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The Italian Ministry for Communications has recently signed a new decree aimed at combating child pornography on the internet by obliging Internet Service Providers to block sites displaying illicit content within 6 hours of notification by the competent organ, the Centro Nazionale per il contrasto della pedopornografia sulla rete Internet (the National Centre for combating child pornography on the internet). This organ was created by a previous act (2006), and operates within the Italian Postal and Communications Police, a specialised branch of the Italian Police force. The Centre is invested...

In an urgent procedure, the Bayerische Verwaltungsgericht (Bavarian Administrative Court - BayVG) in Munich was asked to rule on the suitability of the " bereits18.de " age verification system under the terms of Art. 4.2.2 of the Staatsvertrag über den Schutz der Menschenwürde und den Jugendschutz in Rundfunk und Telemedien (Inter-State Agreement on the protection of human dignity and minors in broadcasting and telemedia - JMStV). According to Art. 4.2.1 of the JMStV, broadcast and telemedia content is unlawful in principle if it is pornographic (No. 1), if it is included in certain lists of media...

On 15 January 2007 Uzbekistan’s President, Islam Karimov, signed into law the Statute that provides for a new version of the 1997 Law on the Mass Media. Among the types of mass media “in electronic form” the new statute specifically lists “TV, radio and video programmes, newsreels, and websites in general access telecommunication networks” (Art. 4). Censorship is forbidden, which means that “nobody shall have the right to demand a preliminary approval of materials or reports”, intended for mass publication, changes in their texts or a complete ban to print or air them (Art. 7). The statute expands...

The new BBC Royal Charter and Agreement (see IRIS 2006-5: 13), which came into effect on 1 January 2007, requires that new and modified BBC services should be subject to a Public Value Test to establish whether they will be in the public interest. As part of this process the communications regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) undertakes a Market Impact Assessment to assess the likely impact of the services on the markets in which the new services will be provided and in related markets, examining the extent to which they might deter innovation and investment by alternative providers...

On 6 February 2007, the Verwaltungsgericht Hannover (Hanover Administrative Court - VG) rejected two appeals by broadcaster RTL against decisions of the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for the Protection of Youth in the Media - KJM) (case nos. 7 A 5469/06 and 7 A 5470/06). In decisions reached in July and October 2005, the Niedersächsische Landesmedienanstalt (Lower Saxony Land Media Authority - NLM) had ruled that various TV programmes broadcast by RTL in 2004 had been unlawful. These decisions had been based on rulings of the KJM, a body jointly set up by the German Landesmedienanstalten...