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  31/01/2025

  England and Wales

  High Court confirms Trade Unions are capable of bringing claims in defamation

  Prospect v Evans [2024] EWHC 1533 (KB)The High Court has confirmed that a trade union does have the right to sue another party in defamation in its own name, in the decision of Mrs Justice Steyn DBE in Prospect v Evans [2024] EWHC 1533 (KB) (the “Judgment”).BackgroundThe proceedings arose out of a dispute between Prospect, a trade union, and one of its former members, Mr Evans. Mr Evans had published various allegations in respect of the trade union on social media, which Prospect believed to be defamatory. Prospect subsequently commenced proceedings in defamation and malicious...

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  30/01/2025

  Europe

  Interplay of AI and copyright law: how do the options proposed in the UK’s recent consultation compare with the EU’s general TDM exception?

  IntroductionAs AI continues to evolve, the intersection of AI and copyright law remains a hot topic for content creators and technology platforms alike. One of the key areas of focus is the EU’s general text and data mining (“TDM”) exception (contained in the EU Digital Single Market (“DSM”) Directive)[1], intended to provide a safe harbour for AI developers, while providing content creators with a right to opt out from their works being used to train AI. The EU AI Act[2] contains copyright-related provisions referring to this general TDM exception, but there remains...

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  14/01/2025

  United Kingdom

  Copyright and AI: how is the UK government proposing to strike a balance between the creative industries and AI sector?

  On 17 December 2024, the UK government published a new consultation on copyright and artificial intelligence (“AI”), seeking views on how to ensure the legal framework in the UK for copyright and AI can support both the creative industries and the AI sector.This is the third consultation on AI and intellectual property (“IP”) in the last five years. The 2020 call for views covered patents, copyright and related rights, designs, trade marks and trade secrets. Based on the response to that call for views, the UK government decided to consult further, in 2021, on how AI should...

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  07/11/2024

  United Kingdom

  AI and copyright: who holds the pen in the age of machines?

  Artificial intelligence (“AI”) has existed for decades. However, the pace at which AI has advanced in recent years means that, increasingly, questions are being asked by rightsholders, users and developers about the legal implications of the use of AI.This article will focus on the potential issues under UK copyright law arising from the use of AI, including in relation to the risk of third-party copyright infringement claims.Which law applies to the interaction between AI and copyright?The UK government decided not to implement the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market...

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  21/08/2024

  England and Wales

  Defamation update part two: High Court’s first consideration of s 6 Defamation Act 2013 (peer-re­viewed statements in scientific or academic journals)

  In the first article of this two-part series, we looked at the court’s treatment of the public interest defence (s.4 of the Defamation Act 2013), on which the publishers of the Mail on Sunday (and its health editor) had relied, in a significant judgment handed down by the High Court on 25 June 2024. In this article, we explore the court’s treatment of the defence of privilege for a report of a peer-reviewed scientific article (s.6 of the Act) in the same judgment. In contrast to the public interest defence, this defence was upheld. This is significant, as it represents the first time...

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  20/08/2024

  England and Wales

  Defamation update part one: High Court considers application of public interest defence to articles on statins

  In a recent significant judgment, the High Court considered the extent of the public interest and statutory qualified privilege defences in defamation cases. The presiding judge, Nicklin J, commented that this was “the most significant piece of defamation litigation that [he had] seen in a very long time”. Given its significance, this article is the first of a two-part series focusing on the key issues in the case and focuses on the court’s treatment of the public interest defence. In our next article, we will focus on the court’s treatment of the statutory qualified privilege...

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