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In two decisions reached on 21 March 2000, the European Commission has authorised the acquisition by CLTUFA of shares in German television broadcaster VOX and BSkyB's merger with KirchPayTV. The Commission had previously approved CLT-UFA's shareholding in VOX, which it considered to be part of the CLT-UFA group. Since, for this reason, CLT-UFA's market share remained unchanged, the Commission decided, on the basis of Article 6.1.b of Regulation 4064/89/EEC, amended by Regulation 1310/97/EC, that its acquisition of further shares in VOX could be considered compatible with the Common Market. On...

In 1998, the European Commission had prohibited the planned merger of Telekom and Beta Research (see IRIS 1998-6: 14). This decision had largely been based on the fear that Deutsche Telekom would, in the long term, monopolise access to cable services and that d-box technology would more or less become a standard prerequisite for the use of digital TV in German-speaking countries. Responding to public criticism of the latest attempt to merge with Beta Research, Deutsche Telekom referred to the fact that, in the meantime, the first contract to operate the cable network in Nordrhein-Westfalen had...

In a final judgement of 4 August 1999, the Landgericht Köln (the Cologne District Court) ruled for the first time that a collection of Internet links was protected by copyright. The Court upheld the claim of the applicant, who operates a free Internet database and information service on subjects relating to parents, children and families, containing addresses, contact details and descriptions of initiatives, organisations and self-help groups. The main part of the applicant's web site is a database, from which individual information pages can be accessed. The service also contains an alphabetical...

Since 1 March 2000, private broadcaster RTL-2 has been showing the television programme "Big Brother". It portrays ten volunteers living in a building cut off from the outside world, constantly monitored by cameras and microphones in the various rooms of the house. There are daily reports on life in the house. Every two weeks, the inhabitants select two of their colleagues whom they think should be excluded. Television viewers decide through a telephone vote which of the two should leave. Viewers will select the winner of the 100-day contest, who will receive DEM 250,000 in prize money, from the...

On 21 February 2000, the Direktorenkonferenz der Landesmedienanstalten (the Conference of Directors of the Regional Media Authorities - DLM) adopted a draft set of common guidelines on advertising, the separation of advertising and programme material and television sponsorship. The guidelines transpose the advertising regulations of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive (97/36/EC), incorporated in the 4.Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (the Fourth Agreement between Federal States on Broadcasting - RfStV) and put in concrete form the demands that the Agreement makes on private broadcasters in terms...