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The Brussels Court of Appeal heard an appeal against a decision reported in an earlier issue (IRIS 1999-1: 7). The original dispute was between SABAM, a company which manages copyright fees, and the Professional Union for Radio and Television Distribution (RTD), an umbrella organisation for Belgian cable distributors. In the original case, the presiding judge of the Court of First Instance in Brussels sitting in urgent matters had decided that the content of a letter sent by RTD to SABAM as part of negotiations on cable re-transmission rights constituted a violation of the exclusive right of authors...

The reorganisation in 1993 and 1994 of financial support for film productions in the Flemish Community did not live up to expectations. For this reason the Minister for Media drew up in 1998 a new plan for the allocation of subsidies for the audiovisual sector ( Beleidsplan Film in Vlaanderen, Parl. St., Vlaams Parlement, 1997-1998, nr. 1125 ). In accordance with this plan Parliament passed a new decree in order to replace the legal framework concerning the subsidising of the audiovisual sector in the Flemish Community ( Decree of 22 December 1993 and Decision of the Flemish Government of 23 February...

On 17 March 1999 the Flemish Parliament has voted for a modification of the Flemish Broadcasting decree in order to institute effective control over the programmes mentioned in Article 22 of the Television Without Frontiers Directive (protection of minors). Until now the Flemish Government was the competent body to ensure that no television programmes contained harmful content with regard to minors. It had become obvious, however, that in practice the Government was not able to fulfil this task. According to Article 22 of the Television Without Frontiers Directive, the Member States must take appropriate...

On 17 February 1999 the Flemish Media Authority ( Vlaams Commissariaat voor de Media) has made an important ruling concerning the application of Article 2 of the "Television Without Frontiers" Directive. The case concerns a complaint by the Flemish commercial TV-broadcaster VTM against VT4, a SBS-station. VT4 is a TV-broadcaster operating with a licence from the Independent Television Commission under UK law, while the programs of VT4 are exclusively targeted at the public of the Flemish Community. VTM argued that VT4 is to be considered a Flemish broadcaster falling under the application of the...

In a judgement delivered on 2 September 1998, the Brussels Court of Appeal overturned a judgement by the Brussels Commercial Court on 29 December 1997 which, in response to an application by the private-sector channel RTL-TVi, had prohibited RTBF inserting advertising breaks in American series broadcast in the afternoons. In the initial proceedings, the Commercial Court held that the advertising breaks were contrary to RTBF's contractual management regulations, according to which "advertising may not interrupt programmes, particularly films, or the various sequences of any one programme". On...