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On 12 January 2018, amendments to the Information Society Code (see IRIS 2015-3/11) were enacted which enter into force on 1 June 2018. Firstly, the Code will be renamed the Act on Electronic Communications Services (ECSA). Secondly, among the core amendments, the provisions on the issuance of programme licences will include new conditions for granting and withdrawing such licences. Alongside previous conditions, the Finnish Communication Regulatory Authority (FICORA) must grant the licence should there not be a manifest reason to suspect that the applicant will violate Section 6 on age limits,...

Finland supports public-interest television news programs. The supplementary State budget for 2017 had a separate EUR 1 million allocated for the purpose, whereas the budget for next year contains double that amount. The support aims at safeguarding pluralism in news production and securing alternative news sources in linear TV as well as boosting the competitiveness of news and current affairs activity. The state aid covers both the costs of carrying out regular activity and project costs, with criteria and conditions laid down in a new Government Decree on supporting news and current affairs...

Following the Chamber judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) two years ago (see IRIS 2015-8/1), the Grand Chamber has also come to the conclusion that the right to freedom of expression and information was not violated in Satakunnan Markkinapörssi Oy and Satamedia Oy v. Finland. By fifteen votes to two the Grand Chamber found that a prohibition issued by the Finnish Data Protection Board that had prevented two media companies from publishing personal taxation data in the manner and to the extent that they had published these data before was to be considered as a legal, legitimate...

The Finnish Act on Collective Management of Copyright (1494/2016; CMA) entered into force on 1 January 2017. The act implements the requirements of Directive 2014/26/EU on collective rights management and the multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal market (CMD). The CMA covers issues such as the rights of rightsholders (Chapter 2) and members (Chapter 3) as well as their relations to users (Chapter 7). Management of rights revenue is regulated in Chapter 5, while transparency and informational duties are also covered (Chapter 8). Multi-territorial licensing...

On 17 February 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rendered its judgment (C-314/14) on television advertising. The ruling sheds light on the proper interpretation of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (2010/13/EU; AVMSD). The preceding television directive from 1989 as amended in 1997 and 2007 was implemented by the Finnish Act on Television and Radio Operations (744/1998; TV and Radio Act) and amendments thereto. Subsequently, the provisions at issue of the TV and Radio Act have been codified in the Information Society Code (917/2014; ISC) (with minor amendments) which...