Comment Re:Wha lawyers? (Score 1) 385
As a UK lawyer I have a few points to make:
firstly the MPAA's hold (or lack thereof) on the UK government is totally irrelevant, as over here in the UK we have an independant judiciary.
Although the Lord Chancellor appoints senior judges and sits in the cabinet (for the Americans out there: think of him as a presidential advisor + senator rolled into one), these are NOT political appointments.
Judges are expected to have no political affiliations (famously a judge who was an Amnesty International member was removed from a case about Pinochet's extradition) and certainly not to allow their opinions to influence their decisions.
This is completely unlike for example in the US where Bush can freely appoint Republican anti-abortionists to the Supreme Court.
Another difference is that the government does not interfere in judicial decisions. There is a huge outcry at the moment after the Home Office Minister told criminal judges to give higher sentences... even that was considered unwarranted interference.
As easyCinema's case against companies concerned: not supplying top films to a distributor could be considered anti-competitive and could well be in breach of both EU and UK competition law. I am not an expert in this area but it certainly looks to me like a good case could be made.
Especially as Warner run one of the biggest chains of cinemas in the UK...
firstly the MPAA's hold (or lack thereof) on the UK government is totally irrelevant, as over here in the UK we have an independant judiciary.
Although the Lord Chancellor appoints senior judges and sits in the cabinet (for the Americans out there: think of him as a presidential advisor + senator rolled into one), these are NOT political appointments.
Judges are expected to have no political affiliations (famously a judge who was an Amnesty International member was removed from a case about Pinochet's extradition) and certainly not to allow their opinions to influence their decisions.
This is completely unlike for example in the US where Bush can freely appoint Republican anti-abortionists to the Supreme Court.
Another difference is that the government does not interfere in judicial decisions. There is a huge outcry at the moment after the Home Office Minister told criminal judges to give higher sentences... even that was considered unwarranted interference.
As easyCinema's case against companies concerned: not supplying top films to a distributor could be considered anti-competitive and could well be in breach of both EU and UK competition law. I am not an expert in this area but it certainly looks to me like a good case could be made.
Especially as Warner run one of the biggest chains of cinemas in the UK...
