Surely this is unrealistic and takes insufficient account of the complex range of motivations at play. The objectives of the press in a modern democratic society cannot really be described as only, or even primarily, commercial. Moreover the court's reasoning appears to be that the loss of a politician's commercial right to prevent publication of his working documents (partly so that he can exploit their commercial value himself at a later date) requires compensation to be paid even where (unlike in the Ashdown case) the court decides that the circumstances are such that freedom of expression justifies publication. At present, this question is unresolved and the circumstances in which freedom of expression will override the Copyright Act is left undefined.
The court of appeal has opened the door to the possibility of a "freedom of expression" defence in copyright cases but when and in what circumstances such defence will be allowed has been left to be decided in future cases.