Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie Solicitors

Online Christmas shopping ? websites fail to follow the rules

According to a survey carried out by consumer champions ‘Which’, 69% of us are doing our Christmas shopping online - to avoid the crowds and compare prices more easily.

Under the Distance Selling Regulations anyone buying goods or services over the internet has additional rights to someone buying from shops over the counter. This is to protect purchasers from the increased risk of buying online, given the purchaser is unable to view the product physically before it is purchased.

However, an OFT survey carried out among online traders found that 28% of online shoppers were unaware or only slightly aware of the laws applying to internet shopping.

The Trading Standards Office have been checking the UK’s top 600 retail websites this month to ensure that they are complying with the key requirements of online shopping.

The regulations impose various conditions on online sellers including the provision of a cooling off period and a duty to provide adequate contact details, including not only email address and telephone number but also a physical address too.

An OFT survey carried out in June this year found that more than 20% of sites did not provide adequate contact details and 16% of sites did not tell shoppers of their unconditional right to cancel without giving a reason. Further, many sites (59%) imposed conditions that could prevent or at least deter consumers from exercising their cancellation rights.

The findings of the web sweep will be published in the New Year but offenders will not be named. Trading standards officers will decide on the best way to deal with any breaches.

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Proposal to "tax" ticket touts: music managers' call to regulate secondary ticket market

Music managers behind some of the world’s biggest artists have called for a levy on the concert ticket aftermarket, where people sell tickets they have bought for profit or because they cannot go to a concert.

With the live music industry booming in Britain, several businesses have been set up to serve the after market in tickets, in addition to many individuals who re-sell tickets on websites such as eBay. Artists are claiming that they should share in the revenue of those sales, as well as from the original sale.

Managers for artists including Radiohead, Robbie Williams and the Arctic Monkeys have backed the creation of the Resale Rights Society (RRS), which is intended to regulate sales, accredit sites which comply with RRS standards - and take a cut of their earnings.

It is estimated that around ?200m has been generated by the re-sale of concert tickets in the UK and Marc Marot, chairman-elect of the proposed Society, says that it is “unacceptable that not a penny is returned to the investors in the live music industry.”

The proposal to regulate the market has attracted criticism from those behind companies involved in the re-sale of tickets. Joe Cohen, chief executive of ticket sales company Seatwave, has said that “This is a bunch of pigs at the trough” and has accused the music industry of seeing money and wanting it. Eric Baker, chief executive of Viagogo, observed that “If I sell my Ford car, and have already paid for it, I don?t have to pay Ford again when I sell it.”

The Government has also become involved in the issue and the Culture, Media and Sport select committee is expected to report shortly. It has already asked for submissions on whether touting as a whole should be banned, and Parliament has also consulted on whether the practice of banning football ticket touts could be extended to music events.

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You've heard of IBAN: now "ISAN" is launched in the uk

The International Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN) system has recently been launched in the UK. This is a voluntary numbering system for the identification of audiovisual works, which provides a unique, internationally recognised and permanent reference number for each audiovisual work registered in the ISAN system.

It works like the existing IBAN numbering system for books: look closely at a book and you?ll likely finds its IBAN number nestling somewhere in the barcode or on the flyleaf.

The ISAN service will enable UK producers of audiovisual content to allocate unique ISAN numbers to productions. This will help producers, distributors and contributors to track uses of content, throughout the World across a wide range of media platforms. It will allow access to the global ISAN database, with over half a million ISANs currently registered in over 20 countries.

ISANs can be incorporated in both digital and physical media, such as theatrical release prints, DVDs, publications, advertising, marketing materials and packaging, as well as licensing contracts to uniquely identify works. ISAN identifies works throughout their entire life cycle from conception, to production, to distribution and consumption.

It is hoped the introduction of the ISAN system will reflect the revolution in modern digital music technologies, provide greater product and content protection and ultimately drive standards up in the UK.

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Data security breaches force European Commission to introduce new notification laws

Following last month’s high-profile loss of computer disks containing confidential details of 25 million child benefit recipients and the various other losses that have come to light, the problem of data security breaches can no longer be ignored.

The European Commission (EC) is now campaigning for new laws to be introduced across Europe, known as ‘Notification Laws’. These laws would require all telecoms companies to inform their customers when personal data security has been breached: forcing them to “confess” when things go wrong.

It is argued that these new laws would help improve awareness of privacy issues by forcing organisations to be more vigilant when dealing with people’s personal data. It is thought that organisations will be more likely to impose stricter security checks if they are under threat of exposure to the public in the event of a breach.

Despite similar types of laws already being in place in many Member States the new proposal would unify the position across Europe making the law in this area far more transparent.

Privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office however, have not given their full support to the new laws by commenting that the objective could be undermined if every minor breach was notified as it would desensitise the public to more serious breaches.

This is certainly a valid point, but the EC appears to have taken this into consideration by emphasising that the context should be taken into account when setting the rules and that the danger level should be assessed prior to notification. In addition, the proposal has been made subject to certain exceptions. For example, disclosure would not be required where this would interfere with police work.

While the European Commission has recognised the significant problem of data security breaches, it will still take some time until regulation has been implemented in full across the EU Member States. It is thought unlikely that the proposal will become law before 2009.

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R&D tax credit ? deadline for claims

HM Revenue & Customs have issued a not-so-seasonal reminder that claims for Research & Development (R&D) tax relief for accounting periods ending before 31st March 2006 will have to be submitted by 31st March 2008 at the latest.

The tax relief scheme for R&D allows companies to claim an enhanced deduction of between 125% and 150% on qualifying R&D expenditure. Previously a claim to enhanced R&D deduction could be made within 6 years from the end of the accounting period to which it related. The deduction can lead to tax losses and these can, in particular situations, be surrendered for payable tax credit. Claims for the tax credit must now be made within two years from the end of the accounting period, as they must be included in the company tax return or amended return.

In this context the Finance Act 2006 sought to simplify the time limit rules. As a result if an accounting period ends on or after the 31st March 2006 the R&D claim must be made in a tax return and will be subject to the normal corporation tax time limits for self-assessment.

A transitional period was put in place to give companies adequate time to make claims. For accounting periods ending after 31st March 2002 but before 31st March 2006 the transitional period will end on the 31st March 2008.
HM Revenue & Customs are advising companies to think now about preparing any claims and to submit them well in advance of the deadline. A provisional figure will be accepted, but only if the final figures are not available at the expiry of the time limit. The company will need to make the provisional figures clear, explain the reason why they are being used and at what point the final figures will be forwarded. Late claims will be dealt with under the HM Revenue and Customs standard statement of practice.

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Amazon's online patents get a battering ? just in time for Christmas

Amazon, the online retailer, has had its patent application for a gift ordering system revoked by the European Patent Office on its first examination. The patent would have covered a system allowing goods to be bought online to be sent as gifts. The European patent was opposed by three groups an Interflora company, the German Society of Information Sciences and the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure.

The opposition arguments were centred on the contention that the patent did not meet the criteria of Article 56 of the European Patent Convention requiring an ?inventive step?. The European Patent Office agreed and revoked the European patent held by Amazon.

This is a blow to Amazon as it has recently been forced to narrow a US patent for its “one click” shopping system. In this case the ground of objection was that examples of similar systems showed that the patent was not in itself new.

Interestingly both of the above decisions were instigated in part by groups or persons who were not rivals of Amazon, namely the German Society of Information Sciences and the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure for the European patent - and for the US patent Peter Calvey an amateur patent enthusiast who raised funds for the legal action through readers of his blog.

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