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In May and June 2016, the General Chamber of the Flemish Media Regulator issued six decisions that relate to the provisions in the Flemish Media Decree on sponsorship. In five cases the Chamber concluded that an infringement had occurred (for previous decisions, see IRIS 2015-6/6). Four of those five cases concerned a violation of Article 2 (41) of the Flemish Media Decree which contains the definition of sponsorship (“every contribution by a public or private company, the authorities, or a natural person not engaged in providing broadcasting services or producing audiovisual or audio works, to...

On 8 September 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its judgment in GS Media v. Sanoma Media Netherlands, on whether posting a hyperlink to a copyright-protected work freely available on another website, but without the copyright holder’s consent, is a “communication to the public” within the meaning of the Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC). The case arose when the publisher of Playboy magazine (Sanoma) brought a copyright action against a popular Dutch website GeenStijl.nl, over a November 2011 article entitled “Nude photos of … Dekker”. GeenStijl’s article had included...

The District Court of Rotterdam has ordered Google Inc. to remove two hyperlinks from its “.nl” and “.com” search engine that refer to a blog post about the applicant’s foreign conviction in 2012 for illegal possession of a weapon. The applicant worked as a lawyer outside the Netherlands in 2012 and 2013. In 2012 he was criminally convicted of illegal gun ownership and given a suspended prison sentence and community service. A local blogger wrote about the judgment, thereby disclosing the applicant’s name and picture. This blog post could be found on Google Search by entering the applicant’s name....

In a judgment on 13 April 2016, the District Court of Amsterdam upheld the complaint of medical company Terumo against broadcasting organisation AVROTROS and two of its employees. The defendants were held liable for damages under Dutch tort law for two broadcasts about medical equipment of producer Terumo. The broadcasts were part of the news programme EenVandaag. In summary, the journalists of EenVandaag reported on two anonymous whistle-blowers, who alleged that medical equipment produced by Terumo could be a threat to public health, and stated that Terumo knowingly maintained these wrongs. The...

The District Court of Midden-Nederland ordered the Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (Dutch Public Broadcaster NOS), to rectify two articles it had published on its website. In these articles, Mr Baybaşin, the plaintiff, was associated with a person who is suspected of an execution in Turkey in 2014. More than a decade ago, the plaintiff received life imprisonment in the Netherlands for a series of serious offences, such as involvement in murder and hostage taking, and participation as a director in a criminal organisation. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in cassation, but in 2011 the plaintiff...