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The national film institutes of the 15 Member States of the European Union have made a common declaration on the importance of State aid for European films. This is the first time the film institutes have made a common statement. The national film institutes are publicly funded and were founded to support national and European film culture. In this common declaration the institutes express their concerns regarding the necessity for State aid for European films. The institutes are worried that the audio-visual sector in Europe will be left solely to the chances of free market forces. In the declaration,...

The BBC has recently developed several new digital channels, which require approval to be given by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (see IRIS 2001-9:10, IRIS 2002-9: 10). There has been strong opposition from private broadcasters who have claimed that these channels, publicly funded by the BBC licence fee, represent unfair competition to them and prevent the development of private sector services. The minister has now approved a further service, the BBC Digital Curriculum, a new digital learning resource aimed at schools, teachers, students and individual learners. Opposition...

The British Culture Secretary has announced new rules relating to the independent production sector in the UK. The background to the rules is that the joint committee of the two Houses of Parliament, in examining the Communications Bill, recommended that the proposed lifting of the ban on non-EEA broadcasters be postponed until after the new regulator, the Office of Communications (OFCOM), had the opportunity to review the programme supply market (see IRIS 2002-8: 7). Instead of waiting for the new regulator to be established, the minister commissioned a review from the existing regulator, the...

The UK Home Office (the equivalent of a Ministry of the Interior) includes a task force on child protection on the Internet; this is a co-regulatory body including, in addition to as government officials, representatives of opposition parties, child welfare organisations, the Internet industry, the police and others. It was established in 2001 after fears of abuse of the Internet by paedophiles. The task force has published a set of good practice models and guidance for the Internet industry applying to chat services, instant messaging and web-based services. The models and guidance are voluntary...

A year ago, the Office of Fair Trading (the UK competition authority) announced preliminary findings that it was likely to find BSkyB in breach of the 1998 Competition Act (see IRIS 2002-2: 11). The Office has now taken its final decision, which clears BSkyB of any breach of the Act. Chapter II of the Act prohibits abuse of a dominant position, in terms almost identical to those of Article 82 of the EC Treaty. The investigation had been based on fears that BSkyB was abusing its dominance over premium pay-TV channels to distort competition against rival distributors and in favour of its own satellite...