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The Entidade Reguladora para a Comunicação Social (Portuguese State Media Regulatory body, ERC) approved, on 22 March 2016, the final wording of the regulations on the transparency of the main funding sources of media companies, as well as on their annual corporate governance reporting. The Regulations (no. 348/2016) were published in the official news bulletin on 1 April 2016. This document complies with Articles 5 and 16 of the Law on transparency of ownership, management and funding of media companies (no. 78/2015), since it establishes: 1) that the ERC is responsible for receiving information...

Procedures on the media coverage of elections in Portugal have been changed during the past year and had effect on recent elections, both legislative and presidential (on October 2015 and January 2016, respectively). Currently, the law on the media coverage of elections (no. 72-A/2015) stipulates as a general principle (Article 4) that, during elections, the media enjoy editorial freedom and freedom of programming. Amongst changes introduced is the exclusion of the relevance of political proposals for the choice of democratic alternatives as criteria for political representativeness in debates...

On 30 July 2015, the Secretary of State for Culture announced that a Memorandum of Understanding had been signed by a number of organisations, in order to create a self-regulatory agreement on the protection of copyright in the digital environment. These organisations included two public bodies - the ministry of culture’s Inspector General of Cultural Activities (Inspecção Geral das Actividades Culturais) and the Consumer Directorate General (Direção-Geral do Consumidor) - and a number of other organisations, including the telecommunication operators association (Associação dos Operadores de Telecomunicações),...

The Portuguese Government will abolish the Office for Media (Gabinete para os Meios de Comunicação Social - GMCS) at the end of the year, as determined by Law Decree no. 24/2015 of 6 February 2015. The date has been settled, while the transfer of responsibilities assigned to this body to the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers will take place on 31 December. The plan is to keep part of the Office’s team members (currently approximately 30 persons) in a smaller unit near the Presidency of the Council of Ministers to continue advising the Government on media issues. The...

The Law Decree no. 320/XII extending the private copying fees to a range of electronic equipment was approved on 8 May 2015 with 120 votes in favour from the bipartisan coalition (PSD and CDS). After the President's veto in March 2014, the law proposal returned to the Assembly of the Republic to be appreciated for the second time and its approval forces the promulgation. Bearing in mind legal requirements and since the President has eight days for this procedure, the law will most likely come into force after 20 June 2015. The law was prepared and voted on in the Assembly of the Republic, although...