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On 11 June 1996, a three judge panel granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of two provisions of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ("CDA") designed to keep children from receiving sexually explicit materials on the Internet. The CDA constitutes Title V of the historic Telecommunications Act of 1996 passed on 8 February ( see IRIS 1996-3: 7-10). In ACLU v. Janet Reno, the court found sections 223(a)(1)(B) and 223(a)(2) as well as 223(d)(1) and 223(d)(2) of the CDA to be an unconstitutional abridgement of First Amendment free speech rights. Section 223(a) prohibits the transmission...

The Dutch association of Internet providers (Vereniging van Nederlandse Internetproviders, NLIP) has opened on 20 June 1996 a complaints counter for child pornography (Meldpunt Kinderporno) that is distributed on the Internet. Users that come across illegal material can notify the complaints counter. The counter will first ask the provider of the material to remove it. If the provider does not respond, the office of the Public Prosecutor will be notified. With this initiative the Internetproviders in the Netherlands want to show their willingness to cooperate in the fight against the distribution...

On 7 May 1996, the European Commission amended the proposal for a revision of the 1989 "Television without Frontiers" Directive which it presented to the European Parliament and the Council on 31 May 1995. The amendments were made on the basis of the first reading in the European Parliament which resulted in a Resolution on 14 February 1996 ( see: IRIS 1996-3: 6). Parliament approved the Commission's proposals subject to a number of amendments it had made. The amended proposal also takes into account the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee of 13 September 1995 (CES 972/95) and the discussions...

On 02.05.1996 the Minister of Training, Science, Research and Technology, Jürgen Rüttgers, presented the foundations for the legislation on information and communication services. According to these, the Act is to include broader forms of interactive individual communication, various forms of switching between individual and mass communication, and electronic press services. It is intended to lay down outline conditions for the new information and communications technologies, thereby creating optimum conditions for standardised development. Regulations to liberalise the various media markets,...

Views expressed at BBC Governors' Seminar on taste and decency will be incorporated into a revised version of the Corporation's guidelines for programme makers. The Guidelines' section on taste and decency will see a strong emphasis placed on the importance of the watershed; that is the 9 o'clock boundary between programmes suitable for children to watch and those which are not. It will also reflect concerns about the use of bad language, and the portrayal of sex and violence. The concept of 'respect' as a key issue in determining where the boundaries should lie in issues of taste, sex and language...