The Broadcasting Standards Authority and the Bill of Rights
Thursday, February 7th, 2008As I mention below, Claudia Geiringer and I delivered a paper at the conference for John Burrows about the Broadcasting Standards Authority and the Bill of Rights Act (BORA). The BORA requires the BSA to ensure that any restriction it imposes on the media’s freedom of expression (by upholding a complaint, for example) is reasonable […]
Tribute to John Burrows
Thursday, February 7th, 2008The University of Canterbury’s law school held a conference in honour of John Burrows last weekend. It was called “Law, Liberty and Legislation” and covered the broad sweep of issues that Professor Burrows has expertise in – from statute and contract law to media law (he’s written the leading texts in all three). On the […]
New Yorker cartoon
Thursday, February 7th, 2008One dog to another: “I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking.”
Right Charlies?
Monday, February 4th, 2008Was the Advertising Standards Complaints Board right to uphold a complaint about the Charlies “sunbathing” fruit-juice ad? Even after Charlies agreed to screen it only in adult-viewing timeslots? It’s a typical piece of Marc Ellis larrikinism. He’s shown as a cartoon child spying on a buxom neighbour sunbathing nude (her cartoony breasts are strategically covered, first […]
Eady listening
Monday, January 28th, 2008So, the law of privacy is largely settled now, David Eady was telling me on Friday. (Heads-up: this is a brazen name-drop, and you are supposed to be suitably impressed by it. David Eady is Justice Eady, the British High Court judge who hears most of the media law cases. He’s also co-author – with Victoria law school’s […]
Handy info for Contempt lawsuits
Monday, January 21st, 2008Today’s DomPost has some useful information for those advising the media on contempt of Court issues. The average length of time between committal and trial, in the District Court and the High Court, is just under a year. Add to that an average of six to nine months between arrest and committal, and you’ve got […]
Canada moves toward expanded libel defence
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008Canada is finally jumping on the US, UK, Australian, South African and NZ bandwagon and providing protection to political (and other public-interest) speech against defamation actions. The Ontario Court of Appeal has created a Reynolds-type privilege for “responsible journalism”. (It’s all obiter, though, and the Canadian Supreme Court has yet to confirm the new direction). […]
A prediction about the Electoral Finance Act
Monday, January 14th, 2008I don’t want to say too much about the Electoral Finance Act. Some of you will know that I have been the spokesperson for the Coalition for Open Government, which generally supported the new law, arguing that it’s much better than the system we used to have, serves important democratic ends, and is much less […]
A potty Potter-right copyright case
Friday, January 11th, 2008Good grief. JK Rowling is joining the Idiot Copyright Lawsuit club, suing the folk who want to publish in book form the material on website the Harry Potter Lexicon. (She’s happy with the website). The book would be a sort of encyclopaedia of Potterworld. The sort of encyclopaedia, in fact, that she would like to write […]
What is this “Google” of which you speak?
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008The Listener’s cover story this week is headed: “Strike the best sites on the internet”. Boy, does it deliver. Apparently, there’s this thing called “Google” that allows you to search trillions of websites. And there are other “search engines”, too. The story even mentions one. And that’s not all. Who knew that the Guardian and the New York Times had websites – that you […]
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