Source: All England Reporter
Publisher Citation: [2008] All ER (D) 318 (Jun)
Neutral Citation: [2008] EWCA Crim 1324
Court: Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
Judge:

Jacob, Hughes LJJ and Andrew Smith J
Representation Adam Vaitilingam (instructed by Bobbetts Mackan) for the defendant.
  Iain Macdonald (instructed by Bristol City Council Legal Services) for the prosecution.
Judgment Dates: 24 June 2008

Catchwords

Copyright - Infringement - Effective technological measures - Defendant providing services modifying games consoles - Correct construction of relevant provisions - Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988, ss 296ZB, 296ZF.

The Case

Copyright Infringement. For the purposes of s296ZF of the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988, it was not enough if the technological measure was a discouragement or general commercial hindrance to copyright infringement. Rather, it had to be a measure which physically prevented it. Leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused; however, the court certified that the decision involved the following question of law of general public importance, namely, whether the provisions of s296ZF of the Act in relation to effective technological measures applied to devices incorporated into computer games consoles and computer games which did not prevent counterfeit copies being made of such games which did prevent the counterfeit copies from being played on games consoles.

Practice Areas

If you are a LexisLibrary subscriber you can read more about this case here.

Lexis®Library

  • An Official transcript is the final version of the judgment prepared by shorthand writers. LexisLibrary contains all judgments from the High Court and aboveView Judgment
  • Cases related to this particular case that are related to, or discuss this caseView related cases
  • Commentary discussing this particular case from LexisLibrary's comprehensive range of titles including Butterworths, Halsbury's and TolleyView related commentary
  • The All England Law Reports comprises judgments with headnotes and catchwords indicating the area of law and key issues of the case prepared by legally qualified editorsFind AllER Reports