Welcome to Davenport Lyons' Digital Rights Bulletin

20 April 2007

This 'irregular' email service will be arriving in your inbox now and then and we hope it will prove a useful indicator to some of the issues that affect businesses involved in or moving towards the digital world. Digital delivery of media content raises vital issues for both new and traditional media operations. We hope that our take on some of these issues, informed by our long history of dealing with content driven problems and disputes will be useful. Much of our focus will be on the music, film and publishing industries and we firmly believe that problems that arise in each of these industries can inform on issues that may arise in the others. Music in particular has been something of a 'guinea pig' on digital delivery and there is much to learn about the hurdles it has had to overcome and still faces. What is clear is that digital delivery of media content is with us to stay. The traditional media businesses have had or will have to adapt or lose out. As usual we welcome any feedback and if this bulletin is not for you, you can ask us to stop sending it at any time.

Press Scrum

The World Association of Newspapers ("WAN") and a coalition of news agencies including Associated Press and Reuters protested this week against restrictions imposed by the International Rugby Board ("IRB") on press coverage of this year's Rugby World Cup in France. The IRB has severely limited the permitted publication of photographs of the World Cup online, including on newspaper websites, to a maximum of five still photos per half and two of extra time. Also introduced were editorial restrictions on how photographs are treated in print publications, banning the superimposing of headline and captions on photos if they obscure advertising in the images, as well as limits on permitted audio-visual content on websites and mobile devices.

This spat highlights concerns by broadcasters that more people are tuning into large sporting events via their computers and that this is undermining their position to recoup their outlay on these events. Mike Miller, the Chief Executive of the IRB, stated "It is not really our concern if newspapers decide to expand into non-traditional news delivery mechanisms and businesses to bolster their reach and market share, and nor should we change our terms and conditions and jeopardise our sport's valuable commercial revenues in order to facilitate their new business enterprises".

It's not only in relation to rugby that more and more fans are looking online. It's no surprise that in relation to any large sporting event or competition, many of which take place over a period of days when sports fans are just as likely to be at their desk as on the sofa, people are heading to the internet for coverage. It has recently been reported that Cricinfo (www.cricinfo.com) the site which bills itself as "The Home of Cricket", has launched a 3D animation broadcast allowing users to view play at the Cricket World Cup in a virtual 3D stadium. Commenting on this, Andrew Wildblood, senior VP of sports rights broker IMG said in New Media Age "This technology won't go away, it will only get better and more realistic, therefore new rights may be required".

European Digital Library

Please click here to update yourself on the latest from the European Commission in its efforts to create a European Digital Library, 'a common multilingual access point to Europe's cultural heritage'

Norwegian Liberal Party wants legalised file sharing

Norway's liberal party, Venstre, has passed a resolution to ban DRM and legalise file-sharing. The political party proposes that consumers pay a special fee for broadband usage or hardware storage to compensate artists and software companies for use of their digital products. The money would go into a fund to pay artists or software companies according to how many times their music or software applications have been downloaded. Venstre's resolution is in response to growing consumer opposition in Norway to restrictive controls on downloading and duplicating content from the internet. Please click here for further information.