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On 19 December 2019, the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science wrote a letter to parliament regarding a proposed law that would change the applicable rules for regional public broadcasters. In the letter, the minister declared that he would not submit the legislative proposal to the Dutch Parliament. In 2016, the Dutch Media Act was changed in order to create a body representing regional public broadcasters, referred to as Regionale Publieke Omroep (RPO) (see IRIS 2016-5/25). The RPO is the umbrella organisation for the 13 regional public broadcasters and is intended to function as...

On 24 June 2019, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), the country's independent regulator for radio and television broadcasters, published its submission to the Irish Government’s "Public Consultation on the Regulation of Harmful Online Content on Online Platforms and the Implementation of the Revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive" (AVMSD (EU) 2018/1808). The public consultation was initiated by the Communications Minister, Richard Bruton, in March 2019, in response to the European Council’s adoption of the revised AVMSD, which all EU member states are required to transpose into...

On 22 January 2019, the Italian Communication Authority (AGCOM) launched a public consultation on a draft regulation aimed at fostering the protection of human dignity and the principle of non-discrimination, as well as combating hate speech. The scope of the application of the draft regulation includes both audiovisual media service providers and video-sharing service providers. Article 1 firstly sets out certain definitions. Inter alia, “video-sharing service providers” are defined as entities operating a service that, even in part, makes available to the public programmes and user-generated...

In a judgment of 13 September 2018 (I ZR 117/15), the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that neither a video channel operated for promotional purposes on the YouTube Internet platform nor a video available on that channel constitute an audiovisual media service in the sense of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD - 2010/13/EU). In the specific case heard by the BGH, this meant that a video advertising new cars on a YouTube promotional channel had to contain information on the vehicles’ official fuel consumption and CO² emissions because the relevant obligation in...

On 18 September 2018, Ofcom launched its discussion paper entitled “Addressing Harmful Online Content” (the report) which considers ways to regulate social media, especially in the context of children and young people, whilst respecting freedom of expression. The report follows the DCMS’s (Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport) July 2018 interim report entitled “Disinformation and Fake News” (see IRIS 2018-8:1/27). Furthermore, this coming winter, the UK Government will publish a White Paper setting out its intention to legislate in order to improve online safety. Ofcom’s report flagged...