Secret Commissions in IT Contracts

IT contracts often necessitate a myriad of contractual arrangements extending beyond the two principal contracting parties, and usually involving third party facilitation. In Imageview Management Ltd v. Kelvin Jack, the Court of Appeal (of England and Wales) has unreservedly confirmed that such facilitation does constitute agency. The court also unequivocally emphasised both the importance and the fiduciary nature of the consequential obligations and duties of the agent to the principal. In particular, the agent’s receipt of a ‘secret benefit’ often falls short of a ‘bribe’ but may nevertheless constitute a breach of such obligations and duties. Moreover, it is often identified only retrospectively in the bitterness of the breakdown of the parties’ effective working arrangements. However, in determining the remedies applicable following a breach, the Court has evidenced only a slight preference for the twentieth century restitutional, rather than a Victorian penal, approach. That the penal approach remains in judicial contemplation necessitates careful management of contractual relationships. The paper concludes by recommending documented disclosure of, and the principal’s consent to, both patent and obscured benefits

Cross media promotion: entertainment industries and the trailer

The turn of the millennium bore witness to a phenomenon: the use of promotion trailers for a variety of products. Both stage theatre and the publishing industries came under the media spotlight for using trailers to promote their wares throwing into sharp contrast the normativity of film trailers. Despite increased academic study of the film trailer, few have considered the trailer outside the industrial context of the film industry. Coupled with this trend in focus, is the tendency within the literature to suggest that the trailer exists as a unique form because they exist in the same medium as the product that promote. Added to this is the tendency to rely on an a priori definition that is not explored fully. By way of intervention with these key issues, this thesis considers the aesthetics and emergence of the trailer in entertainment industries other than film and serves as a counterpoint to the cinema centric imbalance within the study of the trailer. Using a corpus of audiovisual texts identified as trailers through UK press websites, this thesis draws from the popular understanding of the trailer in order to explore the historical and industrial trajectory of these other forms of trailer. Taking the form of case studies organised by the industry in which the trailer's product operates this thesis explores the historical context in which the trailer emerged and the aesthetic trends at work in the current trailer therein. In exploring both the history and the aesthetic representation of the trailer in the industry this thesis moves the study of trailers away from repetitive debates surrounding the film industry and opens up the possibility of trailers as a cultural phenomenon and simultaneous marketing trend. Through providing a grounded understanding of the trailer's use within contemporary entertainment industries, the thesis argues that the term 'trailer' has moved beyond advertising for films. It suggests the trailer has come to typify promotion for any product that is at its core, is an experience. In doing so thesis presents a much needed counterpoint and challenge to cinema-centric analysis of the trailer

The Empire Strikes Back? Lessons From the Supreme Court’s Judgment in Lucasfilm Limited and Others (Appellants) V. Ainsworth and Another (Respondents) [2011] UKSC 39, July 2011â€

The recent UK Supreme Court case Lucasfilm v. Ainsworth has highlighted the complexities of enforcing Intellectual Property Rights in the UK. This note explores the substantive points argued in those proceedings before briefly commenting on the procedural issues encountered. Finally, it suggests that a specialist dispute resolution forum external to the court structure could expedite dispute resolution and improve access to justice

Watching the trailer: Researching the film trailer audience

For over 100 years, the ‘coming attraction’ film trailer has been a key part of film promotion and viewing practices (both theatrical and domestic). Despite the prominent role of the trailer within the fabric of popular media, it has rarely been discussed in terms of audience behaviour, beyond limited claims that the viewer is either misled by inaccurate advertising or has become the source of increased prosumer activity. This article therefore offers the first rigorous exploration of the disparate range of audience perspectives on, and responses to, the trailer. We show that trailer viewing can be understood as a consumption practice that is separate from (and sometimes unrelated to) feature film viewing. Analysing data collected from an online survey, we reveal that while the trailer does have informational and prefigurative value to audiences, trailer viewing is also led by criteria that include emotional attachment, cultural value and social expectation. Our analysis disputes the notion of a linear, mono-directional model of trailer-to-film viewing practices, suggesting a more nuanced understanding of the trailer audience is needed within studies of prefiguration materials and media consumption

Thresholds for adding degraded tropical forest to the conservation estate

Logged and disturbed forests are often viewed as degraded and depauperate environments compared with primary forest. However, they are dynamic ecosystems1 that provide refugia for large amounts of biodiversity2, 3, so we cannot afford to underestimate their conservation value4. Here we present empirically defined thresholds for categorizing the conservation value of logged forests, using one of the most comprehensive assessments of taxon responses to habitat degradation in any tropical forest environment. We analysed the impact of logging intensity on the individual occurrence patterns of 1,681 taxa belonging to 86 taxonomic orders and 126 functional groups in Sabah, Malaysia. Our results demonstrate the existence of two conservation-relevant thresholds. First, lightly logged forests (68%) of their biomass removed, and these are likely to require more expensive measures to recover their biodiversity value. Overall, our data confirm that primary forests are irreplaceable5, but they also reinforce the message that logged forests retain considerable conservation value that should not be overlooked

Variable responses of individual species to tropical forest degradation

The functional stability of ecosystems depends greatly on interspecific differences in responses to environmental perturbation. However, responses to perturbation are not necessarily invariant among populations of the same species, so intraspecific variation in responses might also contribute. Such inter-population response diversity has recently been shown to occur spatially across species ranges, but we lack estimates of the extent to which individual populations across an entire community might have perturbation responses that vary through time. We assess this using 524 taxa that have been repeatedly surveyed for the effects of tropical forest logging at a focal landscape in Sabah, Malaysia. Just 39 % of taxa – all with non-significant responses to forest degradation – had invariant responses. All other taxa (61 %) showed significantly different responses to the same forest degradation gradient across surveys, with 6 % of taxa responding to forest degradation in opposite directions across multiple surveys. Individual surveys had low power (< 80 %) to determine the correct direction of response to forest degradation for one-fifth of all taxa. Recurrent rounds of logging disturbance increased the prevalence of intra-population response diversity, while uncontrollable environmental variation and/or turnover of intraspecific phenotypes generated variable responses in at least 44 % of taxa. Our results show that the responses of individual species to local environmental perturbations are remarkably flexible, likely providing an unrealised boost to the stability of disturbed habitats such as logged tropical forests