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On 8 June 2011 Maxime Verhagen, Dutch Minister of Economic affairs Agriculture, and Innovation, accepted an amendment to the Dutch Telecommunications Law that guarantees net(work) neutrality. In its purest form, net neutrality is the principle that all users on the internet should be able to communicate with each other without interference by third parties, such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The need for an amendment came after telecom companies declared that they had plans to start charging users for the use of Internet applications and services, such as WhatsApp and Skype. The main spark...

On 16 June 2011, the European Court of Justice delivered its preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of Art. 5(2)(b) and Art. 5(5) of Directive 2001/29 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. Art. 5(2)(b) allows a private copy exception on the reproduction right of copyright owners, provided that the rightholders receive a fair compensation. According to Art. 5(5), such an exception may not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work or unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rightholder. Questions arose in...

On 1 March 2011, the Dutch Media Authority published a special edition of its annual Mediamonitor on trends and developments in Dutch media markets and companies. The English report is meant for an international audience and has a different structure from the regular annual Monitor. By informing other Member States about the national media system, the Dutch Media Authority wants to foster the safeguarding of important values, such as media diversity and the distribution of opinion power. Moreover, the overview of the facts and actual media concentration is intended to contribute to the development...

On 11 April 2011 Fred Teeven, the Dutch State Secretary for Public Safety and Justice, published a mission statement titled “Speerpuntenbrief auteursrecht 20©20” in which he proposes to modernise the Dutch Copyright Law. In his mission statement Teeven addresses a number of issues, which will be discussed below. The main emphasis of the mission statement is to enhance the public’s trust in the copyright system and strengthen the position of authors of copyright protected works. First and foremost Teeven plans to alter the download system in the Netherlands. At present it is legal to download copyrighted...

On 9 March 2011 the Court of Appeals of the district of The Hague (Court of Appeals) issued a judgment in a case regarding the question of whether breaking into an encrypted router and using the Wi-Fi connection is a criminal offence under Article 138ab of the Dutch Criminal Code. The decision of the Court of Appeals relates to the case of a high school student who posted a threat on the Internet message board 4chan.org in which he declared his intention to begin a shooting spree at his high school, the Maerlant College in The Hague. He posted this threat using a Wi-Fi connection he had hacked...