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According to media reports, in a judgment of 1 December 2015 (Case U 74/15) the Kammergericht Berlin (Berlin Higher Regional Court) ruled in appellate proceedings that advertising for virtual products in an online role-playing game should not necessarily be regarded as a direct invitation to children to buy the items. There was, the Court said, no breach of competition law as the advertising messages in the game were not aimed specifically at minors but at all players. The Court had to rule on a complaint from the Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (Federation of German Consumer Organisations) concerning...

On 25 February 2016, the National Audiovisual Council (Consiliul Naţional al Audiovizualului, CNA) issued Recommendation no. 2/2016 with regard to the correct use of the Romanian language in commercial communications aired by audiovisual media service providers (see IRIS 2011-1/37, IRIS 2012-3:1/31, and IRIS 2014-1/40). The Recommendation was triggered by more ads aired between November and December 2015 and is based on Article 6 paragraphs 1) to 5) and Article 17 paragraph 1) d) 2) of Audiovisual Law no. 504/2002, republished. These articles of the Audiovisual Law entail the powers of the CNA...

On 29 February, Jean-François Mary, Chairman of the Film Classification Board, submitted a report to the new Minister for Culture, Audrey Azoulay, on the classification of cinematographic works with reference to minors between the ages of 16 and 18 years. The report had been commissioned in September 2015, following the controversy over the courts’ suspension of the classification licence for films including scenes of non-simulated sex, such as ‘Love’ and ‘La Vie d’Adèle’ (see IRIS 2015‑8/15, IRIS 2015-10/13 and IRIS 2016-1/10). More recently, the suspension by the administrative court in Paris...

On 27 January - the day on which the film ‘Salafistes’ was released in cinemas - Minister for Culture Fleur Pellerin, adopting the Film Classification Board’s opinion, banned the showing of the documentary film to anyone less than 18 years of age. The film provides a sounding board for a number of theoreticians of Islamic terrorism, and shows the everyday application of sharia law in Mauritania, Mali and Iraq. It also includes video footage of propaganda by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) and by al-Qaeda, as well as amateur footage filmed during the attacks of 11 September 2001 and the attack...

The relationship between the Swedish Marketing Practices Act (MPA) and posts in blogs and social media has been a subject of discussion in Sweden during the last year. In order to provide further guidance to bloggers and companies promoting their products on blogs and social media the Swedish Consumer Agency has recently published guidelines for marketing through blogs and social media (the Guidelines). The Guidelines confirm that there is no general prohibition against recommendations or posts about companies, products or services on blogs or in social media. If there is no link between a company...