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The Dutch kabinet (Council of Ministers) has agreed with the proposal of the Minister of State for Education, Culture and Science, Rick van der Ploeg, to grant licences for Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T). One licence - covering four of the five multiplexes to be awarded by the Government - will be granted to a commercial operator on the basis of a "beauty contest". The other licence, that covers one multiplex, will go to the public broadcasters. At least 80% of the capacity will be allocated for broadcasting traditional television programmes. The remaining capacity may be used for...

The Minister is of the view that it would be better for the further development of the portalsite and accompanying services to take place independently of the Government. Arguments for this include the Minister's reservations about being in a position whereby he would be able to influence the content of education by determining the content of the portalsite. Continued responsibility for Kennisnet could leave him in such a position. The Minister published a handvest (charter) entitled Kennisnet which, inter alia, allows limited-scale advertising on Kennisnet. He believes that the participation...

The Dutch commercial broadcasting station Veronica has lost its chosen name ME in a dispute over trademark infringement. Ruling in summary proceedings, the District Court of Utrecht held that ME is confusingly similar to WE, the well-known trademark of a chain of clothing stores. The station, owned by RTL/Holland Media Groep (RTL/HMG), will be obliged to drop its current name, Veronica, on 1 September 2001, following the withdrawal from RTL/HMG in May 2000 of the Veronica broadcasting association, which owns the Veronica trademark. After losing ME to WE, the former Veronica has decided to take...

In a judgment of 17 November 2000, the Hasselt Criminal Court convicted a person who was found in possession of pictures and software containing images of sexual behaviour of a pornographic character featuring minors aged under 16. He was convicted under Article 383bis of the Criminal Code. Two Internet Service Providers (ISPs) whose infrastructure and services had been used to distribute and receive the illegal content on the Internet were not convicted. The Court referred to the basic rules of the Belgian Collaboration Protocol to Help Stamp Out Illegal Acts on the Internet (see IRIS 1999-7:...

By means of an amendment to the Burgerlijk Wetboek (Civil Code), Directive 97/55/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 October 1997 amending Directive 84/450/EEC concerning misleading advertising so as to include comparative advertising was transposed into Dutch law. The Directive states that comparative advertising is, in principle, admissible in the European Community, provided a number of carefully defined criteria are met. In order to transpose the Directive, an new Article 194a was added to the Dutch Civil Code, defining comparative advertising and explaining under what conditions...