Plagiarism

Rihanna wins against Topshop but does she have a right to her image? – Emily Goodhand

2 August 2013 by Guest Contributor

Fenty & Ors v Arcadia Group Brands Ltd (t/a Topshop) & Anor [2013] EWHC 2310 (Ch) – Read judgment

The ruling in the Rihanna/Topshop case marks a significant trend, both in case law and society, towards equating image with commodity. Increasingly, celebrities and sports personalities earn large sums of money from sponsorship and advertising deals because companies recognise that their image sells products. So how can so-called image rights be protected?

The legal regime around image rights has arisen out of common law concepts of property, trespass and tort (civil wrong). The common law system means that precedents for the protection of an individual’s likeness have arisen from judges’ decisions in cases involving unauthorised exploitation of a likeness where an individual has suffered damage as a result. Some US states have enacted specific legislation equating celebrities’ personality rights with property rights, where expiration of the rights occurs 70 years following the death of the celebrity.

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Electronic plagiarism? The dangers of the cut-and-paste

26 May 2013 by David Hart KC

Crinion v. IG Markets [2013] EWCA (Civ) 587  read judgment

and R (o.t.a. Mustafa) v. The Office of the Independent Adjudicator, Queen Mary College Interested Party [2013] EWHC 1379 (Admin) read judgment

A judge hears a case and accepts one party’s version. That party provides a convincing closing speech (in a Word document) which the judge lifts, makes some modifications, and circulates as his judgment. 

What is wrong with that? Put it another way, does the judge have to re-invent the wheel by paraphrasing the arguments of the parties?

What is wrong is the appearance that the judge has not really engaged with the arguments of the losing party – as the Court of Appeal emphatically pointed out in their judgment.

My second case reminds us what happens when students do this.

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Who owns the copyright on barristers’ advocacy? – Emily Goodhand

22 January 2013 by Guest Contributor

Supreme Court Live in action

Following yesterday’s welcome announcement that the UK Supreme Court (UKSC) is uploading judgment summaries to YouTube (see Adam’s post), there has been some speculation as to whether the UKSC will take the next step in its embrace of digital technology and upload full hearings of trials. But could taking this step result in falling foul of the UK’s copyright law?

There are several issues to consider here. Firstly: who owns the recording? Secondly: what rights do the individuals involved in the recording have? And finally: what defences (if any) apply?

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Everything’s free in America (copyrighted material not included)

18 January 2012 by Isabel McArdle

The Government of the United States of America -v- O’Dwyer, Westminster Magistrates’ Court – Read judgment

It seems appropriate, on the day when Wikipedia shut down for 24 hours to protest against US anti-piracy legislation, to talk about piracy (in the copyright sense) and what role human rights law has to play in the perpetual battle against it.

It is a topic that polarises, with some considering piracy to be no more moral than any other theft, and others seeing those who commit piracy offences as fighting for freedom of expression and liberal copyright laws. In the case of Richard O’Dwyer, a young man who is accused of setting up a website which breaches US copyright law and who is facing extradition to the US for trial, he attempted to block his extradition by relying on a combination of human rights and other objections relating to the manner and circumstances surrounding the request.

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