Search results : 240

Two self-regulatory bodies, the Raad voor de Journalistiek (Flemish Council for Journalism) and the Jury voor Ethische Praktijken inzake reclame (Belgian Jury for Ethical Practices in Advertising) have reported on their 2015 activities and functioning. The Flemish Council for Journalism opened 49 new files; 48 based on complaints (a 22% decrese from 2014), and one based on a request for advice. 23 complaints concerned daily newspapers, seven were aimed at weekly papers and magazines, seven involved television, two radio, and 19 complaints also related to websites. The latter is an increase from...

On 29 April 2016, the Court of Cassation rejected the appeal against a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Liège (25 September 2014) which found that a doctor could request the anonymisation of an article in the online archive of a newspaper. The article concerned a fatal car accident which the doctor had caused 20 years ago while inebriated (for a Dutch case on online news archives, see IRIS 2015-6/27). The Court of Cassation confirmed the reasoning that the “digital” right to be forgotten (le droit à l’oubli numérique) is an intrinsic component of the right to privacy. In its assessment of the...

The Code of Journalistic Ethics, drafted by the Flemish Council of Journalism, contains 27 articles. Particular articles are accompanied by a guideline which provides more information on the way a certain principle must be interpreted and implemented by the press. In December 2015, a new guideline was adopted to clarify Article 15, which states that journalists must use certain methods to gather or process information, photos, images and documents, and that journalists must not abuse their capacity, especially vis-à-vis vulnerable individuals such as minors, and victims of crime, disasters or accidents...

On 12 November 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its judgment in Hewlett-Packard Belgium v. Reprobel, which was a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of “fair compensation” under Articles 5(2)(a) and 5(2)(b) of Directive 2001/29/EU (the “InfoSoc Directive”). The case arose in Belgium, when a collective rights management organisation, Reprobel, requested that Hewlett-Packard pay a EUR 49.20 levy for every “multifunction printer” it sold. The dispute reached the Brussels Court of Appeal (Cour d’appel de Bruxelles), which referred a number of question to the CJEU. Article...

The Flemish public broadcaster did not respect the conditions required to include product placement in television programmes, according to the Flemish Media Regulator. These conditions are laid down in the Flemish Media Decree, which contains a specific subsection on product placement (Productplaatsing, Articles 98 to 101). According to Article 100, paragraph 1 of this decree, programmes which contain product placement must adhere to the following requirements: 1) the content of the programme must not be influenced to such an extent as to affect the editorial independence of the broadcaster, 2)...