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The Netherlands Regulatory Authority for the Telecommunications and Postal sector (OPTA) and the Dutch competition authority (NMa) have published guidelines on access to cable television networks. The NMa has a general authority based on the Competition Act to settle certain types of conflicts. OPTA - based on the Telecommunications Act - has the power to give instructions if the provider of a cable television network and the provider of a programme cannot reach agreement on the access to the programme offered to the cable television network concerned. In the guidelines the two regulators indicate...

On 7 September 1999 the Lower Chamber of Parliament accepted a proposal to amend the Mediawet (Media Act) in connection with the implementation of the amended EC «Television without Frontiers» Directive. The proposal ( Kamerstukken II , 1998/99, 26 256, nrs. 1-3; IRIS 1999-8: 11) was brought before the Lower Chamber of Parliament on 19 October 1998. An important item in the proposal is the insertion of a new chapter IVA in the Media Act, entitled `Events of considerable importance to society'. On the basis of this chapter, events can be designated by Order of Council which a large part of the population...

On 2 July 1999 the government submitted a proposal to the Lower Chamber of Parliament to amend the Media Act ( Mediawet) in connection with the introduction of a new concession system for national public broadcasting. The central theme of the proposal is the reorganisation and integration of the public broadcasting system within the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation ( Nederlandse Omroep Stichting - NOS). In this context the concessions of the individual broadcasting associations, which are due to expire in the year 2000, will be abolished and replaced by a concession for a term of ten years for the...

On 9 June 1999 the District Court in The Hague ruled that Internet Service Providers are liable when Internet users infringe copyright and the providers do not take adequate measures to remove or block the infringing material after they have been notified of this unlawful behaviour. The proceedings were preceded by summary proceedings which were reported on in IRIS 1995-9: 4 and IRIS 1996-4: 3. The main plaintiff in this case, the Church of Scientology, claimed that the defendants (23 in total, all but one are Internet Service Providers) had infringed the Church's copyright by making the so called...

Commissariaat voor de Media (the Dutch Media Authority), which oversees the rules formulated in the Dutch Media Act as well as the regulations based on the act, has fined TROS, one of the public broadcasting channels, for having one of their television series sponsored by two major insurance companies. The themes of each episode of the series were directly connected with the themes of the subsequent commercials. The editorial content of the series and the accompanying commercials had been attuned to such a degree that the commercials had more impact than they would have had, if they had been broadcast...