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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...

On 24 September 2015, the European Commission launched its public consultation on the regulatory environment for platforms, online intermediaries, data and cloud computing, and the collaborative economy. This consultation is part of the Commission’s recently published Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe (see IRIS 2015-6/13), and the consultation’s purpose is “to better understand the social and economic role of platforms, market trends, the dynamics of platform-development and the various business models underpinning platforms”. The consultation document defines platforms as “undertakings...

On 11 March 2015, Minister for Culture and Communication Fleur Pellerin presented the Government’s strategy for combating piracy on the Internet to the Council of Ministers. Apart from the graduated response applied to illegal downloading implemented by France’s high authority for the distribution of works and the protection of rights on the Internet (Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet - HADOPI), which remains in place, the action plan is also aimed at streaming sites and referencing, which benefit from pirated works. Three series of measures were...

On 7 January 2015, the Appeals Court of Milan issued a decision that represents a turning point in Italian case law on the role and liability of internet service providers (ISPs), insofar as it rejects the “Italian” distinction between “active” and “passive” hosting providers, lending a new perspective to the issue. The case was brought by Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A (RTI), Italy’s main private broadcaster and part of the Mediaset group, against Yahoo! Italia S.r.l. (Yahoo! Italia) and Yahoo!, Inc. The decision overturned a previous decision of the Milan Court of First Instance issued on 19...