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On 4 April 2000, the Bundeskanzleramt (Federal Chancellery) published a draft Federal Law on the exercise of exclusive television broadcasting rights (Fernsehexklu sivrechtegesetz - FERG) and a related draft decree on the assessment of such rights (whereby any comments must be submitted within a six-week period). The FERG is primarily designed to transpose Article 3a of the revised "Television Without Frontiers" Directive (Directive 89/552/EEC, amended by Directive 97/36/EC). According to Article 4 of the draft Bill, the Federal Government must designate, by means of a decree, events that are...

On 9 March 2000, the Federal Ministry of Justice submitted its draft "Federal Law on the protection of conditional access services" or Zugangskontrollgesetz (Conditional Access Act - ZuKG) for evaluation. Those invited to assess the draft were asked to reply by 4 April 2000. The current plan is for the Conditional Access Act to enter into force on 20 May 2000, ie before the proposed deadline for transposition of the Conditional Access Directive 98/84/EC (28 May 2000). The Conditional Access Act will regulate the legal protection of any service provider who offers television or radio programmes...

Once again, a provision of the Regionalradiogesetz (the Regional Radio Act - RRG) is being scrutinised by the Verfassungsgerichtshof (the Constitutional Court - VfGH). Considering a host of complaints that various constitutional rights had been breached and other infringements caused by the application of certain "unconstitutional" provisions of the Regional Radio Act, the Constitutional Court raised doubts over the constitutionality of Article 13 RRG (which has since been amended). The Court therefore decided to start proceedings to verify the constitutionality of this provision (in its original...

Urheberrechtgesetz - UrhG), music may Background: Under Sections 42 and 42a of the Austrian Copyright Act ( be copied for personal use, which means that, under certain conditions, people may legally breach what, in principle, are exclusive reproduction rights. In order to compensate for the financial losses that such copying entails for rightsholders, Section 42b of the Copyright Act provides for two types of levy that have to be paid to collecting societies: the blank tape levy and the reproduction levy (the latter comprises an equipment levy and an operator's levy). The blank tape levy is designed...

The following facts were behind a recent decision of the Verfassungsgerichtshof (Constitutional Court - VfGH): an advertising agency ordered a certain amount of airtime for TV commercials from the Austrian national public broadcaster Österreichische Rundfunk (ORF). The advertising slots were originally booked on behalf of a magazine publishing company; the advertising agency later asked the ORF to transfer most of the slots from the publishing company to the private radio broadcaster Antenne Wien . This request was turned down by the ORF with reference to its management's decision "not...