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In the fight against organised crime, two new methods of investigation have been incorporated into the Code of Criminal Procedure: "optical and acoustic surveillance of persons with the help of technical devices" (popularly known as the bugging offensive) and "computerised data-scanning". Alongside the reform of criminal procedure, a new Section 7c ("Protection against prohibited publication") has been inserted in the Media Act. Under the new compensation rule, persons whose legitimate interests have been harmed are in principle entitled to claim compensation from media operators or publishers...

The ministerial Bills to transpose the EC Database Directive into Austrian law (see IRIS 1997-6: 9) have been reworked and combined into a single text; this has now been passed by the Council of Ministers and tabled in Parliament on 2 October 1997 as the 1997 Government Bill amending the Copyright Act. Not only is the new version of the new sui generis protection included among the related protective rights under the Copyright Act (instead of a specific legislative regulation in the form of a separate Act on database law) dogmatically more satisfactory - it also offers the clarity of the legal...

The 1996 amendment to the Copyright Act (which came into force on 1 April 1996) introduced the following compulsory licence of Section 56d, para.1 into Austrian copyright law: "Accommodation undertakings may publicly broadcast cinematographic works for their guests on conditions that: 1. at least two years have passed since the film was first shown either in Austria or in the German language or in a language of one of the recognised ethnic groups in Austria; 2. an image or sound carrier produced commercially [commercialised in a Member State of the European Community or the European Free Trade...

The government bill which has been going through Parliament since June with (inter alia) a new Telecommunications Act (Telekommunikationsgesetz - TKG; see IRIS 1997-7: 12) has been adopted by the National Council with only slight amendment, and came into force on 1 August. The regulation on responsibility and also indirectly on liability referred to in IRIS 1997-7: 12 was not amended. The Ministry of Transport is working on setting up the projected Telekom-Control GmbH as the regulatory authority; this should be operational from November.

On 10 June 1997 the Council of Ministers approved a Federal Bill to enact a Federal Ttelecommunications Statute and to amend or supplement certain other provisions of law (TKG). The Bill is going through Parliament at present and should be adopted before the summer break; if the schedule is maintained, the TKG should come into force on 1 August. The new Act will replace the much-amended 1993 Telecommunications Act; its main purpose is to transpose into national legislation, EC Directives on the total liberalisation of the telecommunications sector. Faced with the looming convergence of telecommunications...