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On 31 August 2020, the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education and Media introduced a new bill to the Lower House of Parliament (Tweede Kamer), which will amend the Media Act (Mediawet) 2008, in order to strengthen the future of public broadcasting. The publication of the bill follows the Minister’s Letter to Parliament in June 2020 on the future of public broadcasting, which set out the Dutch Government’s plans for public broadcasting. The Minister also reached agreement on the proposed amendments with the public broadcasting organisation NPO (Nederlandse Publieke Omroep) earlier...

On 7 July 2020, the Rechtbank Amsterdam (District Court of Amsterdam) delivered a notable judgment on illegal content posted during a public broadcaster’s Facebook Live event. The content was held to fall under Article 137c of the Dutch Criminal Code, which forbids the public insult of a group of people based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.  The facts of this case concern the comment of a 49-year-old man which he posted in the comment section of the public broadcaster NOS’s livestream of the Keti Koti festival, broadcast on Facebook Live. This is an annual...

On 2 June 2020, the Gerechtshof Amsterdam (Amsterdam Court of Appeal) delivered an important judgment in the case between Internet service providers (ISPs) Ziggo and XS4ALL against Stichting Brein, following years of litigation. Stichting Brein is a foundation formed by rightsholders to act against copyright piracy. Stichting Brein requested a dynamic blocking injunction against the two ISPs at the Court of The Hague in 2014 for not blocking access to The Pirate Bay (see IRIS 2014-3/37). The case made its way to the Netherlands Supreme Court (Hoge Raad der Nederlanden), who asked the Court of...

On 9 June 2020, the Gerechtshof Amsterdam (Amsterdam Court of Appeal) issued an important ruling on the use of hidden-camera footage as part of a commercial broadcaster’s investigative programme. The case arose on 9 October 2016, when the Dutch broadcaster SBS6 broadcast an episode for the television series Undercover in the Netherlands, addressing the performance of illegal polygamous wedding ceremonies by imams. The show used hidden cameras attached to witnesses of a ceremony in order to document it. The claimant, the Imam who was secretly filmed for this episode, initiated legal proceedings...

On 30 April 2020, the District Court of The Hague (Rechtbank Den Haag) ruled that a US television provider is entitled to the names and addresses of Internet subscribers or users using an IP address from which it was presumed that an unlawful exchange of files containing protected works had taken place. The judgment was made against WorldStream, which is a Dutch-based Internet hosting provider. The case revolved around Dish Network, which is a provider of paid television in the United States, and Internet hosting provider WorldStream. Dish Network has concluded licence agreements with the owners...