Page 33 - Law and the Media

Introduction
Although Parliament has attempted to incorporate new media elements into recent legislation, the
most notable example being the Data Protection Act 1998, it is more often the case that the Courts
have incorporated the issues presented by new media into existing legal principles following disputes
between individuals that have resulted in litigation. Nowhere has this been seen more than in the case
of the Internet, where the existing laws of intellectual property and defamation have been extended by
the Courts to encompass online issues. In 1997, the English courts began to use the law of trademarks
and passing off in order to provide a remedy for those who have been subject to alleged infringement
of a registered domain name or a recognized company or brand name used as a domain name (Marks
& Spencer and Others v One In A Million Ltd and Others (1997)). In the case of Godfrey v Demon
Internet Ltd (2000), the Court ruled for the first time in England and Wales on the issue of Internet
defamation in a case involving a defamatory posting to a newsgroup hosted by Demon, the Internet
service provider.

However, the global nature of the Internet makes it extremely difficult for individual countries,
including England and Wales, to enforce their domestic laws effectively. Countries throughout the
world are being forced to move away from traditional notions of isolated and independent domestic
legal systems towards a more international outlook. Although there is no international body or Court
with the authority to create or interpret the law of the Internet, it comes as no surprise that the greatest
influence on domestic new media law has been from European and international organizations. In
2002, the Government is required to give effect to the European Union’s Copyright Directive
(2001/29/EC) and the E-commerce Directive (2000/31/EC), which are aimed at ensuring all
copyrighted works are adequately protected and at harmonizing electronic commerce throughout the
European Union. The World Intellectual Property Organization, a specialized agency of the United
Nations which administers international treaties relating to intellectual property protection, is affiliated
to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organization
based in the United States of America, which adjudicates on ICANN registered domain names such
as .com, .net and .org and provides an international remedy for cases involving ‘domain name
grabbing’.

Moreover, domestic news is now global news. On 25 October 2001, the United States news network
CNN won an appeal allowing the broadcast of the second phase of the inquiry into the murders by
United Kingdom serial killer Dr Harold Shipman. The inquiry chairman, who had previously rejected
an application by the BBC, allowed the appeal on the grounds that there was a ‘public interest in
seeing television reports of the proceedings’.

The global nature of communications means that it is becoming more important for those working in
the media and media lawyers to understand the basic legal principles of other jurisdictions. For that
reason, chapters have been included in this edition of the book which set out the basic legal principles
of the two countries that interrelate most often with the law of England and Wales; Scotland and the
United States of America. The USA is particularly important in the context of new media, as it is at
the forefront of developing law and legislation in relation to the Internet.

The Human Rights Act 1998

The incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights (the ‘Convention’) into English law
by the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), which came into force on 2 October 2000, will undoubtedly
have a major impact on the media in the future. Under Section 3(1) of the HRA 1998 domestic
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