Via MediaLawProf Blog and Concurring Opinions, I learn of a fascinating symposium (html | pdf) in First Impressions, an online companion to the Michigan Law Review, on Televising the US Supreme Court. The articles wax and wane on the issue. …
Over coffee at BarCamp last Saturday with Marie Boran (of Silicon Republic) and Antoin Ó Lachtnáin, conversation turned to last week’s news reports (BBC | OUT-LAW.com | The Register) that two people (let’s call them the leeches) were arrested in the UK and cautioned for using other people’s (let’s call them the routers’) wifi without permission. There are interesting questions of legal liability here, both for the leech and for the router, and they came up again in the context of Antoin’s presentation later that day about fon. That’s Antoin preaching the fon gospel in the photo on the left. Here, I want to discuss some of the legal issues, before turning to Antoin’s presentation.
Let’s look first at the liability of the leech. …
Dearbhail McDonald (Legal Affairs Correspondent of the Irish Independent) has brought my attention to a press release issued yesterday by the European Commission for Democracy Through Law (the ‘Venice Commission‘, an organ of the Council of Europe) about its recent Opinion on Video Surveillance in Public Places by Public Authorities and the Protection of Human Rights. …
What should be the legal response to a situation where a couple, having frozen the woman’s embryos (say, for medical reasons) subsequently break up? If neither statute nor the arrangement between the couple and the clinic provides for this, then it would seem that the woman has no right to seek to implant the embryos in the hope of bearing a child or children without the consent of her now ex-partner. This at least was the view of the Irish High Court in MR v TR [2006] IEHC 359 (15 November 2006) interpreting the Irish Constitution last year (already noted on this blog); and it was the view this week of the European Court of Human Rights in Evans v UK [GC] 6339/05 [2007] ECHR 264 (10 April 2007) …
This message is by way of catching up with two important developments this week, and thanking those fellow bloggers who brought them to my attention.
First up, political advertising. …
I have recently commented on this blog that the right to freedom of expression Article 40.6.1(i) has finally got some teeth!?. That process continued today in the Supreme Court, where Fennelly J uttered the line used as the title to this post. …
This is a call to arms; or at least, a call for legislation which would radically recast EU copyright law.
Intellectual property law and policy are all about innovation, both encouraging it and protecting its fruits. But these are potentially opposing, perhaps even incompatible, goals: if we reward one innovator with a monopoly over the fruits of the innovation, prohibiting others’ use of those fruits, then we risk preventing the next round of innovation. The challenge to law-makers is to strike the an appropriate balance between reward and innovation, by pitching the length of the monopoly at the right level, both in the breadth of its coverage and the length of its term, beyond which others might also use it.
The story of copyright provides a good example of this dilemma. …
Filibuster: (noun) an action such as a prolonged speech that obstructs progress in a legislative assembly while not technically contravening the required procedures.
The word originates in words of piracy, such as the French ‘flibustier’, the Spanish ‘filibustero’ and the Dutch ‘vrijbuiter’, all etymologically equivalent to ‘freebooter’. The 1939 movie ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington‘, directed by Frank Capra (nominated for two oscars for this movie), stars Jimmy Stewart, in his patented role of a young naif, this time oscar-nominated as a newly elected Junior Senator Jefferson Smith. The climax of the movie is a filibuster staged by Mr Smith in the Senate so that there would be enough time to expose the corruption of his mentor, Senator Joseph Harrison Paine, played by the also oscar-nominated Claude Rains.
I have already commented on the slow progress of the Defamation Bill, 2006 (Department of Justice | Oireachtas (pdf)) and the number of red herrings in the debate, and concluded that it had become increasinlgy unlikely that the Bill would be enacted before the election. Now, from yesterday’s Order of Business in the Seanad (html | pdf to follow | Irish Times report (sub req’d)), a cynical explanation: a filibuster!…
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