Search results : 120

In a judgment of 9 February 2012 the European Court has ruled that Sweden did not violate the right to freedom of expression in a case about ‘hate speech’. The criminal conviction of the applicants for distributing leaflets that contained anti-gay offensive statements was considered necessary in a democratic society in order to protect the rights of homosexuals. It is the first time that the Court applies the principles relating to freedom of expression and ‘hate speech’ in the context of sexual orientation. In 2004 Mr Vejdeland, together with three other persons, went...

On 6 October 2011 the Stockholm City Court delivered a judgment on unfair marketing practices relating to an offer presented in a TV commercial. In 2010 Sova AB, a Swedish furniture company, had advertised its beds in TV commercials, which amongst others, included the written promotional message “All your money back if it rains on midsummer’s eve”. In connection with this message an asterisk was given referring to an additional text stating further conditions about the offer. This additional text appeared only for a few seconds and in very small text at the bottom of the screen. The Consumer Ombudsman...

The Court of Appeal for Southern Norrland has tried an appeal regarding criminal liability for direct linking to the streamed broadcasts of ice hockey games. The perpetrator was found guilty of violating the Swedish Copyright Act (CA) and was accordingly ordered to pay a fine and damages to C More Entertainment AB. Although the outcome of the Court of Appeal’s decision is similar to that of the decision of the District Court (see IRIS 2011-1/47), many interesting issues were judged differently. During autumn 2007 Swedish TV channel Canal + broadcast ice hockey games on a pay per view basis, inter...

On 12 May 2011 Högsta Förvaltningsdomstolen (The Supreme Administrative Court) delivered a judgment in a case regarding the placement of commercial breaks in six episodes featuring the famous private investigator Poirot. The TV programmes had appeared on the Swedish nationwide television channel TV4. The key issue in the case was whether the Poirot episodes (eight in total, but only six were subject to scrutiny), each of them about 1,5 hours long, constituted a TV series or movies made for television under the Radio and Televisions Act (RTL). Granskningsnämnden för radio och TV (the Swedish Broadcasting...

The European Commission has finished the preliminary analysis of the measures implementing the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive into national law notified by 16 Member States: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. Subsequently, the European Commission has sent fact-finding letters to these states inquiring about these implementing measures. The Commission is thus seeking to ensure that all provisions of the AVMS Directive have been correctly transposed into...