IMAGE rights legislation in Guernsey moved a step closer yesterday as the IP Registry launched an industry consultation on draft image rights laws.

Last September the States approved the principle of the island becoming the first jurisdiction to introduce image rights laws, which could stand to bring significant wealth management opportunities to the island.

Now the draft legislation has been published, the document is being made available to industry practitioners and on request to interested parties locally but it is not being published on the internet.

A four-week consultation was launched yesterday to the 40-strong IP commercial group, which the Commerce and Employment Department worked with in drawing up its proposals.

‘Last year we launched an image rights consultation to see what industry wanted in the proposed law and covered off many of the areas that were in our report to the States. Nonetheless, we still need to look at how that’s actually translated into the legislation,’ said John Ogier, the States registrar of intellectual property, pictured.