Search results : 305

As Österreichischer Rundfunk (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation - ORF) announced in a press release on 20 September 2013, the Verfassungsgerichtshof (Constitutional Court - VfGH) has temporarily suspended a ban imposed by the Bundeskommunikationssenat (Federal Communications Board - BKS) on ORF’s page on the Facebook social network and granted ORF’s application for its appeal to have staying effect (see IRIS 2012-3/9 and IRIS 2013-1/6). The court held that ORF had given comprehensible reasons why the immediate removal of the Facebook page would represent a “disproportionate disadvantage”; there...

On 3 October 2013, the Court of Justice gave a preliminary ruling in the Case of Peter Pinckney v. KDG Mediatech AG, C-170/12, regarding the jurisdictional rules set out in the Council Regulation (EC) No. 44/2001. Mr Pinckney claimed to be the author of 12 songs which were recorded by the group Aubrey Small on a vinyl record. The record was then, without his consent, reproduced on compact discs by an Austrian company named Mediatech, which were subsequently sold by companies in the United Kingdom on their website. This website was accessible from Toulouse, France, where Mr Pinckney lived. He sued...

On 11 July 2013, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its decision in a case concerning the payment of equitable remuneration on recording devices. The case was initiated when the Austrian collecting society Austro-Mechana brought an action before the Handelsgericht Wien against Amazon for the payment of equitable remuneration on recording devices sold during the 2002-2004 period. The tribunal granted an interim order to produce accounts for the fair determination of the due amount while it reserved its decision on the claim for payment. The order was upheld on appeal, as a...

In a decision of 26 July 2013 (case no. G 34/2013-10), the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof (Constitutional Court - VfGH) lifted the so-called “Facebook ban” as was enshrined in Article 4f(2)(25) of the ORF-Gesetz (ORF Act), prohibiting the Austrian public broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) from using social networks for competition reasons, on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. Previously, the Austrian communications authority, KommAustria, had ruled that ORF’s provision of a Facebook page infringed the ORF Act (see IRIS 2012-3/9). After an unsuccessful appeal to the supreme broadcasting...

In a decision of 25 February 2013, the Austrian Bundeskommunikationssenat (Federal Communications Senate - BKS) reacted to a judgment that it had obtained from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and ended the procedure instigated following its request for a preliminary ruling. In January 2013, the CJEU had decided that the rule on compensation for the exercise of the right to broadcast short reports on events of high public interest enshrined in Article 15 of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (2010/13/EU, AVMSD) did not infringe the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European...