News and Events
September 2011
Theory meets Practice:
The Entertainment Law Series 2011-2012
Entertainment Law has run as an option on the LLB since 1991, and since then the School has developed both a thriving Masters programme and attracted a series of PhD students working in this field. From a research perspective the School has developed a solid research base in the area, coordinated by the Centre for Law, Society and Popular Culture, that includes a number of books and articles, a journal and a book series.
Over the years, the Centre has organized a number of successful seminars and events that have been open to students, staff and other interested parties. This year, to build on this, we have decided to launch a series of events connected loosely under the umbrella of Theory Meets Practice: The Entertainment Law Series.
As its inspiration, this draws upon the events organized by our colleague, Peter Hodgkinson OBE, for his Criminology Students many years ago that were a source of inspiration and pleasure for many. We hope that this series is as rewarding and is remembered as fondly, and that it goes on to become a yearly fixture, open to all students but especially those attached to the LLB Entertainment law module and LLM Entertainment law degree.
The first of these will be delivered by Robert Allan on 19 October at 3.00, more details click here to see a poster entitled ‘Drafting and negotiating music publishing agreements’. Details of future sessions will be advertised here.
June 2011
Stuart Toddington was invited to participate in Beyond the Grundnorm – Stuart Toddington and Jorg Kammerhofer - Seminar at University of Bristol, June 15th 2011.
You can read Stuart’s excellent review of this here.
New issue of Entertainment and Sports Law Journal published.
We are delighted to announce that, the latest edition (Volume Nine, Number 1) is now available here
This issue includes full length articles on Olympic legacy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and Painful TV, along with shorter Interventions on the UEFA fair play rules, FIFA and domain names, protecting children from violence in sport and match fixing. In addition, we have a commentary by Geoff Pearson which is a response to an article by Steve Redhead in an earlier issue of the journal.
The journal is free and open access and, as always, the editors are always willing to receive articles and discuss ideas with prospective authors. Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn are both editors of this Journal
THE CENTRE submitted evidence to the Culture Media and Sport Parliamentary Select Committee as part of their Football governance Inquiry. You can follow the progress of the Inquiry here
May 2011
On 20th May, Guy Osborn and Mark James presented a paper, ‘Mapping the City: regulating advertising and trading around London Olympic venues’ at Ithaca College London Centre’s Conference on Law, Policy and the Olympic Movement.
In addition James and Osborn also submitted a Response to the Department of Culture Media and Sport Consultation on Advertising and Trading Regulations. The draft regulations can be viewed here, and James and Osborn’s response is available on request.
Publication
London 2012 and the impact of the UK’s Olympic and Paralympic legislation: Protecting commerce or preserving culture? (with Mark James) Modern Law Review, May 2011.
April 2011
Ken Foster, Research Fellow in Sports Law at the Centre gave a guest seminar on Monday 4th April from 3.30 - 5.00 in Room 3.13 Little Titchfield Street. The session was entitled 'Lex sportiva as transnational law'.
Following Ken Foster’s seminar in April, four students (one PhD student, three from the LLM Entertainment Law programme) were invited along to the LawAccord Conference, itself part of the broader SportAccord programme. We were indebted to Ken Foster and Stephen Townley for organising this for the students. This was an extremely high level event with contributions from the Director of WADA and the Secretary of the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the students were delighted to have been offered such an opportunity. The photo shows three of the students with Ken before their trip to LawAccord.
March 2011
Two former students from the LLM Entertainment Law course have recently had articles published in respected law journals. Merima Bruncevic (2005 graduate), now a doctoral researcher at the University of Gothenburg who gave an excellent Centre Seminar in November (see November 2010 news) has published ‘The Lost Mural of Bruno Schulz: A Critical Legal Perspective on Control, Access to and Ownership of Art’ in Law and Critique and Claudia Roggero (2010 graduate) has published a piece comparing audience perception of sexual violence in two films, Straw dogs and Irreversible, in the Entertainment Law Review. Congratulations to both.
January 2011
NEW PUBLICATION: Ken Foster has had ‘Lex Sportiva: Transnational Law in Action’ published in [2010]International Sports Law Journal, volume/3-4, pp20-25.
The Centre submitted evidence to the Culture Media and Sport Parliamentary Select Committee as part of their Football governance Inquiry. You can follow the progress of the Inquiry here
SEMINAR INVITE: We are delighted to welcome Christian Armbrüster, Freie Universität Berlin as a visitor to the Centre, and School, during February. Christian has kindly agreed to give a seminar entitled
Stemming illegal trade of works of art – how can Private Law contribute?
This took place on Tuesday 22 February in room 214 Little Titchfield Street at 12pm.
December 2010
Andrea Pavoni (PhD Student) has had ‘Erasing Space from Places’ published, available here. Congratulations to Andrea.
November 2010
The 25 November is a busy day for the Centre of Law Society and Popular Culture. First at 4pm in Room 2.14 at Little Titchfield Street we are delighted to welcome PhD candidate at the University of Gothenburg and LLM Entertainment Law graduate Merima Bruncevic who will be giving a seminar entitled ‘The Cultural Commons and Copyright’.All welcome but please RSVP Danilo Mandic, danilo.mandic@my.westminster.ac.uk
Following this, at 6.00 on the same day in Fyvie Hall, Guy Osborn is giving his professorial lecture, A Design for Life? Mixing research and teaching in law and popular culture, which will (hopefully) present a contemporary analysis of the intersection between law and popular culture, and explore the importance of integrating life interests into both teaching and research. The lecture will be in part autobiographical, and in part something of a social history, and will attempt to further develop the link that exists between teaching and research. It will seek to illustrate, in particular, the opportunities and possibilities of academic life. Again all welcome but please RSVP Anja Mclean, mcleana@westminster.ac.uk
October 2010
NEW PUBLICATION. New book by Steve Greenfield, Guy Osborn and Peter Robson Film and the Law (2010, Hart) available to purchase via amazon
NEW PUBLICATION. Ingar Mehus and Guy Osborn (2010) ‘Consuming Football. The Norwegian Experience, the English impact, and the Possibilities of Interdisciplinary Research’ 1 Scandinavian Sports Studies Forum 89-113. Available online
On 19 October Guy Osborn was an invited panellist to the ‘Cross-disciplinary research: challenges and opportunities’ at the British Library Social Science National Postgraduate Training Day.
September 2010
Two of our PhD students gave papers at the Critical Legal Conference held in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Danilo Mandic presented a paper entitled “Copyright, technology and processes of de-materialisation” and Andrea Pavoni talked on “Atmospheres of Exception”. In addition Andrea also gave a paper entitled Materialising exception: techno-securitisation, safety and fear in London Buses at the 2010 EASST conference in Trento, Italy.
We were also delighted to welcome a new PhD student to the Centre in September, Tamara Tempera, who has already studied with us at Masters level has joined to research on the topic of art religion and law. Further details to follow.
Ken Foster had the paper ' Lex Sportiva: Transnational Law in Action' accepted for the International Conference on Lex Sportiva, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia on Wednesday, 22 September 2010.
July 2010
We were delighted to welcome Dr. Guy Pessach, law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to the Centre this summer. Guy visited as an Erasmus Mundus exchange program visiting scholar. Guy's main area of research is copyright and media law. Guy focuses his research on comparative copyright law, political economy aspects of cultural production and innovative technologies. His recent project is a book on copyright and digitized cultural preservation. The purpose of the book is to inquire the manners in which digitization and networked communication technologies implicate on the identity, structure and attributes of cultural preservation and social remembering. Specifically, the book focuses on copyright law's role in shaping, structuring and privatizing networked cultural preservation and social remembering. Whilst many staff were away on leave, Guy was able to meet with members of the Centre, and also some of the masters students who were still around writing their dissertations, and many areas of common interest were unearthed. We hope to be able to welcome Guy back to the Centre later in the year to give a seminar, and to continue this relationship.
Andrea Pavoni undertook fieldwork as part of his PhD studies at the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Read his report here.
June 2010
A special issue of the Entertainment and Sports Law Journal has been published, entitled Law Sport and Education, and available via this link . This includes work from members of the Centre and, in addition, articles written by two former students of the LLM Entertainment Law programme at Westminster
Danilo Mandic was a guest speaker for the roundtable discussion Copyleft & Copyright as part of Law on Trial 2010 organised by Birkbeck University, London. Danilo gave a presentation of “Copylight v. Copytight: the ongoing case of challenging intangibility”. This presentation tackled the current opposition of copyright and copyleft positions in arguing and approaching copyright issues today, through viewing different legal stances in the ongoing challenges in defining intangibility as copyright intellectual property.
May 2010
Steve Greenfield was an invited guest speaker on music business contracts at a Music Publishers’ Association seminar, where he spoke about the need to rethink the nature of contractual practices.
Guy Osborn, with Mark James from Salford Law School, gave a paper entitled ‘Protecting Commerce or Preserving Culture’ at the Ithaca College Conference on Law, Policy and the Olympic Movement on the 14th May.
April 2010
The Compton Club presents a series of documentaries organised by PhD student Danilo Mandic entitled Copytight vs Copylight.
Andrea Pavoni presented the paper Freezing The Foam: the Institutional Promotion of Mutual Control and Denial among the Population at A Global Surveillance Society?, a conference held at City University, London, in April 2010.
NEW PUBLICATION. Guy Osborn, with Mark James of the University of Salford, attended the launch of the new British Library website Sport in Society. The Summer Olympics through the lens of social science where, amongst other things, their joint article ‘Consuming the Olympics. The fan, the rights holder and the law was published’.
Guy Osborn presented a paper entitled Winners and losers in British Football at the Centres and Peripheries in Sport conference held in Malmo, Sweden.
The second Erasmus Mundus Intensive Programme, part of the ongoing collaboration between Malmo, NTNU and Westminster took place in Malmo between April 6th and 16th
Ken Foster and Guy Osborn from the Centre contributed to this, and seven Westminster students benefited from this EU sponsored initiative. For more details see the LEGo website.
March 2010
Danilo Mandic presented a paper ‘Copyright Law and Intangibility: ideas, creativity and technology’ at the Socio Legal Studies Association annual conference hosted by the Bristol Law School at the University of the West of England.
Stephanie Roberts was invited by the Criminal Cases Review Commission to give a presentation at a conference they organised on the problems those who are factually innocent have in overturning their convictions. The presentation was on research conducted on the Court of Appeal’s approach to factual innocence appeals. She also took part on a panel discussion of these issues with Lord Justice Hooper.
February 2010
NEW PUBLICATION. Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn, ‘Regulating sport: finding a role for law’ 13:2 Sport in Society 367-379.
Guy Osborn and Stephanie Roberts delivered a paper entitled ‘The Regulation of spiritualist Mediums’ to the University of Westminster School of law Research Seminar Series. This is part of some ongoing work they are conducting along with fellow Centre member, Steve Greenfield.
Member of the Centre Ken Foster was invited to speak at the colloquium 'The Future of European Sports Law: The Lisbon Treaty and Sport'. He was one of three distinguished speakers, along with Maurice Watkins, Director of Manchester United Football Club and Senior Partner at leading law firm Brabners Chaffe Street in Manchester, and Professor Stephen Weatherill, the Jacques Delors Professor of European Community Law at Somerville College, Oxford University.
The winter 2009 issue of the Entertainment and Sports Law Journal (vol 7(2)) is now available via http://go.warwick.ac.uk/eslj.
December 2009
On 9th December Steven Machat, gave a seminar entitled ‘A Personal Look Inside Thirty Years in the Music Industry’. It was a very interesting talk and many copies of his book were purchased on the evening. The book is fascinating for those eager to find out more about his very eclectic background and interests. Some details about Steven appear here and also see his blog http://stevenmachat.blogspot.com . ‘Steven Machat was born into the music business. His father Marty Machat, was one of the industry’s first transatlantic, deal-making lawyer/ entrepreneurs, representing legends such as James Brown, Sugar Ray Robinson, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Leonard Cohen, Phil Spector and many others. For months Bobby Darin slept on the family couch…’Successful PhD: The Centre are delighted to announce that the first of our PhD students, Oxana Chiscenco, successfully defended her thesis 'The Record Industry and Competition law in the Twenty First Century'. Well done Oxana!!
September 2009
Andrea Pavoni: Olympic Brandscapes: the production, control and impact of the space of London 2012 Olympics (Guy Osborn, Andrew Smith and Lynn Minnaert)
Danilo Mandic: Technology and Ideas: the challenge of ‘intangible property’ within Copyright Law (Guy Osborn, Chris Ellins and John Flood)
July 2009
Publication: Guy Osborn and Mark James have had a joint article, ‘Tickets, Policy and Social Inclusion: can the European white Paper on sport deliver?’ published in the International Sports Law Journal 2009/1-2 61. This piece arose out of the TMC Asser Institute International Workshop on the White Paper on Sport (The Hague, 22 February 2008)
June 2009
Both of these appear in Michael Asimow’s edited collection Lawyers in your Living room (2009, ABA Press) and can be accessed via Guy Osborn’s SSRN page and purchased here
May 2009
On 8th May, the Centre hosted a seminar to celebrate the special issue of the Journal Entertainment and Sports Law, entitled Governing Celebrity: Multiculturalism, Offensive television content and Celebrity Big Brother. This excellent seminar was kicked off by Trevor Barnes and Louise Thorley from OFCOM. Trevor gave a presentation entitled ‘Celebrity Big Brother – The Decision’ can you add link to powerpoint please which was followed by a lively discussion. Papers were then given from the Special issue by Dania Thomas and Lieve Gies from Keele, with Bettina Lange from Oxford discussing these. The session was ably chaired by Birkbeck’s Les Moran, and we hope to offer a follow up to this in the near future. See some pictures of the event here.
April 2009
New Issue of Entertainment and Sports Law Journal published, this is a special issue on Celebrity Big Brother
Erasmus Mundus Course - In March and April 2009, 3 members of the Centre, Ken Foster, Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn, contributed to the Erasmus Mundus Intensive Programme on Leisure, Entertainment and Governance (LEGo), held in Trondheim, Norway.
March 2009
On 18th March Stephanie Roberts appeared on BBC News Channel, interviewed by Huw Edwards, commenting upon the miscarriage of justice case of Sean Hodgson
February 2009
Steve Greenfield, Director of the Centre along with Dr Lisa Webley was awarded a University Teaching Fellowship as part of the Westminster Awards for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.
January 2009
Member of the Centre Stuart Toddington delivered his inaugural professorial lecture. Click here to download the outline of the inaugural lecture and law self and society powerpoint lecture slides.
January 2009 to May 2009. Member of the Centre Stephanie Roberts is currently a Visiting Professor at Cleveland State University, in the United States, teaching and researching into wrongful convictions from a comparative perspective
September 2008
Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn delivered two conference papers in September 2008. Both of these are based around their recent work examining contractual theory and its application to music contracts. The first were for the Conceptualising Unconscionability in Europe conference was held in Durham on 8th and 9th September. The paper is entitled ‘Inequality of bargaining power and unconscionability in commercial music contracts’
The second paper is for the Society of Legal Scholars annual conference held at the London School of Economics. Their paper is entitled 'The Context of Commercial Music Contracts'.
August 2008
Director of the Centre, Guy Osborn was awarded a Chair on 1st August 2008
June 2008
Guy Osborn was recently seen on BBC4 as part of the documentary ‘Strictly Courtroom’
May 2008
New publication! Article by Steve Greenfield, Guy Osborn and Stephanie Roberts published in Web Journal of Current Legal Issues
March 2008
Ticket Touting Seminar by Guy Osborn, Steve Greenfield and Stephanie Roberts. Click here to download an Invitation or to view a PDF version of the ticket touting seminar
