Virtual assignments: breach of covenant against parting with or sharing of possession

Comments on the Chancery Division decision in Clarence House Ltd v National Westminster Bank Plc on whether the alienation covenant in a lease of commercial premises had been breached by the tenant effecting a virtual assignment of it, under which all the economic benefits and burdens of the lease were transferred to a third party without there being any actually assignment of the leasehold interest or change in occupancy.

The creative masses of digital Britain

The present recession has prompted scholarly and journalistic questioning of the contributions of the cultural industries to the economy. The talent-rich metropolitan clusters of London and New York are well-placed to ride out a thoroughgoing shakeup of the media markets if they manage their infrastructure, space and resources strategically, as Richard Florida has recently argued. This seems to be the assumption behind the recent Digital Britain interim report, and Gordon Brown's remarks that a digital revolution "lies at the heart" of Britain's economic recovery and that broadband and the media industry can play a leading role in pulling the UK out of the recession. Focusing on the Digital Britain report and consultation documents, this presentation seeks to unpack some of the fundamental assumptions behind this link between digital infrastructure, creativity and profitability. In particular the implicit notion of an engaged audience of users, generating "content" as well as shaping new media platforms calls into question long-held theoretical constructions of the mass audience of consumers as spectators; instead, the audience emerges as a potential economic powerhouse, an underused resource for tomorrow's cultural industries.