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On 20 September 20 2015, the District Court of Amsterdam denied attempts by two plaintiffs to prevent the broadcasting of secretly recorded audiovisual materials. The first plaintiff, Volkert van der Graaf, had been conditionally released from prison, having been sentenced to 18 years after he murdered the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002. Graaf had been released six years early from prison on, amongst others, the condition that he would refrain from contact with the media. In the secretly recorded footage at issue in this case, Graaf was recorded stating that he himself contacted a photographer...

On 5 October 2015, the Hague District Court ruled in Stichting BREIN v Google that Google has to provide the contact details of a user that illegally traded in e-books on Google Play. According to the Dutch court, the protection of intellectual property rights of the publishers outweighs the user’s right to freedom of speech and Google’s right to conduct a business. The user offered e-books far below the regular price under the name of Flamenca Hollanda on Google Play Books. On behalf of the Dutch publishers, Stichting BREIN - an anti-piracy foundation - requested Google to take down the illegal...

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...