Author: Eoin

Dr Eoin O'Dell is a Fellow and Associate Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin.

European data privacy rights and democratic politics: a tangled web

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| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops

Deirdre CurtinProf Deirdre Curtin (Professor of European Union Law, European University Institute, Florence; pictured left) will deliver the Irish Society for European Law‘s 13th Annual Brian Walsh Memorial Lecture on the above topic.

It will take place at 6:30pm, tomorrow, Thursday, 26 November 2015, in the Bar Council of Ireland Distillery Building, 145–151 Church Street, Dublin 7 (map here), and it will be chaired by the Hon Mr Justice Frank Clarke (Judge of the Supreme Court). CPD points will be available. Registration is required.…

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The present of copyright – where are we now with copyright reform?

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| Copyright, CRC12 / CRC13

cIn advance of tomorrow’s event on the future of copyright, I thought I’d write a few words about where we are now with copyright reform in Ireland and the EU. The twin legislative bases for Irish copyright law date from the turn of the millennium: the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (also here) and the EU Copyright Directive (Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society; the InfoSoc Directive). In Modernising Copyright, in October 2013, the Copyright Review Committee recommended various changes to the 2000 Act to adapt it better for the digital age. The EU Commission is moving towards making recommendations with a similar aim.

In January 2012, the EU Commission began a consultation process on reform of the InfoSoc Directive (SEC(2011) 1640 final) (11 January 2012). In parallel, it considered copyright licensing, intermediary responsibilities (notice and action) and private copying levies (pdf). Although the probable conclusions of the consultation process were leaked in 2014, they were never formally published. Among their number seems to have been a recommendation that the exceptions to and limitations on copyright provided by the InfoSoc Directive should be harmonized at a European level, so that every state should provide for the same exhaustive exceptions and limitations.…

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Theseus’ paradox and the Legal Services Regulation Bill

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| Irish Law, Legal Services Regulation

The deeds of Theseus, on an Attic red-figured kylix, c.440–430 BCEAccording to Plutarch, in his famous Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Theseus, mythical king of Athens, after many labours and adventures (shown left), including the slaying of the Minotaur, returned to Athens, where his ship was kept in the harbour as a memorial for several centuries. The Athenians repaired and restored it over time, so that eventually every part of it had been replaced. Theseus’ paradox raises the question of whether something that has had all of its parts replaced remains the same thing. The same conundrum arises with the allegorical axe which has had both its head and its handle replaced several times. The Legal Services Regulation Bill has been amended so much during its labyrinthine journey through the Houses of the Oireachtas that I am reminded of these stories.

Many of its proposals were prefigured by the UK’s Legal Services Act 2007. Writing this morning in the Brief (a daily email newsletter from the Times, which will be made available later in the week here), Dame Janet Paraskeva made two points about the Act which resonate in the context of the current Bill. First, she points out the promise of the Act has not always been fulfilled “not … by any shortcoming in the legislation but by a lack of will to make the practical changes on the ground that would remove obstacles to choice.”…

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The future of copyright

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| Copyright, CRC12 / CRC13

cTHE FUTURE OF COPYRIGHT

Tuesday, 24 November 2015 – 18:00 to 19:30

FREE – PLEASE REGISTER

Paccar Theatre, Science Gallery, Trinity College Dublin.

Digitisation of creative works and exponential growth of web-based communications have made the enjoyment of music, films, books, TV and much more, almost ubiquitous. Alongside this, fast internet and the increasingly wide use of smartphones and portable devices has enabled users to exchange and easily share these files. Yet, the body of law that has traditionally aimed to ensure an economic incentive and reward to content creators and producers – broadly defined – has suffered for more than fifteen years from an identity crisis.

Join me in conversation with my Trinity colleague Giuseppe Mazziotti in a discussion around the commercial, technological, cultural and societal implications of the current review of the copyright framework undertaken in the context of the EU Digital Agenda, where European policy makers are seeking to ensure a more effective, uniform and acceptable definition of copyright’s scope and of its online enforcement techniques [see COM(2015) 192 final (pdf)].

The occasion for this talk is the publication by the European Parliament of a Review of the EU copyright framework [available here; pdf] which was co-authored by Giuseppe Mazziotti.…

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Is Dublin becoming the defamation capital of the world, the libel-tourism destination of choice?

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| Defamation, ECHR, Freedom of Expression

Casks in Guinness Storehouse, Dublin; by ccharmon on FlickrThe Guinness Storehouse claims to be Ireland’s most popular tourist attraction. As the city is out of the running to become European Capital of Culture, 2020 (a title it last held in 1991), and as the Web Summit is moving to Lisbon from next year, tourist attractions like the Storehouse are probably glad to know that Dublin seems to be taking London’s mantle as Capital of Defamation, as the destination of choice for libel tourists seeking a congenial jurisdiction in which to bring a defamation action.

This is according to a new report from Thomson Reuters (see press release (via Inforrm’s blog) | The Guardian | The Independent | The Times (sub req’d) | Irish Legal News). Thomson Reuters have published research in the past about the numbers of defamation cases in London, arguing that the number of defamation cases against media groups halved in the five years from 2008/09 to in 2012/13, and that the UK’s Defamation Act, 2013 would bring further changes to the UK’s legal landscape. It is unsurprising, then, that their most recent report continues this theme. The headline on the press release for the report is that the number of defamation cases has fallen by a third in the last year; and a sub-head explains the drop by reference to the impact of the 2013 Act.…

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The university should be a safe space for the life of the mind – says Salman Rushdie

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| Blasphemy, Censorship, Freedom of Expression, Universities

Salman Rushdie, via Surian Soosay on FlickrWhile accepting a Chicago Tribune 2015 Literary Award last week, Salman Rushdie robustly rejected the wave of “safe space” censorship that is currently breaking upon college campuses:

The university is the place where young people should be challenged every day, where everything they know should be put into question, so that they can think and learn and grow up. And the idea that they should be protected from ideas that they might not like is the opposite of what a university should be. It’s ideas that should be protected, the discussion of ideas that should be given a safe place. The university should be a safe space for the life of the mind. That’s what it’s for.

…

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How the blockchain could unblock the resale of digital goods

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| Copyright

BitCoin and Music Staff (both via pixabay) and Movie Download (by evolutionxbox on deviantart)This week’s Economist is uncharacteristically effusive about the blockchain. On the cover, it calls it “The Trust Machine”, and says that it is a technology that “could change the world”.

In a lead article, it explains that the

blockchain lets people who have no particular confidence in each other collaborate without having to go through a neutral central authority. Simply put, it is a machine for creating trust. … it is a shared, trusted, public ledger that everyone can inspect, but which no single user controls.

The decentralized cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is the context in which the first blockchain has been developed. That blockchain keeps a continuous, almost real-time, track of currency transactions, and prevents double-spending. Although this is one use to which the blockchain concept can be put, the Economist emphasizes that there are countless other applications:

One idea, for example is to make cheap, tamper-proof public databases … [such as] registers of the ownership of luxury goods or works or art.

Just as I don’t have to understand the workings of the internal combustion engine to drive a car or take a bus, or understand the workings of a processor to use a laptop or a smartphone, I don’t have to understand the workings of the cryptography at the heart of the blockchain to spend a bitcoin or confirm the ownership of a good.…

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Full Breach Damages in data protection cases – the impact of Vidal-Hall on Collins v FBD

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| Privacy

FDB (via Krishna De) & Data Subject (via Pixabay)The Court of Appeal decision in Google Inc v Vidal-Hall [2015] EWCA Civ 311 (27 March 2015) (Dyson MR and Sharp LJ in a joint judgment; McFarlane LJ concurring), affirming the judgment of Tugendhat J (at [2014] EWHC 13 (QB) (16 January 2014)), is a very important decision on damages for invasion of privacy, and it raises significant questions about the correctness of of Feeney J’s reasoning in the earlier Irish case of Collins v FBD Insurance plc [2013] IEHC 137 (14 March 2013).

The three claimants alleged that the defendant had tracked and collated private information about the their internet usage via their Apple Safari browser without their knowledge and consent, contrary to the defendant’s publicly stated position that such activity could not be conducted for Safari users unless they had expressly allowed it to happen (much of the technical and regulatory background is set out here by Alexander Hanff; and Judith Vidal-Hall explains here and here how she came to take on the giant that is Google). The Court held that the claimants could maintain claims against the defendant, in tort for misuse of private information, and for compensation pursuant section 13 of the Data Protection Act, 1998.…

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