Search results : 342

On 7 April 2011 Advocate General Yves Bot delivered his opinion on case C-281/09 of the European Commission v. Spain on the question of the legal definition of television advertising spots and other forms of advertising under the EU’s Television without Frontiers (TWF) Directive. The question arose when Spain was accused by the European Commission of failing to comply with the advertising rules of the TWF Directive. Article 18 of the Directive imposes an upper time limit of 12 minutes per clock hour to the transmission of television advertising spots and teleshopping, while other forms of advertising...

In a judgment of 15 March the European Court of Human Rights decided that an elected representative’s conviction for causing serious insult to the King of Spain was contrary to his freedom of expression. The case concerns the criminal conviction of a politician of a Basque separatist political party, Mr. Arnaldo Otegi Mondragon, following comments made to the press during an official visit by the King to the province of Biscay. During a press conference Otegi Mondragon, as spokesperson for his parliamentary group, Sozialista Abertzaleak, stated in reply to a journalist’s question that...

On 2 March 2011, the Audiencia Provincial de Barcelona (Barcelona Provincial Court) acquitted Padawan, a company which owns a computer store and which had been sued by the Spanish collecting society Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (General Society of Authors and Publishers - SGAE) for not paying the private copying levy in respect of CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R and MP3 players marketed by it. The Court stated that, in this case, it had not been able to determine which equipment and devices were sold to companies and which were sold to individuals. This is the first case challenging the private copying...

On 8 February 2011, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) released its latest reports on Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Monaco, Spain and Turkey, adopted in the fourth round of its monitoring of the laws, policies and practices to combat racism in the Member States of the Council of Europe (for commentary on earlier reports, see IRIS 2010-9/2, IRIS 2010-4/3, IRIS 2009-10/109, IRIS 2009-8/4, IRIS 2009-5/3, IRIS 2008-4/5, IRIS 2006-6/4 and IRIS 2005-7/2). In respect of Armenia, ECRI recommends that the national authorities promote: (i) “without encroaching on the independence...

On 15 February 2011, the Spanish Parliament finally adopted the Sustainable Economy Act. The new act includes a series of controversial measures against the illegal downloading of protected works (the so-called Ley Sinde), which the Parliament had initially removed from the bill prepared by the Government and which were later reintroduced with slight modifications (see IRIS 2011-2/23). These measures amend three further acts, namely the Act on Information Society Services, the Intellectual Property Act and the Act on Administrative Jurisdiction. The Ley Sinde aims at blocking or closing down in...