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By adopting an amendment to the Finance Act on 29 December 2016, French MPs defied the government by including the advertising income of websites offering free or paid video content in the sum of revenue generated from video sale and rental on which the so-called ‘video and VoD tax’ is levied to fund the National Centre for Cinema (Centre national du cinéma - CNC). The tax will be paid by providers of on-demand audiovisual media services and social platforms (such as YouTube or Dailymotion) that offer access to audiovisual content. The tax will therefore apply to any operator, wherever it is based,...

The video-sharing platform YouTube removed five videos that the Catalan Audiovisual Council (CAC) and the Department of the Presidency of the Catalan Government denounced for inciting violence against women. The CAC reported on five videos, including Cómo pegar a una mujer (“How to beat a woman”), and 10 blogs, including Dominación Machista (“Male Domination”), El Rincon del macho (“Macho corner”) and La Cueva del misógino (“Misogynist’s cave”). The 15 videos and blogs were reported to the State Attorney in Barcelona, who has opened investigation proceedings concerning their content. In parallel...

In its decision filed on 27 April 2016, the Court of First Instance of Rome (Tribunale di Roma) states that even a non-detailed cease-and-desist letter (i.e., a letter without any indication of the URLs), subject to specific conditions, may be deemed sufficient to oblige the relevant hosting provider to remove the infringing content. RTI S.p.A. (“RTI”), a company which belongs to the Mediaset group, owner of the exploitation rights of several TV shows, requested to TMFT Enterprises LLC - Break Media (“Break Media”) which operates a well-known video-sharing platform, the removal of RTI’s content...

On 25 May 2016 the European Commission published a proposal to amend the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). As the Commission noted in its press release, the aim of the proposal is: “to achieve a better balance of the rules which today apply to traditional broadcasters, video-on-demand providers and video-sharing platforms, especially when it comes to protecting children. The revised AVMSD also strengthens the promotion of European cultural diversity, ensures the independence of audiovisual regulators and gives more flexibility to broadcasters over advertising”. The main changes pertain...

On 1 December 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a judgment dealing with a blocking order in Turkey of the popular video-sharing website YouTube. The Court found that the blocking of access to YouTube amounted to a violation of the right to receive and impart information under Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). The Court observed that YouTube, as an Internet platform, enabled information on political and social matters to be broadcast and citizen journalism to emerge. The Court found that there was no provision in the Turkish law allowing domestic...