Reposted from DLA Piper's Media & Sport Group Bulletin
Editorial Team: Nick Fitzpatrick, Duncan Calow and Patrick Mitchell
Ofcom has cleared Al Jazeera English channel ("Al Jazeera") for its broadcast of "The Palestine Papers" after a complaint of unfair treatment by the Chief Negotiator of the Palestine Liberation Organisation ("PLO").
"The Palestine Papers", a four-part documentary series broadcast on Al Jazeera, examined "leaked" diplomatic documents relating to the Middle East peace process. The series criticised the role played by Dr Saeb Erakat, the Chief Negotiator of the PLO, a number of times. This prompted Dr Erakat to complain of unfair treatment and unwarranted infringement of privacy on behalf of both himself and the PLO.
The complaint, amongst other things, argued that important contextual information was deliberately omitted so that viewers could not properly understand the subjects discussed during the negotiation scenes and that the programme broadcast details of confidential documents that were stolen from Dr Erakat's office in breach of confidentiality and privacy.
In response to these particular complaints, Al Jazeera stated that the programme makers took reasonable care and carried out considerable research to ensure that all material facts were presented fairly. Al Jazeera also argued that, in any case, any alleged breach was warranted as the programme dealt with public affairs of great political and international importance and there could be no doubt about the importance of investigating and criticising the decisions made by Dr Erakat and other senior negotiators. Therefore, according to Al Jazeera, no consent was required from anyone within the PLO prior to broadcast.
Ofcom found that material facts in relation to the negotiations were not presented or omitted in a way that led to unfair treatment of Dr Erakat and the infringement of privacy in relation to obtaining and using the confidential document was warranted due to the significant public interest in the issues covered by the documentary series.
A coalition led by the BPI, a music industry body representing a coalition of Hollywood film studios, publishers and record companies, has requested that BT and several other UK ISPs block one of the largest illegal filesharing sites in the world.
The request by the BPI represents the first to be made since the landmark Newzbin2 ruling in August 2011 (for details see the August 2011 edition of Media Intelligence here and the November 2011 edition here) which ordered BT to block its internet subscribers' access to the website of Newzbin2, another illegal filesharing service, using BT's "CleanFeed" filtering technology. Along with a written request to BT made earlier this month, the BPI has also requested that Virgin Media, O2, Talk Talk, Orange and Sky voluntarily block access to The Pirate Bay's website. The Pirate Bay has already been subject to blocking actions in several other jurisdictions around the world.
Meanwhile, following the Newzbin2 ruling, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the organisation responsible for bringing the Newzbin2 case against BT, is now looking for similar blocking action in respect of Newzbin2 to be taken by the UK's other major ISPs. On 9 November, the MPA confirmed that it had written to Virgin Media, Sky and TalkTalk and sparking interest in whether there might be a move towards another formal court order in the coming weeks.
