The Court of Appeal has upheld the right of Canadian singer Loreena
McKennitt to ban publication of certain passages in a book entitled Travels with
Loreena McKennitt: My Life as a Friend by Niema Ash. The passages covered
personal and sexual relationships, McKennitt’s feelings about her fiancçª who
drowned in 1998, as well as details of her health and diet. Crucially, the
author was not an employee — or someone else bound by a formal confidentiality
agreement — but a former friend of the singer. Author Ash denied she was bound
by any duty of confidence. But Lord Justice Buxton said he backed Mr Justice
Eady’s earlier High Court conclusion that the “confidence” between the two women
was “shared” only in the sense that McKennitt had admitted Ash to her
confidence, which Ash knew should be respected. Explaining the significance of
the ruling, media lawyer Mark Stephens said: “Tabloids are going to have to
reinvent the staple of the Sunday morning and I think we are going to be down to
vicars and choirboys again. “Celebrities who can afford expensive lawyers and
QCs are going to be shielded from rigorous examination whereas Joe Public, who
can’t afford lawyers, is going to be the new victim of the Sunday morning
media.
This really does seem like a landmark judgement, but one which disciminates unafairly in favour of the rich and famous.
17 comments:
Whether or not this ruling discriminates in favour of the rich and famous will depend on whether people who believe they have been libelled can bring a "no win no fee" case. If they can, it means anyone will be able to take advantage of the ruling.
No change there then.
Alan Pardew managed to prevent the papers running allegations about his love life (allegedly) as well. There seems to be a trend.
I thought New Britain was a country run for the many not the few? These rulings mean that "celebs" are raised even further away from the man on the street...
Even if it is disriminatory, it's not up to judges to consider funding of potential cases in the future, but to make the appropriate ruling for the case before them.
In any case, I doubt this ruling changes the affordability of bringing a libel suit.
...disciminates unafairly...
Presuming you mean 'discriminates unfairly', yes it does but it hasn't stopped authors before. In the Spycatcher attempt to gag Peter Wright, he simply moved to Tasmania and published there.
I must admit that I have no idea who Loreena McKennitt is. However a swift Googling shows that she is not old and therefore "jailhouselawyer" won't have any temptation to put an axe through her head.
I thought Author Ash died years ago.
Ed, you can't say that Alan Pardew did that or else you would be breaking an infunction, wouldn't you? - the fact that the thirty three and a half thousand West Ham fans know all about the ins and outs already are meant to be denied in any print medium in order to protect the sensitive mental health of Alan's Swedish wife.
Geoff, I agree with you, who the hell is this woman and does anyone care what her fellow-traveller has to say about her ins and outs.
I guess she is 'big in Saskatchewan' but is that big enough to sell a few books, let alone justify a court case up to the Court of Appeal?
"I thought New Britain was a country run for the many not the few? These rulings mean that "celebs" are raised even further away from the man on the street..."
Does the man in the street want private matters published about himself for all to read?
Incidentally, the Beckhams' nanny had signed a contract that she would not publish anything about the family. Nobody forced her to sign that contract - she could have got another job. The subsequent court decision that breaking a contract was of no consequence because the Beckhams were famous was bizarre, to put it mildly.
geoff, as long as you don't kiss and tell you're safe with me...
It's an irrelevant judegement in this day and age, anyway.
We've seen how Guido works... It only takes someone of the same calibre to take PopBitch one step further and start with the gory details.
It's an ethical dilemma, personally. I'm an ardent defender of free speech and thought, but I'll also go to great lengths to protect the privacy that I value so much. How can I defend both equally?
Hmmm.. not sure about this - there were similar 'end of the world as we know it' projections when Catherine Zeta Jones was bringing her case - I forget whether it was against OK or Hello, because of the 'spoiler' pics of her wedding.
In any case, the market for sleaze has never been truly free - very wealthy people can often go direct to the advertisers on such red-tops if their 'brand' is being damaged.
Hollywood used to do it years ago.
"candidate diversity". Barf bag, please.
this decision can also be used in other ways, that is commercially to try and chill legitimate reporting into businesses. ill give you an example from personal experience.
company a employs company b as consultants. company b put up some information on their website which company a told them in confidence and company b mistakenly added. journalist then writes about seemingly public information on company a thats on the site. company a then tries to sue publisher of journalist for breaking confidence because they say the moment they noticed him the information was confidential, which is after publication, he is bound by the confidence and has to destroy all copies of it etc etc. i know because it happened to me. the law of confidence as it stands is completely insane because the idea is that confidence is basically infectious unless of course you have plenty of money to fight company a, a multi billion pound corporation in court. i dont.
As Dorothy Parker said, Kiss and tell is better than fuck and publish. How ridiculous is it that a Canadian millionaire could bring suit in a British courtroom against another Canadian, for statements she made in Canada. As if any normal Canadian can afford to fight a court battle overseas...or should be obliged to.
If publication is banned in the UK, so what? As several commenters have noted, Loreena McKennitt, whose high school prom date I had dinner with tonight, is a somebody only in Canada now that the Enya craze is over.
Personally I think we do need a privacy law in this country. We have laws of libel and slander. What public interest is there really in whether a footballer, politician, TV contestant etc are having affairs or not etc? This goes for rich and poor. A lot of people don't want ID cards because of the invasion of privacy but they are happy for our gutter press to publish tittle tattle which can be extremely intrusive into people's lives. If someone lives in the spotlight (and it's not always the rich and famous) that doesn't mean the press and others can and should be able to pry into their lives beyond their professional career.
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