eircom, to cease the implementation of the three-strikes protocol on the grounds that it breached data protection and privacy law, was invalid. The protocol arises from a series of cases taken by record companies against Internet service providers seeking to address the issue of copyright infringement over...