Search results : 239

After long parliamentary preparations and debate, the Belgian Copyright Act of 30 June 1994 has been modified in order to implement the EC Directive 2001/29 of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. As the Directive 2001/29/EC should have been transposed into national law by the EC Member States before 22 December 2002, the European Commission had started the next step in the infringement procedure against Belgium for failing to comply with the 2004 rulings of the European Court of Justice (Case C-143/04, Commission v Belgium,...

The Flemish government has taken the initiative of reorganising the authorities currently licensing and/or supervising radio- and television broadcasting, cable networks and radio- and television services in the Flemish Community. The idea is to unite the existing authorities into one agency, the Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media (Flemish Regulator for the Media - FRM).The draft bill integrates the competences of the Vlaams Commissariaat voor de Media (Flemish Media Authority), the Vlaamse Geschillenraad voor Radio en Televisie (Flemish Council of Disputes for Radio and Television) and the Vlaamse...

The European Commission has opened infringement proceedings (art. 266 of the EC Treaty) yet again as regards the EU Rules on Electronic Communications . At an earlier stage, the main concern of the European Commission was the full implementation of the EU framework for electronic communications which resulted in several decisions rendered by the Court of Justice on 10 March 2005 against Belgium and Luxembourg. The Court ruled that these countries had neglected to take the appropriate legal and administrative measures to implement the EC legislation at hand. This time the procedures are against...

On 17 March 2005, the Federal Parliament approved the new law on the protection of journalistic sources (see IRIS 2005-3: 6) and entered into force on 7 May 2005 after its publication in the Official Gazette (Moniteur Belge/Belgisch Staatsblad) on 27 April 2005. The protection of sources is guaranteed in respect of the following persons (Article 2):- 1° Journalists, which means anyone who is working independently or as an employee, as well as every legal person, who regularly and directly contributes to the gathering, editing, production or distribution of information for the public by way of a...

After several law proposals since 1985 a bill on the protection of journalistic sources is now finally on its way to being voted on by the Belgian parliament. After a first reading by the Chamber of representatives in July 2004, the Senate on 27 January 2005 approved a modified version of the proposed law. The text has now been sent back to the Chamber for final approval. Since Belgium was found by the European Court of Human Rights to have permitted unnecessary and disproportionate interferences by the judicial authorities disrespecting the confidentiality of journalistic sources in the case of...