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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...

The Onafhankelijke Post en Telecommunicatie Autoriteit (Independent Post and Telecommunications Authority - OPTA) has published its final rules and tariffs for Holland’s two largest cable operators, UPC and Ziggo. Already on 22 December 2009, the European Commission stated that it had no comments on the draft version of the decision by OPTA (see IRIS 2010-2: 1/3). Now OPTA has published a slightly amended version of its decision. Last year, Holland’s four largest cable operators were labeled as having significant market power by OPTA. However, OPTA imposed a ‘Wholesale Line Rental - Cable’ obligation...