Over the last few months the entertainment industry has been struck by some very decisive case

that will affect its operation for the foreseeable future. As in life some where good, some weren't and the most related to unjustified claims of patent breaches whenever new forms of technology developed. However amongst these get rich quick notions there were two large developments: the first related to a US decision regarding age certificates, particularly 18+ video games, and their sale to minors. The legislation was the California Assembly Bill 1179, which would make it an offence to sell or rent a 'violent' as defined within the legislation. If the retailer was found guilty they would be fined $1,000. This legislation was ultimately struck down in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, on grounds of vagueness in relation to the protection offered to video games by the First Amendment. This is the same protection offered to films, books and other forms of media entrainment. This is an important case, as it is the 6th attempt for outside focus groups to fail to intervene with the self-mandated industry standard of this industry. It is note worthy as if this legislation was passed it would have been relatively easy to modify it to censor film and other to state approved viewpoint. The second major breakthrough is centred with the ongoing issues of illegally downloading media from torrent or other peer2peer software applications. Following the settlement of EMI Records & Ors v. Eircom Ltd, the web address www.piratebay.com would be banned for Eircom customers. However an issue developed over the other internet providers and their compliance, particularly UPC which holds 15% of the market. As UPC was not part of the settlement that required Eircom to disconnect users found to illegally downloading after a 'three and out policy.' EMI then sought an injunction to force UPC to comply with this method of preventing illegally downloading music. When this issue was brought before the High Court where it was ultimately held that the injunction would not be granted to force compliance by UPC. The rationale for this was that at present Ireland is not fully compliant with EU obligations on the matter and the provisions under the

Copyrights and related Rights Act 2000 would not have contemplated such issues to the rapid development of I.T over recent years. Further rationale for the refusal of the granting of the injunction was that currently the only remedy to internet providers on the matter is the ability to seek to remove infringing content and to grant the injunction would stretch beyond the scope of the available legislation. Over the next few years, the Irish Legislate would be re missed if they made no attempt at amending the Copyrights and Related Rights Act 2000 to encompass newer technological advancement. As such I would suggest that the laws relating to copyrights and technology should be periodically amended to reflect advancement in technology and methods of communication.