Aside from the pleasure of seeing Jayne Powell
see off the mighty CIVC on points, the judgment prompts some reflection on how
social media comes across in court and the legal world.
A spur of the moment tweet or Instagram
rapidly conceived and
sent within seconds looks very different in Justice Beach's nearly 100-page judgment
running to some 338 paragraphs.
Anyone, who tweets on possibly controversial
subjects, would be well advised to look at the section of the judgment
(paras: 131-269) that cover Jayne's social media including tweets,
especially those on Nyetimber where Justice Beach concludes that this/these
could be misleading as Champagne Jayne doesn't make it clear that Nyetimber is
not Champagne.
Beach's Judgment might well be a text for this
weekend's Digital Wine Communications Conference in Plodiv, Bulgaria.
Incidentally Justice Beach doesn't appear to
have considered that the alleged lack of clarity in Jayne's tweet might have
been to the misadventure of Nyetimber since it is often considered better than
many Champagnes on the market.
Of course it can be very difficult within the
constraints of 140 characters to avoid ambiguity but tweets are a publication
even though they are considered by many as fleeting. However, the transitory moment becomes very fixed when they feature in a legal case.
Does the Champagne Jayne judgment have
implications for others that use Champagne in their business or social names.
What, for instance of Giles Fallowfield with a website (http://www.champagneguru.co.uk) and a Twitter handle – @ChampagneGuruUK need to be careful not to mislead when commenting about non-Champagne
sparkling wines? The judgment, of course, is valid within Australian
jurisdiction but the CIVC might decide to raise the section of the judgment
related to 'misleading' in other parts of the world.
It could be that Justice Beach will allow
Champagne Escorts to insist that its girls can only drink Champagne when
visiting clients in their hotels...... to drink other sparkling wines could be misleading......
