Cearta.ie – Page 26 – the Irish for rights

What are the constitutional issues facing the regulation of media ownership in Ireland?

Posted on 25 October, 20168 November, 2016 by Eoin

A just-published Report on the Concentration of Media Ownership in Ireland (download pdfs here and here) directly addresses the question in the title to this post: what are the constitutional issues facing the regulation of media ownership in Ireland. The Report concludes that such issue do not prevent government action here, and calls on the Irish government to tackle Denis O’Brien’s media control. It seems that some media are ignoring it. That is a pity. It is a very important Report. It was commissioned by Lynn Boylan MEP on behalf of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group of the European Parliament, and was prepared by Caoilfhionn Gallagher and Jonathan Price, barristers in Doughty Street Chambers, London, and Gavin Booth and Darragh Mackin, of the Belfast solicitors’ firm KRW Law. It was launched in Leipzig (panel | photo) on 6 October last, and in Dublin last night (press notice | photos).

Here’s a flavour of the Report, from the executive summary [with added links to relevant posts on this site]:

1.8 In our view, taken together, the combination of the highly concentrated Irish media market, Mr. O’Brien’s threats and initiation of a large number of legal proceedings against media and other critics, and serious shortcomings in the defamation framework create a perfect storm which threatens news plurality and undermines the media’s ability to perform its watchdog function.

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Privacy Paradigm – getting the design right

Posted on 19 October, 201619 October, 2016 by Eoin

I spoke today at the (ISC)² Security Congress EMEA in Dublin. Before me, Minister Naughten gave an opening address; after me, Brian Honan provided a fascinating keynote.

In between, I beat the drum (again) for Privacy Paradigm. The image, left, is an artist’s impression of the highlights of my talk. If you click through, you will get a bigger version, and – as a bonus, on the same sheet – the same artist’s impression of the talks from Brian and the Minister as well.

What I am hoping to do with Privacy Paradigm (if anyone wants to fund the research) is provide a simple means by which websites could signal not only that they respect their visitors’ privacy but also how (if at all) the sites processe personal data. For this, by analogy with Creative Commons, I suggest an appropriate icon and short accompanying text which explains that the site operates under a standard-form privacy policy, with a link to the underlying privacy policy, provided by an appropriately coded plugin. In my view, the key is to start with the standard-form privacy policies, and to code them accordingly, and then to provide the icons.

There have been many previous attempts covering some elements of this strategy, but none has caught on.…

The Global Futures of Unjust Enrichment, 21-22 April 2017

Posted on 13 October, 201613 October, 2016 by Eoin

A conference on the theme of the Global Futures of Unjust Enrichment will be held on Friday 21 April 2017 and Saturday 22 April 2017 in the UCL Gustave Tuck Theatre, Wilkins Building, Gower Street, London WC1 (map here).

The Bentham House Conference 2017 celebrates the publication of the 50th anniversary edition of Goff & Jones: The Law of Unjust Enrichment, and honours the memory of the book’s first authors, Lord Goff of Chieveley and Professor Gareth Jones, who both died in 2016. The conference brings together leading scholars from around the world to consider the future of unjust enrichment in overseas jurisdictions, and to discuss current problems and controversies in English law.

The emergence of the law of unjust enrichment as a distinct part of the law of obligations was the most important and radical development in English private law of the last hundred years. Academic writing played a significant role in this development, and most significant of all was Robert Goff and Gareth Jones’s seminal work on the topic in 1966. The speakers paying tribute to Goff and Jones are a veritable who’s-who of contemporary private law. On Friday 21 April 2017, they will discuss the future trajectory of the law of unjust enrichment in overseas jurisdictions; and on Saturday 22 April 2017, they will consider a series of important issues which have been thrown up by the English case law over the past decade, and which will require significant further attention from the courts.…

Exhausting exhaustion – the limits of the first sale doctrine in EU copyright law

Posted on 12 October, 201620 October, 2016 by Eoin

The exhaustion of intellectual property [IP] rights by the first sale of the protected work is a fundamental principle of IP law. Where a work or product covered by an IP right is sold by the rightholder, that IP right is exhausted in the sense that it can no longer be exercised by the rightholder to prevent the purchaser from selling or lending the work or product to a third party. For example, Article 4(2) of the Software Directive (Directive 2009/24/EC) provides

The first sale in the Community of a copy of a program by the rightholder or with his consent shall exhaust the distribution right within the Community of that copy, …

Article 4(2) of the InfoSoc Directive (Directive 2001/29/EC) is in similar terms. In Case C-166/15 Ranks and Vasilevics, the Court of Justice of the European Union [CJEU] explored the limits of this rule, and established the point at which the exhaustion doctrine is itself exhausted. As to the rule, the CJEU held:

The holder of the copyright in a computer program who has sold, in the EU, a copy of that program on a material medium (such as a CD-ROM or a DVD-ROM) with an unlimited user licence can no longer oppose the subsequent resale of that copy by the initial acquirer or subsequent acquirers of that copy, notwithstanding the existence of contractual terms prohibiting any further transfer.

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Preserving the Consistency and Integrity of the EU Acquis Relating to Content Monitoring

Posted on 11 October, 201611 October, 2016 by Eoin

I am a signatory to the following:

Open Letter to the European Commission – On the Importance of Preserving the Consistency and Integrity of the EU Acquis Relating to Content Monitoring within the Information Society

Recent developments, starting with the Communication on Online Platforms and the Digital Single Market Opportunities and Challenges for Europe released on 25/05/2016, followed by a series of proposals (Proposal for a Directive amending the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on copyright in the Digital Single Market) and soft law initiatives (the EU Internet Forum against Terrorism and the Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online) seriously put at risk the consistency and integrity of the EU acquis related to the information society.

A key component of this acquis is the prohibition of general monitoring obligations to the benefit of providers of intermediary services. It is a means to achieve at least two central objectives: the encouragement of innovation as well as the protection of fundamental rights of all Internet users, namely the rights protected by Articles 8 and 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Yet, the proposed Copyright Directive, in particular, seems to negatively affect both the domain and effect of Article 15 of the E-Commerce Directive.…

Dearer to us than a host of truths is an exalting illusion? EU Data Transfer Regulation after Schrems

Posted on 10 October, 201618 July, 2017 by Eoin

My favourite Steve Jobs aphorism (and there are so many from which to choose) is

People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.

(see Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Simon and Schuster, 2011) 337). Last Thursday, Chris Kuner elevated this from apothegm to axiom, resoundingly proving the truth of that insight, by providing a masterclass in compelling presentation without resort to the crutch of powerpoint or similar slides. Chris is pictured above left, chatting with David Fennelly, before delivering a powerful lecture on “Reality and Illusion in EU Data Transfer Regulation” in the light of the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C-362/14 Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner [2015] ECR I-nyr (Grand Chamber, 6 October 2015) to a rapt audience in Trinity College Dublin. He began with a quote from Chekov:

Dearer to us than a host of truths is an exalting illusion.

This is from Chekov’s short story “Gooseberries” (see Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (tr) Selected Stories of Anton Chekov (Random House, 2009) 311 at 317), where the Nikolai is deluding himself that his gooseberries – actually “hard and sour” – are in fact the succulent and luscious fruit which he had always dreamed of growing.…

GradLink in TCD Law School

Posted on 4 October, 20163 October, 2016 by Eoin

Here in Trinity College Dublin, the GradLink Mentoring Programme aims to develop current students’ knowledge of the labour market and career paths, through nurturing career learning relationships with alumni mentors working in a range of career areas. The School of Law is participating in this year’s programme, connecting third year (Junior Sophister) students with graduates of the School who have kindly agreed to act as mentors, to pass on pass on knowledge and experience, and offer advice, guidance and information to our students on issues relating to their career and professional development. There are guidelines for mentors and students here (pdf). One past student said:

I very much enjoyed the GradLink Mentoring Programme as it gave me the chance to get advice from someone with experience in the field I wish to work in. It was invaluable to be able to take the time once a month to remove myself from thinking purely about college to think about my future and where I want to go. The wide range of advice my mentor gave me will definitely be helpful when I am looking for employment and the experience gave me confidence that people can find work in my area of qualification.

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Free speech for Trump but nobody else? Let’s see what Denis O’Brien might have to say about that

Posted on 3 October, 201625 October, 2016 by Eoin

Denis O’Brien (above left) and Donald Trump (above right) are classic crybullies: they cry in public when criticised, whilst bullying others – claiming to be victims, whilst intimating their critics. So, Denis O’Brien (among the 21 Irish lawsuits initiated by him since 2010) seeks to sue the Oireachtas for a TD’s speech about some of his business dealings, to to redact RTÉ’s publication of the same material, and to sue a PR firm for conspiracy and defamation, all the while claiming never to have experienced the level of abuse, venom and hatred resulting from taking a stand to protect privacy in relation to his financial affairs. Donald Trump is notorious for his cheap personal attacks, on the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq, on a former Miss Universe, and a judge who is hearing a fraud case against his defunct university, all the while decrying media criticism and threatening to change the law to weaken the First Amendment and muzzle the press.

The sanctimonious hypocricy at the heart of this strategy is egregious. The First Amendment, against which Trump inveighs when it is used against him, is the very thing on which Trump relies when he harangues everybody else.…