Gawker falls short of UK copyright law

posted on 12th June 2006 by Laurence

Gawker, the celeb gossip blog, has been forced to block access to UK visitors after it was judged to have breached UK copyright laws. (read about more on the guardian website http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1794995,00.html).

This has sparked debate about the differences in IP laws on each side of the pond but I think there is a more interesting issue here. We all know the threat that online editorial poses to traditional print media but gossip blogs such as Gawker and perezhilton.com are possibly the best example of an online medium’s ability to out-do its print counterpart. By their very nature, blogs are up-to-date and straight from the horse’s mouth - exactly how we want our gossip.