Pink – If you send a video of yourself to one of those TV shows you’ve kind of forfeited your right to the contents being private. And I’ll bet that when you get your cheque for £250 (or whatever they pay for submissions) it comes with a mini-bundle of legal docs saying that by accepting payment you sign over the copyright of the video and indemnify the TV production company against actions arising from the contents.

Did Max know he was being filmed? That’s one aspect that seems to have been lost in the flurry of speculation about this story. Have you ever noticed, while perusing the shelves of DVD rental outlets, that for every blockbuster genre movie (such as Gladiator or Lord of the Rings) there seems to be a soft porn ‘re-imagining’ – usually not too far along the shelf? Maybe this video was supposed to be a low-budget, x-rated re-enactment of The Producers… or ‘Allo ‘Allo. Could it be that when the NOTW post a fresh bunch of clips we’ll be treated to some burlesque japes featuring the drug in the jug, the pill in the till, the candle with the handle or the gateau from the chateau? The mind boggles…

Makes his case a little more tenuous then, don’t you think?

Also, if as I suspect, one of the hookers sold the tape to NOTW – given she is in the video, how then is it not allowed for her to sell a video of herself to a newspaper? You can argue that consent from all the participants should be required but I think that is on shaky ground.

Take a show like Funniest Home Videos, where people send in tapes of famiy/friends having mishaps. Do all of those people have to give consent before the tape is shown, or is implied consent enough?

Someone more legally minded than me can probably answer those questions – but I am betting that NOTW had already thought all of this through before they published the story. I really think Mad Max is just throwing good money after bad with this endeavour.

When Guido Fawkes got a grilling on Newsnight, Michael White said the reason no-one sued him was because he wasn’t worth suing because he didn’t have any money.

Nonetheless, you are probably right Vilehackwriter. The only reason bloggers aren’t sued yet is because they don’t matter a jot. Suing us would only bring more attention to what we said. If we had readerships as large as the Sunday newspapers, I’m sure we would be sued if we stepped out of line whether we had money or not.

I read a comment on a blog – maybe here, maybe elsewhere – which said, in effect, “No one will sue me – I don’t have any money.” This is a rather daft statement; if you publish something that’s damaging enough to somebody then they’ll come after you – through the courts or by other means (the infamous “white van job”). A mate of mine once fielded a call from a senior motorsport figure who tersely introduced himself before growling, “Get your facts right before someone cuts your balls off.”

In the Mosley case, any libel action would revolve around the video – as the NOTW sought to prove their allegations true. The ‘sting’ of the libel is not the spanking but the supposed subtext. By making it a matter of privacy – disputing not the content of the video, but whether it should have been shown in public – the focus moves away from the Nazi allegations. The test in a privacy case is whether a person of ordinary sensibilities would view disclosure of the private information as objectionable; and in certain circumstances (such as in a private house) there’s a stronger expectation of privacy than in others. Hiddden camera stuff is particularly frowned upon. It’s a complicated area. The NOTW is arguing that there’s a strong enough ‘public interest’ case here to justify the intrusion – but remember that to a High Court judge ‘public interest’ doesn’t mean ‘what interests the public’. Mr Justice Eady was explicit on that count: “there is no legitimate public interest in its further publication.”

In that case, you have to declare yesterday’s court action a draw: Max failed to take the video out of circulation, but the NOTW now knows their public interest case is feeble. Unless they’ve been keeping their powder dry – in which case, look out for more revelations on Sunday…

1) He resigns (which he won’t do; he simply refuses to accept that he’s done any wrong)

2) The World-Council-and-EGA process (or double-EGA, as it looks like being) is followed.

If you feel the need for an option 3), blame the FIA Statutes, for they have forced this matter.