We are proud to be able to celebrate the tenth year of publication of the Entertainment and Sports Law Journal with this anniversary edition. The last 10 years have proved eventful in many ways, not least for the journal. Starting out as the journal Entertainment Law with Frank Cass in 2002, when Frank Cass were taken over by Taylor Francis we made the decision to move the journal into the developing field of open access, and heralded this with a name to change, after much debate adding ‘Sports Law’ to the title to reflect the large amount of sport based material we were starting to attract at the time. The past ten years have seen many developments in the publishing industry, both inside and outside of academia, not least in terms of the ways and means by which material can now be published and the possibilities of the on line environment for this.
During the first ten years of the Journal we have continued to try and keep developing the ways in which we present and deliver material, adding new features and sections where possible, and publishing material from outside the traditional foci. For example, witness our Responsessection where Geoff Pearson in Issue 9.1 responded to Steve Redhead’s piece ‘ Little Hooliganz’ in Issue 8.2, or Bettina Lange’s response to the special issue on Big Brother and Governing Celebrity. In addition, we have been proud to publish innovative pieces by authors such as David Crystal, whose paper was originally a performance lecture, and would not normally appear in a law journal. This issue continues that with our first foray into multimedia, with Cory Doctorow’s lecture given at the Centre for Law, Society and Popular Culture, University of Westminster, in February 2012, presented in video form. We encourage further such initiatives and are hoping to commission more responses, but already a dialogue is emerging from the Guardian’s video edit of his presentation, which may provide food for thought. Anyone who is interested in submitting a Response to this, or anything else, please contact the editors.
We have taken the opportunity of the tenth anniversary to freshen up the journal and make some new additions. These include the following, although we see the journal as developing organically so these may not be the last changes that will be seen and there may be tweaks during this process. The key change is however that from 2013 we will be adopting a new iterative publishing policy. Oneof the possibilities of online open access publishing is to publish material as soon as it has been accepted by the editors following external expert peer review. This is a model used successfully by journals such as the Scandinavian Sports Studies Forum, and from 2013 we will be adopting this policy. There is still however the possibility of self-standing ‘Special Issues’. These have long been supported by the journal, and anyone interested in one of these should contact one of the Editors.
Another change is that we have started to revamp the Editorial Board. The first important change to note is that Dr David McArdle is stepping down from his role as Editor. David’s role as one of the three founding editors was an important one, and his direct input will be sadly missed although his influence will still loom large. In addition, there will be a number of changes in the Editorial Board over the coming issues. Last year in anticipation of the 10thanniversary we contacted Board members thanking them for their help during the first decade of the journal and discussed with them the way the journal was moving, and what we needed to take the journal forward. As such we are starting to make changes to the Board and will be inviting new Board members to join over the coming months. We are especially keen to add members who add something new to the mix and have expertise in areas such as art, computer games, intellectual property issues, so watch this space for developments here. The last 10 years of the Journal have had many highlights, with special issues emanating from seminars on the Big Brother ‘racist’ furore etc. This final issue in the ‘old’ style is similarly engaging and includes the following:
Geoff Pearson - Dirty Trix at Euro 2008: Brand Protection, Ambush Marketing and Intellectual Property Theft at the European Football Championships
Adam Pendlebury - The Regulation of on-the-ball Offences: Challenges in Court
Cory Doctorow – The coming war on general computation.
Whilst not an article as such, this is our first foray into a multimedia presentation in the journal. The lecture was given as part of the Entertainment Law: Theory Meets Practice Series at the Centre for Law, Society and Popular Culture, University of Westminster in February 2012. It is presented in both edited version, courtesy of The Guardian newspaper and in full unedited form via the University of Westminster website.
Christian Ambruster – Stemming illegal trade of works of art - how can Private law contribute?
Daniel Geey - Football League Financial Fair Play: Domestic League Regulation
With the publication of the first piece in 2013 we will be detailing some more changes but if you have any queries, or questions, please contact the editors.