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In accordance with Article 31(1) of Directive 2002/22/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 March 2002 on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services (the Universal Service Directive), the Belgian audiovisual regulatory authority (the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel - CSA) recently issued an opinion on the review of “must-carry” obligations in the French-speaking part of Belgium. Under the directive, these obligations must be reviewed periodically. The CSA’s most recent consolidated review had been conducted in 2014. As part...

On 26 November 2018, the EU Commission initiated proceedings for infringement of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union against 17 member states for non-compliance with the Directive requiring the transposition into national law of the Marrakesh Treaty (Directive (EU) 2017/1564) (see IRIS 2017-9/4 and IRIS 2016-9/4). The Marrakesh Treaty is a WIPO-administered convention that was signed on 27 June 2013 and entered into force on 30 September 2016, after the first 20 ratifications. The Treaty facilitates access to print works in formats adapted for persons who are blind, visually impaired...

The Court of First Instance in Brussels has ordered Facebook to stop tracking users on third-party sites, and to destroy all similar data it has illegally collected thus far. The judgment is the latest in a long-running legal battle between the Belgian Privacy Commission and Facebook. The former started court proceedings against the social network site in 2015, when a study revealed that Facebook tracked non-users and logged out users for advertising purposes through “data cookies” on external websites (“third-party tracking”). Summary proceedings resulted in a judgment by the Brussels Court of...

In a case concerning religious extremism on the Internet, the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) confirmed that defending “Sharia law” while calling for violence to establish it could be regarded as “hate speech”. The Court held that, in accordance with Article 17 (prohibition of abuse of rights) of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”), the discourse at issue did not fall under the protection of Article 10 of the ECHR, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression. The case concerns the conviction of Mr Belkacem, the leader...

The Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel de la Communauté Française (audiovisual regulatory body for the French Community of Belgium - CSA) wants to bring RTL Belgium under its control. However, the broadcaster, which belongs to the RTL Group and operates the RTL-TVi, Club RTL and Plug RT channels, only recognises the authority of the Autorité luxembourgeoise indépendante de l’audiovisuel (Luxembourg independent audiovisual authority - ALIA). The CSA is the regulatory body for the French Community of Belgium. On 29 June 2017, it announced that it wanted to bring the broadcaster RTL Belgium under...