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On 8 July 2005 the High Court ruled that music companies could sue seventeen people they believe are illegally uploading thousands of music tracks onto file-sharing networks. This is the first such decision in Ireland. The judge presiding over the new Commercial Court ordered two telephone companies, Eircom and BT Communications Ireland Ltd, to disclose to four record companies the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the seventeen who are subscribers to their services. The record companies gave an undertaking that the information would be used only for the purpose of seeking redress for alleged...

On 14 October 2005, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, issued the “Declaration on Pluralism in the Media and the Internet” at this year's Central Asian Media Conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The annual conference was organized under the auspices of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and the OSCE Centre in Almaty. For the seventh time, 150 participants from all five Central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - gathered to discuss developments in the region in the field of media. The participants included...

Decision no. 405 of 30 June 2005 of the Co nsiliul Naţional al Audiovizualului (the Romanian regulatory authority for electronic media - CNA) amended CNA Decision no. 248 of 1 July 2004 on personality rights (see IRIS 2004-10:15). Article 11 of Decision no. 248 now states that, for the benefit of TV viewers, footage filmed using a hidden camera must always be denoted by a graphic symbol depicting a camera. CNA Decision no. 404 of 30 June 2005 also amended Decision no. 249 of 1 July 2004 on the protection of minors with respect to television programmes (see IRIS 2004-8:12). The following warnings...

On 20 June 2005, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted Recommendation 1706 (2005), entitled “Media and terrorism”. The Recommendation builds on PACE Resolution 1271 (2002) and Recommendation 1550 (2002), both entitled “Combating terrorism and respect for human rights”, and refers explicitly to the Committee of Ministers' Declaration on freedom of expression and information in the media in the context of the fight against terrorism (see IRIS 2005-3: 3). Recommendation 1706 (2005) stresses that the right to freedom of expression and information encompasses the public's...

The Communications Act 2003 established a new unified regulator for communications, Ofcom (see IRIS 2003-8: 10). The Act requires Ofcom to draw up a code for television and radio which covers standards in programmes, sponsorship, fairness and privacy, replacing the six codes of its predecessor bodies (sec. 319). The Code also gives continuing effect to the content requirements of the Television Without Frontiers Directive (see Appendix 2 of the Code). The new Code has now been published and comes into force on 25 July 2005. The matters it covers are: Protecting the Under-Eighteens, Harm and Offence,...