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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...

On 25 April 2002, the President of the District Court of Amsterdam ordered XS4ALL (a Dutch Internet service provider) to take measures to deny access to a website which contained information that was harmful to the plaintiff, Deutsche Bahn AG (DB, a railway company), and furthermore, to provide the plaintiff with the names and addresses of the website-holders. The offending sections of the website contained information given by a group of left-wing activists on how to disrupt and sabotage the German railroad network that is used by DB. Among other things, they described exactly how to fabricate...

In a legal action between the broadcasting company, RTL/De Holland Media Groep S.A. (RTL/HMG), on one side and a Dutch actor and the production company, Endemol, on the other, the District Court of Amsterdam ruled on 11 April 2002 that an actor, contractually bound to RTL/HMG, was not in breach of contract for starring in a drama series of a rival television station. Additionally, the Court found that Endemol, the producer of the series, had not acted unlawfully towards RTL/HMG by creating a series featuring the actor in question. Two contracts existed between RTL/HMG and the actor: one contract...

In its judgment of 29 November 2001, the District Court of Amsterdam ordered a shut-down of the activities of Kazaa and decided as well that Buma/Stemra (the Dutch music-rights organisation) should continue negotiations with Kazaa over a worldwide streaming-licence for the music of the Buma/Stemra members (see IRIS 2002-1: 13). Following this judgment, both parties involved, Kazaa and Buma/Stemra, decided to take their case to a higher court. The President of the District Court had ruled that Kazaa had violated the Dutch Copyright Act by enabling its users to download music with the aid of Kazaa...

An Internet Provider can refuse the sender of unsolicited commercial e-mail (also known as spam) the use of its transport facilities, because it does not have a universal service-connected legal duty to deliver. This was the judgment of the President of the Court of Amsterdam in the first-ever spam case in the Netherlands on 7 March 2002. XS4All, a Dutch Internet Provider, had applied for a temporary injunction. The injunction was sought against AbFab, a Dutch marketing company, which had sent unsolicited commercial e-mail messages to a number of XS4All subscribers. After receiving complaints...