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On 22 December 1999, the Amsterdam Court awarded damages to three freelance journalists whose newspaper articles had been republished in electronic form without their permission. For several years, newspaper publisher De Volkskrant had posted a selection of articles from its printed version on its Internet web site, and had produced quarterly CD-ROM compilations containing all newspaper copy in full-text. De Volkskrant was ordered to pay 3 % of the journalists' annual honorarium for each initial year of web site republication, and 1,5 % for each subsequent year. For CD-ROM uses the percentages...

In a judgment of 28 January 2000, the President of the District Court of Amsterdam ruled that in some circumstances the right to not be damaged in one's honour or reputation by being exposed harshly to insinuations with possible harmful results, can be more important than the right of freedom of speech. The case was as follows: a certain Mr. Van Dijk had a car crash. In his eyes his insurance agent had made not enough effort to look after his interests in relation to the settlement of the costs caused by this crash. As a response to Van Dijk's lack of trust, the insurance agent ended their business...

On 9 November 1999 the Hoge Raad (Dutch Supreme Court) handed down its eagerly-awaited decision in the 'SBS videotapes' case. SBS, a commercial satellite-tocabletelevision station, had recorded video footage of riots in Amsterdam, only parts of which had been broadcast. Subsequently, the judicial authorities had seized the tapes, in order to obtain evidence of possible criminal acts of violence. SBS' complaint against the seizure was partly successful before the Amsterdam District Court. (See IRIS February 1999-2: 5). On appeal, however, the Supreme Court has quashed the Court's decision. Before...

The Dutch Government has sent a proposal to the parliament that would abolish the existing licence fee system. Based on the present Media Act, every holder of a radio and/or television set has to pay a - national, regional and sometimes also a local - licence fee. This fee is used exclusively to finance the public broadcasting system (consisting of national, regional and local broadcasting). The proposed amendment introduces a special tax that will be collected by the ministry of finance. This tax will be at the same level as the existing licence fee. The main reason for introducing the tax instead...

Further to the «Television without Frontiers» Directive a bill was introduced on 11 October 1999 to modify the Media Act and the Dutch Penal Code (PC), as well as to revoke the Act on Film Showings. The objective of this bill is to better protect young people against audio-visual images which are harmful for them. The starting-point of the proposal is self-regulation. Each audio-visual product will be classified on account of the possible harmfulness of exhibition to the young, under the responsibility of the area of business which puts the products in question on the market. The proposal adopts...