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In December 1996 the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled again in favour of copyright protection for programme formats (a plan or concept on which a television series is based). In 1994 the Court had already decided that in order to be protected by copyright, a format must be original, and elaborated in such a way that it can be regarded as a recognisable element of the work based on it. In the case of a television series this could result from the similar presentation of the different episodes. The recent case concerned a conflict between a group of programme producers, called Jiskefet (plaintiffs),...

In 1996 the President of the Amsterdam District Court had to decide a number of conflicts concerning formats. In the summary proceedings in the case of Beydals (plaintiff) vs TROS (defendant), between 1984 and 1989, the plaintiff had developed a programme format for a television series about computers and automation. She offered a pilot of this format to the broadcasting association TROS, which neglected the offer. In 1995 an employee of TROS developed a format for a series of TV shows about computers, multimedia applications and the like. At the time of the trial, five of the seven episodes had...

The digital direct-to-home (DTH) delivery by satellite of a "bouquet" of digitized television programs constitutes a separate act of communication to the public under Dutch copyright law, for which the operator of the service is liable. That is the essence of the decision by the President of the District Court of Utrecht in the case of Buma vs. Nethold, decided on 21 February 1997. The case is the first one that has been decided under the new regime of the Council Directive of 27 September 1993 on the coordination of certain rules concerning copyright and rights related to copyright applicable...

On 8 November 1996 the Dutch Government approved a proposal to grant after the year 2000, only one broadcasting licence for all the broadcasters broadcasting at present in the public broadcasting system of the Netherlands. At the moment, the different broadcasters in the public broadcasting system have a licence for five years which will expire in 2000. The proposal of the Dutch Under-Secretary of State for Culture is a reaction to the recommendations on the future of the public broadcasting system made in June of this year by the Commissie Ververs ( see IRIS 1996-7: 11). The Government underlines...

In addition to the decisions summarized in IRIS 1997-1: 13), the Dutch Media Authority (Commissariaat voor de Media) has made three other rulings in disputes over access to cable networks. With regard to the complaint of MTV, in which case the Authority made an interim decision on 30 July 1996 ( see IRIS 1996-8: 14), the Authority made a final ruling on 20 December 1996 which is similar to the rulings regarding NetHold and Arcade. Because the cable distributor (in the case of MTV Stichting CombiVisie Regio ) refused to submit data that would enable the Authority to verify whether the requested...