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Government to limit libel costs (one day)

February 25, 2009

First, the good news (for the media): the Government says it will take steps to limit costs in libel actions.

Next, the caveat. The Government also says it will introduce such measures “unless compelling arguments emerge against doing so.”

The Press Gazette reports on this here, with the headline: “The MoJ’s libel consultation: what it means for journalists.”

With the consultation due to close on 6 May, and given thereafter that cogitation, re-evaluation and analysis will be necessary, over an appropriate period of time (lest the wrong decision be made), what does all this really mean for journalists?

The answer is: not very much. The dreaded CFA regime will change one of these days, but don’t hold your breath.

Pictured courtesy of Geekologie: a libel lawyer reveals the wallet he uses when in the US. 

Laughing all the way from the witness box

February 25, 2009

Chain email is usually a curse, but overnight some excerpts from Disorder in the American Courts wended their way to Swordplay. Some, we have to say, are positively delightful. For starters, there’s this piece of forensic cross-examination:

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

Then, there’s this, which is no less magnificent:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

But who could forget this slice of embarrassing amnesia:

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, ‘Where am I, Cathy?’
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!

Pictured: A plea for errant attorneys to stop talking courtesy of andreamisera.

Where Hef boldly goes, will others follow?

February 24, 2009

A Gorkana alert tells us that a certain well-known adult magazine – perhaps, even, the oldest of its kind – has just re-launched its website as an ad-funded model and made the bulk of its content free to users.

The alert continues to say that The overhaul will see it offer a dozen new entertainment channels, such as movies, music, games, TV and sport, along with a new branded social networking element.

By way of example (and, at the risk of innumerable unhelpful comments by the bots that stalk the internet, looking for anything ‘adult’),  Playboy UK (for yes, it is them) recently launched an advertiser-funded lifestyle channel and an advertiser-funded mobile site is scheduled to start later this month. Playboy TV, on Sky channel 900, now offers free lifestyle content between 8pm and 11pm before encrypting for the paid-for service.

We mention this because, as everyone knows, pornography drove the development of the internet. So does Playboy’s move herald the mass adoption by rights holders of the ad-funded model, one with a fair dose of social networking thrown in, too?

Image courtesy of iaffy4k.

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