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While the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has, in the last few years, dealt with many aspects of the right to freedom of expression in the digital environment, it has only recently delivered a judgment specifically focusing on the right of anonymity for user generated content on news portals. In Standard Verlagsgesellschaft mbH v. Austria (no. 3) the applicant media company complained that court orders that imposed on it an obligation to disclose data revealing the identity of users, who had posted comments on its Internet news portal, had infringed its freedom of expression as guaranteed...

In a decision issued on 22 September 2020, the Austrian Oberste Gerichtshof (Supreme Court – OGH) gave its views on (cable) retransmission via the open Internet and online video recorders that use the deduplication technique. The plaintiffs are television broadcasters based in Germany who had signed collection agreements with the German collecting society VG Media that expressly excluded the rights for retransmission via open networks (OTT services). The defendant, who operates an Austrian mobile communications network, offers public telephone and Internet services and a TV service that...

On 30 June 2020, as part of its supervisory activities, the Austrian regulator for broadcasting and audiovisual media, Kommunikationsbehörde Austria (KommAustria), ruled that Austrian public service broadcaster ORF had committed several breaches of the ban on surreptitious advertising and two breaches of the requirement to distinguish between advertising and editorial content, enshrined in the ORF-Gesetz (ORF Act – ORF-G). KommAustria is responsible for checking compliance with the ORF-G’s provisions on commercial communication. It therefore regularly evaluates programmes that...

On 30 March 2020, Austria’s Oberster Gerichtshof (Supreme Court – OGH) decided in preliminary proceedings that cease and desist orders against hosting providers could apply to content with identical words or meaning, but only within Austria (Case no. 4Ob36/20b). A politician from the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of Austria – FPÖ) had published on his Facebook page an edited photo of a well-known ORF newsreader, the rights to which were owned by the ORF. The following text had been added to the image in clearly visible lettering: “There’s...

Measures taken to contain the coronavirus are having a huge impact on the audiovisual sector, forcing filming to be suspended and cinemas to close. This is creating considerable financial difficulties for the audiovisual industry. In Austria, various support measures have been taken by several organisations in order to minimise the effects of the crisis. Some have been specifically introduced for the audiovisual sector, some are aimed at creative artists outside the audiovisual sector, while others are more general in nature. The Verwertungsgesellschaft für audiovisuelle Medien GmbH (Collecting...