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The High Court of the Zurich Canton, in a revolutionary judgement concerning the dissemination of pornography via the Internet, has established a legal precedent. The operator of a mailbox was fined for giving unrestricted access to pornographic material to any user, including children under the age of 16. After viewing the material, which was transferred into the mailbox not by the defendant himself but by other users, he had moved it to the appropriate section, created by himself, and had failed to delete it, leaving it on file sometimes over a period of years. Under the terms of Art. 197.1 of...

On 1 January 1999 three new Acts replacing the Radio Equipment Act of 1927 and the Cable Transmission Act of 1987 came into force. The Acts also implement the Television without Frontiers Directive. The Act on Television and Radio Operations (Act 744/1998) generally seeks to promote television and radio broadcasting. It states, inter alia, that licences to operate television or radio broadcasting over the air shall be declared open for application and are to be granted - for a maximum period of ten years - by the government. The government will issue a plan on the use of frequencies. When granting...

The prohibition of advertisements aimed at children on Swedish television has been subject to a judgment by the Market Court. In the "De Agostini case" two questions had to be considered by the Court. First, whether the Swedish prohibition of advertisements targeted at children constituted a violation of the free movement of services and, second, whether the Swedish rules on misleading advertisement could be applied to advertisements transmitted into Sweden from broadcasters established abroad. In 1997, the Court of Justice of the European Communities issued a preliminary ruling on the question...

On 30 December 1998, the order (laid before Parliament on 9 December 1998) proscribing "Eros TV" in the UK came into force. The order, made under Section 177 of the Broadcasting Act, 1990, was made because the channel was judged to have regularly breached the first part of Article 22 of the EC Broadcasting Directive. This makes it unlawful to transmit programmes which "might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors." The Secretary of State said that "We are determined to protect children from satellite pornography and my message to pornographers is clear; we will not...

In December it was decided to bring the Broadcasting Law into line with the revised version of the so-called Television Directive. With the entry into force of the amended law on 1 January 1999 the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) has started to use visual symbols to identify programmes considered unsuitable for young persons. In Austria, broadcasting is regulated on the basis of federal legislation and subject to its provisions. Whereas the ORF, which is a public corporation, is governed by the Broadcasting Law, private television is the subject of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting...