cearta.ie – Page 3 – the Irish for rights

Reputation as Property

31 August, 2018

This is a call for papers for a conference on Reputation as Property: Perspectives from Tort and Property, to be held on 18-19 January 2019 in Trinity College Dublin:

How can tort law account for the harm of defamation? One answer to this question is to argue that our reputation is or is like property. While this analogy may make sense to tort law theorists, particularly those seeking to give an internal account of tort law, it may not make sense to property theorists. In addition, it is not clear whether this approach fits with the case law. Whether or not thinking about reputation as property makes sense raises the question of whether tort law theory understands property differently than property theory does. It also raises the question of whether the theory of the tort of defamation fits the case law. In what ways does it make sense to think about reputation as property, and in what ways does it not?

In this workshop, organised in association with the Private Law Group at Trinity College Dublin, we seek to bring together property and torts scholars to discuss both theoretical and doctrinal approaches to the question of whether reputation is property or not.

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Fore! Wayward golf winnings, restitution of mistaken payments, and interceptive subtraction

22 August, 201820 August, 2019

| 2 Comments

| Mistaken payments, Restitution

Last month, English golfer Tommy Fleetwood came twelfth in The Open golf championship. Earlier this month, Thomas Fleetwood had the St£120,000 (US$154,480, €133,000) winnings deposited in his bank account. There doesn’t seem anything exceptional in that story, so let’s try again. Last month, British golfer Tommy Fleetwood came twelfth in The Open golf championship. Earlier this month, Florida golfer Thomas Fleetwood had the St£120,000 winnings deposited in his bank account. That’s right – golf’s authorities lodged the winnings to the bank account of the wrong golfer. One of Thomas’s golf friends posted a picture of the lodgement record on twitter. And Thomas duly repaid the wayward deposit. But he would not have been able to keep it anyway, had he been minded to. As I have said before on this site, you can’t keep the proceeds of a bank error in your favour; and, if you do, you probably won’t be able to get out of jail free (see also here, here, here, here, and here). So, Thomas would have had to give back the winnings to golf’s authorities; and they in turn will no doubt pay them on to Tommy, if they have not already done so.…

CAO points for law, 2018 – Updated

20 August, 201830 August, 2018

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| Central Applications Office

On 20 August 2018, the Central Applications Office (the CAO) issued the first round of offers of places in Ireland’s higher education institutions. It seems that CAO applications to Trinity fell by 8%, which was almost double the national 4.5% decrease, in part because Brexit has had an impact on course choices and applications. However, demand for law courses is generally up by an average of 3% overall. In the table below, I set out the points for law courses in the first round in the second-last column.

Update: On 30 August 2018, the Central Applications Office (the CAO) issued the second round of offers of places in Ireland’s higher education institutions. This round saw significant falls in points for some courses in Dublin and Cork, which may be due to the housing crisis in the high levels of rents and low levels of rental property supplies in those cities. In the table below, I set out the points for law courses in the second round in the last column.

Code	Course College	First Round	Second Round

Level 8 Courses

AL851	Business & Law Athlone Institute of Technology	300
AL853	Accounting & Law Athlone Institute of Technology	377
CW708	Law-LLB Institute of Technology, Carlow	298
CW938	Business with Law Institute of Technology, Carlow	281
CK301	Law (Pathways) University College Cork	495
CK302	Law & French University College Cork	542
CK304	Law & Irish University College Cork	507
CK307	Law & Business University College Cork	542
DB514	Business Studies (Law) Dublin Business School	252	200
DB568	Law Dublin Business School	244	203
DC230	Economics, Politics & Law Dublin City University	400
DC232	Law & Society (BCL) Dublin City University	455
DC292	Arts (Joint Hons) Law Dublin City University	351
DT321	Business & Law Dublin Institute of Technology	463
DT532	Law (LLB) Dublin Institute of Technology	430	419
GC403	Law (Dublin) Griffith College	253	218
TR004	Law Trinity College Dublin	533
TR017	Law & Business Trinity College Dublin	577
TR018	Law & French Trinity College Dublin	567	566*
TR019	Law & German Trinity College Dublin	509
TR020	Law & Political Science Trinity College Dublin	578
DN600	Law University College Dublin	522	521*
DN610	Business & Law University College Dublin	531*
GY250	Corp Law National University of Ireland, Galway	409
GY251	Civil Law National University of Ireland, Galway	451
LY208	Law Letterkenny Institute of Technology	270
LC223	Law & Taxation Limerick Institute of Technology	307
LM020	Law & Accounting University of Limerick	440
LM029	Law Plus University of Limerick	477
MH501	LLB Law Maynooth University	451
MH502	Law Maynooth University	420
WD140	Laws Waterford Institute of Technology	290

Level 6 & 7 Courses

CW926	Business with Law Institute of Technology, Carlow	208
LY207	LY207 Law – with Criminal Justice or Spanish or Irish Letterkenny Institute of Technology	160

* Not all candidates on this point score were offered places.…

Germany’s wifi laws

31 July, 20181 August, 2018

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| Copyright

Germany wifi (German flag detail and wifi icon via Wikipedia) In the early days of this blog, I wrote three posts on whether there is a criminal or civil legal liability for using other people’s wifi without permission.

I was reminded of these posts yesterday, when Edmund Heaphy (a student in Trinity, and a journalist at Quartz) contacted me about the following story:

The unique legal concept that led to Germany’s weird wifi laws

Germany is about to get a lot more free wifi. One of the country’s highest courts has upheld a 2017 law designed to put an end to the effect of a peculiar legal concept known as Störerhaftung as it applies to public wifi networks. …

Whilst the decision of the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) is very welcome, German lawyers have told the World Intellectual Property Review that more clarity is needed. As Mateusz Rachubka points out o the 1709 Blog, the 2017 legislation is a result of the decision of the CJEU in Case C-484/14 Tobias McFadden v Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH, which held that the eCommerce Directive (Directive 2000/31/EC; OJ 2000 L 178, p. 1) precluded a rights-owner seeking damages from an access provider whose open network was used by a third party to upload or download material that infringed copyright, but did not preclude the rights-owner seeking an injunction requiring the access provider to terminate or prevent a copyright infringement.…

Blocking injunctions in the Irish and UK courts after Sony v UPC and Cartier v BT – Part I – Jurisdiction

26 July, 201812 November, 2018

| 1 Comment

| Copyright

Sony, Sky, Cartier (logos via sony.ie sky.com cartier.co.uk) In today’s Irish Times, Mark Paul reports that “three global music labels are limbering up to seek a High Court order against Sky Ireland to force it to implement a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy against its broadband customers who download music from pirate sites”. In Sony Music Entertainment Ireland Ltd v UPC Communications Ireland Ltd [2016] IECA 231 (28 July 2016) [hereafter: Sony v UPC] the Court of Appeal held that the courts could indeed make just such an order, and that the costs of implementing it were to be borne 80% by the internet service provider, and 20% by the copyright rights-owner (subject to a cap). No doubt, the three labels involved in the action reported in the Irish Times – Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music and Universal Music – will rely on this case in their action. However, since it was decided, the UK Supreme Court has handed down its decision in Cartier International AG v British Telecommunications plc [2018] 1 WLR 3259, [2018] UKSC 28 (13 June 2018) [hereafter: Cartier v BT], and it stands in stark contrast with Sony v UPC. The structure of both cases is exactly the same: a holder of intellectual property rights seeks an injunction against an online intermediary to prevent infringement of the rights-holder’s rights on the intermediary’s platform, and the intermediary seeks an order that the rights-holder should bear (some at least of the) costs of implementing the injunction.…

Cliff Richard v BBC – Part II – Media speech and publication in the public interest

23 July, 201827 July, 2018

| 1 Comment

| Freedom of Expression, Privacy

The record man said
‘Don’t let it go to your head, I’m gonna make you a star’
… So mama please don’t worry about me, I’m nearly famous now.

Sir Cliff Richard OBE in Greenwich 2017 (via Flickr) (element) 1. Introduction
The words above are in the first verse of “I’m Nearly Famous”, the title track of an album released in 1976 by Sir Cliff Richard [Sir Cliff], pictured left rocking Greenwich, UK, in 2017. Six weeks earlier, the South Yorkshire Police [SYP] had admitted that their tip off to the BBC that he was being investigated in respect of allegations of historic sex abuse infringed his privacy (see, eg, Richard v BBC [2017] EWHC 1648 (Ch) (26 May 2017)). On foot of that tip off, the British Broadcasting Corporation [the BBC] gave those allegations and the search of Sir Cliff’s property in Sunningdale, Berkshire prominent and extensive television coverage. Last week, in Richard v BBC [2018] EWHC 1837 (Ch) (18 July 2018) Mann J held that that the BBC’s broadcasts also infringed Sir Cliff’s privacy, and awarded him £210,000 damages. In a previous post, I have considered Mann J’s analysis that Sir Cliff had a reasonable expectation of privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights [the ECHR] in respect of the police investigation.…

Cliff Richard v BBC – Part I – Police investigations and reasonable expectations of privacy

20 July, 201827 July, 2018

| 1 Comment

| Freedom of Expression, Privacy

I just got to tell someone about the way I feel,
Shout it from the rooftop to the street,
And if I spread the word please tell me who’s it gonna hurt …

1. Introduction
The words above are the opening lines of “Can’t Keep this Feeling In“, released in 1998 by Sir Cliff Richard [Sir Cliff], pictured left in a mellow pose at a concert in Sydney, Australia in February 2013. In August of the following year, arising out of an ongoing investigation into allegations of historic sex abuse, the South Yorkshire Police [the SYP] searched a property belonging to him in Sunningdale, Berkshire; and – on foot of a tip off from the SYP the previous month – the British Broadcasting Corporation [the BBC] gave the allegations and the search prominent and extensive television coverage. Sir Cliff was never arrested or charged; and, in June 2016, the Crown Prosecution Service [the CPS] decided that Sir Cliff would not face any charges. This decision was re-affirmed by the CPS the following September, following a full review of the evidence.

Meanwhile, in July 2016, Sir Cliff commenced legal proceedings against the SYP and the BBC, arguing that SYP’s leak to the BBC in July 2014, and the BBC’s coverage of the raid in August 2014, invaded his privacy and breached his data protection rights.…

The Proportionality of Tobacco Packaging Restrictions on Autonomous Communication, Political Expression and Commercial Speech

11 June, 201811 June, 2018

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| Freedom of Expression, Intellectual property, Tobacco Control

The Summer 2018 volume of the Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly has been published this morning. Just in time for tomorrow’s seminar, and building on my earlier paper in the QUT Law Review, it contains the following piece by me:

“A Little Parthenon No Longer: The Proportionality of Tobacco Packaging Restrictions on Autonomous Communication, Political Expression and Commercial Speech” (2018) 69(2) Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 175-211

Abstract
This paper evaluates the constitutionality of statutory restrictions upon tobacco packing in Ireland. It concludes that public health and the protection of children constitute pressing and substantial reasons sufficient to justify the Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Act 2015 and Part 5 of the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2017 as proportionate restrictions upon tobacco companies’ freedom of political expression protected by Article 40.6.1 of the Constitution and freedom of autonomous communication protected by Article 40.3.1.

In many respects, Ireland has been a world leader in tobacco control, from banning smoking in the workplace or in cars with children, to requiring standardised packaging. Part 1 introduces this article; it sets out the background to the 2015 and 2017 packaging legislation. Part 2 of this article, on restrictions, describes the restrictions in the packaging legislation.

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