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Privacy Rights and Satellite Broadcasts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Jonathan Gillis
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Extract

The subject matter of this article is, at bottom, a practical problem. It accepts that people have a right to privacy and that this right should find proper protection in the law. It asks, simply, whether such protection is at all feasible given the particular technology of broadcast by satellite.

For the purposes of investigating this problem several issues must be addressed. First is the nature of the violation of privacy involved. Our concern here is principally with TV news broadcasts. We begin from the point where the debate over “what is in the public interest versus what the public is interested in” has ended; there will be general consensus that the content of a certain broadcast represents a violation of an individual's privacy and one about which the law should do something. An example might be the filming in the public domain of a private individual caught in the shock of personal grief or tragedy. In such a case we would need to investigate the nature of the injury involved in any subsequent broadcast of these sounds and images, and to ask what dimension, if any, is added to this injury by their simultaneous broadcast across the globe.

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Articles
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , Summer 1993 , pp. 384 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1993

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References

1 Bloustein, Edward J., “Privacy as an Aspect of Human Dignity: An Answer to Dean Prosser,” (1964) 39 N.Y.U.L.R. 962Google Scholar.

2 Keeton, , Dobbs, , Keeton, , Owen, , Prosser and Keeton on Torts (5th ed., 1984)Google Scholar.

3 Protection of Privacy Law, 1981 (35 L.S.I. 136).

4 Gavison, Ruth, “Privacy and the Limits of Law,” (1980) 89 Yale L.J. 423CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 The relative degree of harm might be felt differently when the broadcast is only transmitted overseas, to when it is both transmitted to one's own country, and simultaneously, overseas.

6 See Bloustein, supra n. 1, and Gavison, supra n. 4.

7 See Blom-Cooper, Louis, “The Right to Be Let Alone” (1989) 10 J. Media L. and Practice 53Google Scholar.

8 As an example see Art. 7.1 of the Council of Europe — European Convention of Transfrontier Television, March 1989.

9 International Telecommunications Union Radio Regulations, Art. 1, No. 36. 3.17.

10 Rumphorst, Werner, “Convergent Technology and New Services: Legal Problems in Using Satellites for Transmission of Programmes to the General Public” in A Legal Mosaic for Global Communications — First World Electronic Media Symposium (October 1989, Geneva)Google Scholar

11 Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television Inc. (1968) 392 US 390.

12 Ibid., at 397, quoted in Gendreau, Ysolde, “The Retransmission Right: Copyright and the Rediffusion of Works by Cable”, Intellectual Property Law Monographs, (Oxford, 1990) 15Google Scholar.

13 Ibid.

14 Teleprompter Corp. v. Columbia Broadcasting System Inc., (1974) 415 US 394.

15 Ibid., at 410.

16 For the outline of the various processes involved in satellite broadcasting, I have drawn from a number of sources: Taishopff, Maika Natasha, State Responsibility and the Direct Broadcast Satellite, (Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 1987)Google Scholar; Powell, Jon T., International Broadcasting By Satellite, (Quorum Books, 1985)Google Scholar; Mosteshar, and Bate, de B., Satellite and Cable Television, (Longman Professional Intelligence Reports, 1986)Google Scholar.

17 Note that the earth station may be the originating broadcasting station (the originator) or a receiver of broadcasts from the originating broadcaster. Note also that earth stations are not necessarily large scale affairs. CNN correspondents during the Gulf War were able to fix up an earth station in their hotel room in Baghdad from the contents of their suitcase, before transmitting signals which were then broadcast “live” by satellite.

18 ITU Regulations Art. 9, No. 960, Sec. 4.

19 Previously such private reception would have required equipment beyond the capacity of most consumers. Now it requires a dish similar in type and expense to that required for reception of DBS signals.

20 Stewart, Stephen M., International Copyright and Neighbouring Rights (London, 2nd ed., 1989) 270Google Scholar.

21 Ibid.

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27 Mosteshar, supra n. 16, at 10.

28 19 L.S.I. 254.

29 Sec. 2(3). See also sec. 3.

30 Draft Privacy Protection Law, 1980 (H.H. no. 1463, p. 206).

31 Colin D. Long, “Impact of New Electronic Media on Content Related Rules”, in A Legal Mosaic … supra n. 10, at 37.

32 Prosser and Keeton on Torts, supra n. 2.

33 Ibid., at 856.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Anderson v. Fisher Broadcasting Co. (1986) 300 Or. 452, 461. 712 F 2d 893 809, quoted in Prosser and Keeton, supra n. 2 1988 pocket part p. 121.

37 Mclean, Deckle, “Privacy Invasion Tort: Straddling the Fence” in Privacy and Publicity: Readings from Communications and the Law, (Kupferman, London, 2nd ed., 1990)Google Scholar.

38 Quoted in Seipp, David J., “English Judicial Recognition of a Right to Privacy” (1983) OJLS, 325, at 351Google Scholar.

39 Report of Committee of Privacy and Related Matters. Cm (1990) Chmn David Calcutt QC.

40 Reported in The Times, 21 March 1990.

41 Victoria Park Racecourse v. Taylor, 58 Comm 479, at 494 (1937) quoted in Seipp, supra n. 38, at 342.

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43 Ibid., at 302.

44 Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, “Spycatcher Copyright and Contempt” (1989) 23 Is. L.R. 409Google Scholar.

45 Morris, supra n. 42, at 325.

46 Council Directive 93/83/EEC of 27 September 1993 on the coordination of certain rules concerning copyright and rights related to copyright applicable to satellite broadcasting and cable retransmission. Official Journal of the European Communities No.L 248/15 (6.10.93) (hereinafter “the Sat-Cab Directive”).

47 See Post, Robert C., “Rereading Warren and Brandeis: Privacy Property and Appropriation”, (1991) 41 Case Western Reserve L.R. 647Google Scholar.

48 It is worth noting that the element of “intended for direct reception” etc. is not present.

49 See Dietz, supra n. 26, at 120.

50 Supra n. 46.

51 The Telecommunications Law, 1982 (36 L.S.I. 229). Amendment No. 2,1988 (S.H. no. 1260, p. 174).

52 Molcho, Y., Abramovitz, D., Friedman, M., “Legal Aspects of Satellite Broadcasting in Israel” (1992) 40 HaPraklit 287Google Scholar.

53 Motion File no. 931/92 in the Tel Aviv District Court. The case concerned the pirating by cable companies of the Eurosport Wimbledon broadcast.

54 See above in our analysis of the Berne Convention.

55 Lord Oliver, supra n. 44.

56 The Sat-Cab Directive, supra n. 46. Preamble sec. 5.

57 Ibid.

58 As in the ITU Radio Regulations, supra p. 391.

59 Sat-Cab Directive, Preamble, sec. 13.

60 Ibid., sec. 27.

61 See Cornish, W. R., “The International Relations of Intellectual Property” (1993) 52 C. L. J. 46, at 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Ibid., at 47.

63 Supra n. 4, at 448.