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The Dutch Football Federation ( KNVB ) sold the broadcasting rights for its leagues to a new commercial broadcasting channel, Sport 7, which will specialise in sports. The new station is set to start this August. The channel is jointly owned by several investors, under which Philips, ING Bank, production company EndeMol and the Dutch Football Federation, KNVB (10% share). The public broadcasters that lost out by this decision, represented by the coordinator NOS, have threatened to ask for a judicial review to sell the broadcasting rights to a third party, but the NOS has not yet taken any action...

In a verdict in summary judgment of 12 March 1996, the President of the District Court of The Hague ruled that Internet Providers can, in principle, not be held responsible for wrongful acts of users, e.g. copyright infringements by third parties. The Church of Scientology had issued a writ against 22 Internet Providers and one Internet User. The Church claimed that defendents had infringed upon the copyrights on the Church's 'religious materials', by making them available on Internet. The President dismissed the claim regarding the Internet-user, writer Karin Spaink, because she had replaced the...

On 31 January 1996, the Holland Media Group (HMG) announced that it would close down its commercial television channel RTL5. This decision follows the decision taken by European Commission on 20 September 1995 ( see: IRIS 1995-9:5) that in its current form, the Dutch TV joint venture Holland Media Groep SA (HMG) cannot be approved under Council Regulation (EEC) Nr 4064/89 on the control of concentrations between undertakings. HMG is a joint venture between RTL4 S.A. (RTL), Veronica and Endemol Entertainment. The parent companies of RTL are the Luxembourg broadcasting group CLT and the Dutch publishing...

In the Netherlands, providers of commercial satellite-to-cable programming services have clashed with cable operators in a battle over cable access and carriage fees. Pay TV provider Multichoice (of the Nethold group), the pan-european sports channel, Eurosport, and the Arcade Group (providing music and "golden oldie" television) all claim Dutch cable operators are abusing their dominant positions in unduly restricting access, overcharging or granting unfair advantages to cable-owned programming services. Attempts to gain access under equitable terms through court procedures have, until now, been...

University of Florence) In a joint letter of 4 January 1996 to the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB), the broadcasting associations broadcasting in the Dutch public broadcasting system, the Dutch private commercial broadcasting companies SBS6 and Holland Media Group (owner of the Dutch private commercial broadcaster Veronica and the Luxembourg private commercial broadcasters RTL4 and RTL5) have protested against the conditions the KNVB has set in the negotiations for the production and broadcasting rights of the KNVB's leagues. According to these conditions, the broadcaster that `wins' these...