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In its judgment of 13 November 2015, the Dutch Supreme Court asked two preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), one of which concerning the “communication to the public”-criterion stated in Article 3 paragraph 1 of the EU’s Copyright Directive. The questions were formed in relation to pending proceedings between Stichting BREIN, a Dutch collective rights management organisation, and Ziggo and XS4ALL, two Dutch internet service providers (ISPs). At first instance, Stichting BREIN had asked for an order directed at the ISPs, to block not only all IP addresses currently...

On 30 September 2015, the District Court of Midden-Nederland sent a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), containing the following question: does “communication to the public”, within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC, include providing access to copyright-protected material by media players using “add-ons”? Add-ons are software files made by third parties and are freely available on the Internet. They can contain hyperlinks to streaming websites on which access to copyright-protected material has been made available, not necessarily with...

In a judgment on preliminary relief proceedings on 12 August 2015, the District Court of Amsterdam declared the broadcast of images of the former mayor of Maastricht unlawful. The images were recorded by the Dutch broadcaster Powned, by means of a hidden camera. The Court ordered Powned to ensure that the unlawful images can no longer be found through search engines on the Internet. In December 2013, the mayor of Maastricht, who is married, was discredited when a Dutch broadcaster published a photo of him kissing a 24-year-old man in a hotel lobby. In the same period, a photo of the mayor was found...

In its judgment of 16 June 2015, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal decided that media may assume that press reports published by the news agency ANP are factually correct. The case concerned two articles written by journalists of the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf on the involvement of former directors in the bankruptcy of investment fund Partrust. The investment fund had been under investigation by the Dutch public prosecutor and the Autoriteit Financiele Markten (Financial Markets Authority - AFM) for large-scale investment fraud and undertaking a pyramid scheme for over five years. In one of the two...

On 14 July 2015, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal upheld an earlier District Court decision that critical statements made in a Dutch television programme regarding the airline Ryanair were not unlawful. Around the end of 2012, the Dutch public broadcaster KRO aired two episodes of a programme in which the business practices of Ryanair were said to endanger flight safety. More specifically, it was said that pilots were encouraged to fly with the absolute minimum of fuel and that they felt obliged to fly whilst feeling unwell. KRO also published press releases preceding the broadcasts. Ryanair appealed...