Join the Azrights newsletter to get business and IP insights

Whistleblowers, Censorship, and Secure channels of Communication: The Afghan War Logs
July 27, 2010

Over 90,000 American military documents relating to operations in Afghanistan have been leaked by the online whistleblower Wikileaks.

Read more about Wikileaks in our earlier post, and on their website.

These previously...

Continue Reading...
Video Game Piracy โ€“ A Different Beast?

July 30, 2010

Since the release of the latest generation of consoles, the gaming industry has undergone considerable growth. No longer seen as a niche, antisocial pastime, the marketing strategies and innovative approaches to game design employed...

Continue Reading...
Digital Rights Management โ€“ Keeping Gamers Legitimate

August 3, 2010

Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes comprise a wide range of techniques used to restrict the use of hardware, software and media – allowing publishers broad control over how the software is used by licensees. Game...

Continue Reading...
Challenging โ€˜Health Claimโ€™ Trade Marks

August 6, 2010

The EU Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on foods (see here) were passed in 2006 to ensure consumers were not mislead by unsubstantiated health claims on food packaging. With a greater interest in health...

Continue Reading...
Trade Marks and Branding, a World Apart?

August 9, 2010

In their article earlier this year, the Ipkat drew attention to the fact that there is a marked separation between the worlds of trade marks and branding.

More often than not the two are not addressed collectively, but are...

Continue Reading...
Data Protection and Email Marketing

August 16, 2010

When a site stores personal details for subscriptions, memberships or the like, there are certain legal regulations it has to take into consideration to stay on the right side of the law.  The Data Protection Act sets...

Continue Reading...
Playing Fair โ€“ Apple, Amazon and Freedom from DRM

August 19, 2010

Along with the introduction of digital music purchases, came the rise of DRM restricting how it could be used.  With traditional media, music was generally freely playable and transferable, but over the past decade we have...

Continue Reading...
iPads, Kindles, and eBook Piracy

August 23, 2010

As more of us buy E-readers to read books digitally, the much discussed “death of the book” debate resurfaces.  Will digital books replace actual physical copies? Reportedly, on Amazon more people are buying...

Continue Reading...
The Banking Bailout and BP Oil Spill โ€“ Lessons for SMEs and why a New Legal Service Model is Needed

August 24, 2010

When something bad happens to a big, well known business, we’re all surprised. Recent examples are the bail out of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the oil spill disaster that seriously damaged BP’s brand and finances....

Continue Reading...
End of Lawyers and the Legal Services Act

August 24, 2010

In previous posts I have commented both on the ‘End of Lawyers?’- a book by Richard Susskind and also on the Legal Services Act, which are two commonly discussed items by those interested in the UK law...

Continue Reading...
BBC v HarperCollins โ€“ The Stig to be Unmasked?

August 31, 2010

The IPKAT reported recently that the BBC is preparing to take the publishing company HarperCollins to court over a book that reveals the identity of the Stig from Top Gear. The Stig never removes his helmet on the show,...

Continue Reading...
The Russian Town of TorrentReactor, Technobrega, and profiting from Pirates

September 6, 2010

In earlier posts we have written about the continuing battle between file sharing members of the public and the record and film industries, covering their attempts to discouraging infringement through legal action, and ...

Continue Reading...