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On 10 April 2012 the Dutch government adopted an amendment to Article 2139 of the Dutch Media Act 2008, which makes programme data available by abolishing the monopoly held by public broadcasting organisations. The new Article 2139 of the Dutch Media Act 2008 will enter into force on 1 January 2013. The amendment is based on the main conclusions set forth in a 2011 report by the Commissariaat voor de Media (Dutch Media Authority) initiated by the Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science - OCW). The goal of the amendment is to liberalise the market...

On 26 January 2012, the Court of Hertogenbosch annulled a decision by the Province of Noord-Brabant regarding the lowering or funding to the regional broadcaster ‘Omroep Brabant’. Under the Dutch Media Act (Mediawet) each Province is obliged to financially enable at least one regional broadcaster. Specifically Article 2.170 of the Dutch Media Act states that a Province has to enable a media-offer of high quality and has to guarantee continuity of funding, maintaining the quality and quantity that was the standard in 2004. On 2 July 2010 the Province of Noord-Brabant adopted a decision to lower...

On 12 December 2011, the European Commission notified the Onafhankelijke Post en Telecommunicatie Authoriteit (Independent Post and Telecommunication Authority - OPTA), the Dutch national regulatory authority, that it had no comments on OPTA’s assessment of the retail market for TV services in the Netherlands. As the retail market for TV services is not listed in the Commission Recommendation 2007/879/EC of 17 December 2007 on relevant product and service markets within the electronic communications sector susceptible to ex ante regulation, OPTA has carried out the three criteria test to assess...

On 11 January 2012 the District Court of The Hague ordered two Dutch internet access providers to block access to The Pirate Bay. Furthermore, Stichting BREIN, a foundation protecting the interests of the Dutch copyright industry, has been granted a right to directly request the providers to block future IP-addresses and (sub) domain names that may refer to The Pirate Bay. The providers in question, Ziggo and XS4ALL, have already announced they will appeal the ruling. BREIN, on the other hand, has announced it will request similar measures from other providers. The District Court found the legal...

On 21 October 2011, the Rechtbank Amsterdam (Amsterdam Court) dismissed an action brought by a convicted criminal against the broadcasting of the filming of his crime. The plaintiff was involved in the kidnapping of a well-known Dutch businessman in 1983. He is currently in prison for a conviction unconnected with the abduction. The defendant in the instant case was a Dutch film production company that filmed the kidnapping. Inter alia, the plaintiff claimed that the film portrayed the victim’s abduction and weeklong imprisonment as more violent than it actually was and thus breached his right...