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On 26 February 2003, the district court of Rotterdam (the specialised court for telecommunications) issued a judgment that limits the judicial competence of the Onafhankelijke Post en Telecommunicatie Autoriteit (Independent Post and Telecommunications Authority - OPTA), the Dutch telecommunications regulator, concerning the access of broadcasters to cable networks. Article 8.7 Telecommunicatiewet 1998 (1998 Telecommunications Act - Tw) states that in the case where a broadcasting organisation and a cable network provider fail to reach an agreement on the access of the broadcaster's programmes...

The national film institutes of the 15 Member States of the European Union have made a common declaration on the importance of State aid for European films. This is the first time the film institutes have made a common statement. The national film institutes are publicly funded and were founded to support national and European film culture. In this common declaration the institutes express their concerns regarding the necessity for State aid for European films. The institutes are worried that the audio-visual sector in Europe will be left solely to the chances of free market forces. In the declaration,...

For many years, frequencies for commercial radio (AM and FM) have been allocated on a temporary basis in the Netherlands. For almost a decade, discussions took place on the amount of available frequencies and on how to allocate them. About two years ago, consensus was reached and the decision was taken to use an auction to assign nine national licences for commercial FM radio (frequencies for regional/local commercial radio are also available, but are not further discussed here). This would mean a substantial increase in the number of stations. However, the Dutch Parliament changed its mind and...

The Dutch Secretary of State for Education, Culture and Science was right to reject the request of the broadcasting organisation, DeNieuwe Omroep, for a provisional accreditation to enter the Dutch public broadcasting system. That was the judgment of the Afdeling Bestuursrechtspraak Raad van State (the highest instance for appeal in cases of administrative law - ABRvS) on 24 July 2002. The Dutch public broadcasting system is formed by private organisations that are publicly financed. In principle, every five years, new parties can enter the public broadcasting system if they fulfil the conditions...

A number of Member States of the Council of Europe have either signed or ratified treaties of relevance to the audiovisual sector since the publication in IRIS 2002-5 of the table of signatures and ratifications of such treaties. - On 14 May, the Netherlands became the eighth country to accede to the European Convention on the Legal Protection of Services based on, or consisting of, Conditional Access (see IRIS 2000-9: 3). Having signed this Convention on 24 January 2001, Romania proceeded to become the first country to ratify it on 26 August 2002. The Convention will enter into force upon ratification...