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On 13 January 2015, the District Court of Amsterdam declared the appeal by the broadcaster Sapphire against a decision refusing to grant it exemption from the European works quota for the years 2008-2012 inadmissible, as exemptions cannot be granted retrospectively. The Audiovisual Media Services Directive mandates that broadcasters are required to include a certain percentage of European works in their programming schedules. TV channels in the Netherlands should reserve more than half of their transmission time for European works, on the basis of Article 3.20 of the Dutch Media Act (Mediawet)....

The Dutch Telecommunications Data Retention Act (Wet bewaarplicht telecommunicatiegegevens) has been suspended as of 11 March 2015. The Act required providers of public telecommunications services and networks to retain traffic and location data of telephone and internet communications, for the purpose of investigating serious crimes. Telephone data had to be retained for twelve months; internet data for six months. The Act implemented the Data Retention Directive (2006/24/EC) (see IRIS 2006-3/110), which the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated in the Digital Rights Ireland...

On 8 January 2015, the College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven (CBb), a Dutch court of last instance for certain administrative matters, gave its partial decision in a case concerning the renewal fees for commercial radio broadcasting licences. It found that the calculation method applied to determine this fee was unsuitable for one of the licences and that, as a consequence, the charge levied for that licence was too high. The Dutch Telecommunications Act (Telecommunicatiewet) contains rules on the allocation of radio broadcasting frequencies. Those frequencies intended for commercial use can...

On 23 December 2014, the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam ruled in favour of the Dutch broadcast company Powned in a dispute regarding a board member of Buma/Stemra, the Dutch collective rights management society for musical works. This decision affirms the decision of the District Court of Amsterdam. Powned had published on its website and in its television news programme that Gerrits, board member of Buma/Stemra, was “corrupt”. Powned based this allegation on a phone call between Gerrits and an agent of a composer. In this phone call, which Powned secretly recorded, Gerrits offered to use his influential...

Reporting on the developments within the media sector and more specifically the levels of media concentration in Flanders is one of the tasks that is assigned to the Flemish Media Regulator (Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media) by the Flemish Media Decree. The extensive 2014 report emphasises that it is increasingly difficult to undertake this task, as trends towards cross-media ownership and convergence proliferate. Flemish media groups are more and more intertwined and enter into alternating alliances in their quest to strengthen their position across various media. In addition, vertical concentration...