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In December 2015, the District Court of Amsterdam ordered the Dutch public broadcaster PowNed to prevent further broadcasting of a video item. The item featured a Syrian refugee who seemed to express an aversion to homosexuality and talked about a medical problem with his testicles (IRIS 2016-2/21). On 16 August 2016, the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam overturned parts of the judgment. The Court of Appeal separately assessed whether PowNed lawfully broadcasted the video fragment concerning homosexuality next to the fragment about the man’s medical issues. The Court also distinctly evaluated whether...

On 31 August 2016, the District Court of Amsterdam held broadcasting organisation PowNed liable for broadcasting private conversations between former Dutch mayor Onno Hoes and a 24-year-old man he was romantically involved with (for the preliminary decision, see IRIS 2015-10/25). Hoes, at that time the mayor of the Dutch city Maastricht and married for several years, met the man, Robbie Hasselt, a few times during the autumn of 2014. Hoes had been involved in a scandal in 2013, when he was seen kissing another man. For a short period of time, his position as mayor seemed to be in danger, but the...

On 20 September 2016, The Court of Appeal of Arnhem-Leeuwarden rejected the appeals of the author Robert Moszkowicz for copyright infringement of his autobiography. The Court stated there is no reasonable suspicion, or threat, of an infringement by the television drama “De Maatschap” of Dutch Mountain Film (DMF) and the Dutch broadcaster VPRO. While the drama series tells the story of the Meyer family, it is inspired by the life of the Moszkowicz family. According to Moszkowicz, the drama series is based on his autobiography, “De Straatvechter”. Moszkowicz started proceedings in the District Court...

On 12 August 2016, the Dutch data protection authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens - AP) announced that a provider of interactive digital television, XS4ALL (a subsidiary of KPN), had ended a number of practices which violated the Dutch Data Protection Act (Wet bescherming persoonsgegevens - WBP) (for a previous decision, see IRIS 2015-7/25). The AP also published the conclusions of its investigation into the practices of XS4ALL’s digital interactive television in a 104-page report. The AP found that KPN and XS4ALL process data about the viewing behaviour of customers in a number of ways, including...

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...