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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...

The European Commission has finished the preliminary analysis of the measures implementing the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive into national law notified by 16 Member States: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. Subsequently, the European Commission has sent fact-finding letters to these states inquiring about these implementing measures. The Commission is thus seeking to ensure that all provisions of the AVMS Directive have been correctly transposed into...