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At the end of December 1997, the Independent Television Commission (ITC) decided that BSkyB's cross-promotion of its pay-per-view services to all viewers of Sky channels, including cable subscribers who cannot access the Sky Box Office, is not anti-competitive and will be allowed to continue. The ITC however made the provision that cable operators must be permitted to opt-out of BskyB "call to action" promotions if they wish to. If this happens the cable operator must substitute a current BSkyB `generic' promotion, which is a general awareness-type ad, in its place. In the meantime the ITC also...

In France, the two main public-service channels are France 2 and France 3. Their terms of reference are set out in decrees dated 16 September 1994. The rapid evolution of the audio-visual scene has led the Government to consider amendments to these texts, which were submitted to the French media authority, the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel - CSA); it gave its opinion on 16 December 1997. For the protection of children and young people, the CSA feels it necessary to require the public-sector channels - as well as the private channels - to include a symbol on the screen when broadcasting certain...

On 14 January 1998 a new Bill `on State administration and support of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company' was given its first reading in the Parliament of the Russian Federation (the Duma). The Bill was tabled by Deputies on the Duma's Information Policy and Communications Committee. The Bill consists of five sections; its main provisions are: - The All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company is a legal entity in the form of a State company; - The statutes of the Company must be approved by the Federal Government; - The Company's assets are State...

In a judgment delivered at the end of January, the Court of Appeal (Oberlandesgericht - OLG) in Karlsruhe has ordered a manufacturer of dairy products to pay damages amounting to DEM 155,000 to a singer on the grounds of infringement of his personality rights. In a commercial for its products, the company first showed an actor dressed in Russian costume, then a well-known actor and entertainer. Whereas in the second case the artist himself did indeed announce the advertisement and was paid the amount he claimed for his participation in the commercial, the first part unfortunately showed an impersonation...

The Court of Appeal in Paris delivered an interesting decision on 24 September 1997 on musical pirating on television. The public-sector channel France 2 had used extracts from three musical works by the group Daft Punk to provide a musical background to the presentation of its programmes. The co-authors of the pirated songs and their beneficiaries, considering that such broadcasting constituted a serious infringement of their copyright protection, took the dispute to the courts under the urgent procedure, but their demand for such broadcasting to cease was thrown out. They appealed against the...