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A recent move by the Church of Scientology to impound computer servers operated by Dutch Internet access provider XS4ALL ('access for all') has sent shockwaves through the Internet community. Several XS4ALL subscribers had posted a legal document (the so-called Fishman affidavit) on their WWW home pages, containing copyrighted Scientology information. According to the Church, this amounted to copyright infringement for which XS4ALL was to be held liable. Scientology's action raises crucial questions as to the liability and legal status of Internet service providers. Should a service provider be...

IRIS regularly publishes an update of the state of Signatures and Ratifications of the European Conventions that are relevant to the audio-visual sector ( see : IRIS 1995-1: 16-18, IRIS 1995-3: 11-14, IRIS 1995-4: 11 and IRIS 1995-6: 5). In IRIS 1995-6 we published an update until 1 June 1995. Since then, the European Convention on cinematographic co-production of 2 October 1992, European Treaties Series No 147 entered into force for Germany and the Netherlands on 1 July 1995 and for Finland on 1 September 1995. There have been no changes in the state of Signatures and Ratifications of the other...

By letter of 26 June 1995, the Dutch government sent proposals to the Parliament on the liberalisation of the Media Act. The proposals include the creation of local and regional private commercial television and a statutory regulation of advertising on local and regional private commercial radio and television. These amendments are planned to take effect starting 1 January 1996. Changes that are to take effect in the longer term (starting 1 January 1997) include the liberalisation of distribution infrastructures. A further liberalisation of the regime for national broadcasters (private and public)...

New sponsorship rules for the Dutch public broadcasters came into force on 1 July 1995. The amendment of the Media Act follows the obligation to implement the EEC Directive "Television without frontiers". The original proposal of the Government to change the sponsorship regime was rather strict: sponsoring of programmes of the public broadcasters would not be allowed except for programmes in the categories of sports, culture, information and education. Parliament turned the proposal around by allowing sponsoring, with the exception of news programmes, children's programmes and consumer information....

In a letter dated 20 April 1995, the Dutch Media Authority (Commissariaat voor de Media) informed the public broadcasters that it will allow them to make use of the possibilities offered by new electronic media. The Commissariaat voor de Media will inter alia allow the interactive use of television, the publication of electronic programme guides and the distribution of programmes on Internet. While the Dutch Media Act is not clear on the question how the public broadcasting organisations may exploit the new electronic media, the permission of the Media Authority opens a wide range of new possibilities...