Search results : 477

On 31 March 2009 the Chamber of the Third Section of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a highly controversial judgment in the case of Sanoma Uitgevers B.V. v. the Netherlands. In a 4/3 decision, the Court was of the opinion that the order to hand over a CD-ROM with photographs in the possession of the editor-in-chief of a weekly magazine claiming protection of journalistic sources did not amount to a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The finding and motivation of the majority of the Chamber was not only strongly disapproved of in the world of...

On 31 May 2010 the Court of The Hague decided that two cable television companies, Ziggo and UPC, cannot be obliged to resell their products to alternative providers, as this might breach their contractual obligations. The Dutch Telecom Regulator (OPTA) wanted to stimulate market competition by allowing alternative providers to offer packages (internet, telephony and television) by way of reselling television signals offered by Ziggo and UPC. These plans are now thwarted. Last year, OPTA imposed a ‘wholesale line rental - cable’ obligation on Ziggo and UPC. OPTA wanted to oblige the two companies...

On 16 June 2010, the Amsterdam District Court ordered the three operators of The Pirate Bay to stop all their activities in the Netherlands and make their websites inaccessible for users in the country, under penalty of EUR 50,000 per day, the maximum possible fine being EUR 500,000. The Amsterdam District Court hereby confirms in the proceedings on the merits its earlier decision in summary proceedings that the Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland (Entertainment Industry Rights Protection Netherlands - BREIN), the Dutch rightsholders representative, had initiated against the three...

On 24 June 2010, the European Commission issued a set of reasoned opinions to 12 member states (Austria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, and Slovenia) requesting that they proceed with updating their national broadcasting legislation in order to bring it into compliance with the Audiovisual Media Service (AVMS) Directive. The Directive, which replaced the Television without Frontiers Directive of 1989 (as amended), was adopted in December 1997 with the intention of bringing the EU’s broadcasting rules up to speed with the digital age. The...

The Hague District Court issued a judgment in preliminary proceedings on 2 June 2010 in the case of FTD BV v Eyeworks Film & TV Drama BV. The case concerned the role played by the defendant FTD in the downloading of copyright material from Usenet. FTD provides a service through which users can easily find and download Usenet files. To that end, FTD provides access to a computer application (the FTD application) with which users can share information about files, including copyright-protected works, stored in Usenet servers. The main question examined by the judge involved the extent to which this...