Ofcom has published its advice to Jeremy Hunt, Culture Secretary, that finally recommended accepting the Undertakings in Lieu (UILs) offered by News Corp as a condition of approval of its takeover of Sky. Hunt has given approval and nominated a further period of public consultation on his decision through to March 21st. The letters show […]
The Canadian Federal Court of Appeal has cleared the way for broadcasters to charge cable and satellite providers for carrying their programmes. The CRTC had asked the court to rule on whether it had the right to establish a regime whereby broadcasters could attach a value to their signals. In a 2-1 ruling, the court […]
A UK Government working group is to be formed to try to find a “plan B” to avoid potential litigation arising from the blocking of websites accused of illegal filesharing. The group will comprise rights holders, ISPs and search engines, is being formed after culture secretary Jeremy Hunt referred the Digital Economy Act’s section 17 […]
Prosecutors have dealt a blow to anti-piracy initiatives by dropping their case against two men accused of pirating films online. Two administrators of FileSoup – the longest standing BitTorrent community – had their case dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). George Cartledge, from Glasgow, and Stephen Lanning, from Somerset, faced charges of conspiracy to […]
Ireland’s TV3 has condemned Communications Minister Pat Carey’s decision to approve RTE’s proposed five “free to air” channels as part of the Digital Terrestrial Television roll-out. TV3 said it was “shocked” that the state broadcaster would be allowed to run the new TV channels. Carey approved the roll-out of high definition RTE Two HD Select, […]
A group of 34 movie studios has lost its appeal against an Australian Federal Court judgment involving Internet Service Provider iiNet. A 2010 ruling found it was impossible to hold iiNet responsible for its users illegally downloading movies and television shows. The studios had tried to prove iiNet not only failed to take steps to […]
A US District judge has ruled that Internet TV service ivi is breaking the law by offering live streams of network and cable television. ivi, which offers online broadcasts of 55 stations in the Los Angeles, Chicago and New York area for under $5 a month, was ordered to cease operations immediately as a result […]
Sky’s response to the BBC Trust on the syndication guidelines for BBC on-demand television content heavily criticises the decision to limit the content to BBC “aggregation products”, i.e. YouView / iPlayer. Sky says “[we] support the wide distribution of BBC public service content, including BBC on-demand content” but added “the fundamental principle of broad distribution […]
A father and son who run a number of pubs in the northern UK city of Kingston upon Hull are liable to fines and costs of some £116,000 (€138,000) for allowing streaming of Premier League football over the Internet in 11 of their establishments. Alister Darroch and his son Charles (who coincidentally share the same […]
The US House of Representatives has voted to overturn the FCC’s proposed rules barring ISPs from blocking legal content but do allow certain rationing of downloading. The vote would block funds to implement rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission in December. The measure had been added as an amendment to a sweeping spending bill […]