Search results : 188

The German Government and the European Commission together organised a European Ministerial Conference on "Global Information Networks: Realising the Potential" in Bonn from 6 to 8 July 1997. It ended with the adoption of a declaration, signed by participating ministers from EU, EFTA and Central and Eastern European countries, as well as Cyprus. In this declaration, the ministers attempt to define the role of both the public and private sectors, the aim being to strike an optimum balance between the opportunities and the dangers inherent in the rapid development of the information technologies....

The Federal Council approved reorganisation of the fourth television channel by the SRG by modifying its licence on 1 August 1997. Schweizer Fernsehen (SDR), Télévision Suisse Romande and Televisione Svizzera di Lingua italiana may now offer supplementary programmes of their own. Programming is no longer the responsibility of an independent directorate, but of the three regional TV directorates. The Federal Council requires the SRG, in its programmes, to foster cohesion of the various regions, language communities and cultures, to further contacts with Swiss expatriates and to promote Switzerland...

The Federal Council adopted an explanatory report on a new Telecommunications Act in June. This is intended to provide a basis for a wide range of inexpensive telecommunications services and also to ensure that basic services are available throughout the country to all sections of the population. Basic services available on the public telephone network are now to include, among others, transmission of the data needed for access to Internet and similar services. Liberalisation of the law on telecommunications will have to be accompanied by partial revision of the Federal Radio and Television Act...

A federal working party under the guidance of the Federal Office for Justice has published a report on a number of points of law arising in connection with worldwide data exchange on the Internet, which has developed enormously in recent years. The report provides an overview of matters of criminal law, data protection law and copyright, and makes a number of recommendations to access providers with a view to preventing the illegal misuse of data networks. This supports the efforts of the Internet branch to set up a code of conduct for Internet access providers. The working party does not envisage...

In IRIS 1996-5: 7-10 we published an overview of the state of Signatures and Ratifications of European Conventions and other international treaties that are relevant to the audiovisual sector. The listing of when States became Party to the Convention relating to the distribution of programme-carrying signals transmitted by satellite (printed on page 8) is, however, not correct. Accidentily it reproduces the dates on which States became Party to the Berne Convention for the protection of copyright of literary and artistic works (as printed on page 7). The correct date on which States became Party...