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In a ruling of 17 December 2013, the Italian Supreme Court of Appeal, following a lengthy legal dispute, found Google not liable for the distribution of an insulting video on the Google Video platform. The full text of the judgment is now available. The video, filmed on a mobile phone, showed several youngsters bullying and making fun of a mentally handicapped classmate. The young people responsible had been identified with Google’s help and sentenced to community service in an earlier procedure. Three of the four Google executives accused had received a six-month suspended prison sentence for...

In a decision published on 17 February 2014, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) upheld in part a complaint by an individual in which she claimed that her privacy had been breached through the broadcasting of a fictional drama by the broadcaster ITV that closely mirrored the circumstances of her father’s murder. ‘Mrs A’, as she is referred to in the decision to guard against further intrusions of her privacy, submitted the complaint to Ofcom in response to the airing on ITV of the television detective show “Scott & Bailey” on 22 May 2013. The plot of the episode in question was striking in its...

On 27 February 2014, the court of appeal of Paris ordered Arte to stop broadcasting the bi-media programme Intime Conviction, thereby upholding the decision of the judge deliberating under the urgent procedure the day before. The programme began with a television film, broadcast on 14 February 2014, telling the story of a fictional character, a medical examiner named Paul Villers, who was suspected of having murdered his wife. The Franco-German channel achieved its second-highest audience rating of the year that evening. The second stage of the programme was the scheduled showing, between 10 February...

The Bundesgericht (Federal Court) has ordered a journalist at the Basler Zeitung to disclose to the public prosecutor’s office the name of a cannabis dealer profiled in one of her articles. In October 2012, the journalist had published a lengthy article entitled “Zu Besuch bei einem Dealer” (Visiting a dealer) in the printed and online versions of the Basler Zeitung. Another article headed “Schmuggelware aus Holland” (Smuggled goods from Holland) had appeared on the same page of the newspaper, dealing more generally with cannabis consumption in Switzerland and the political debate on the state-controlled...

On 18 September 2013, the Third Civil Chamber of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation handed down a significant ruling concerning the scope of a person’s right to the protection of his or her image in the context of television features concerning public interest events, namely the gay pride parade held in Rome on 8 July 2000. According to Article 96 of the Italian Copyright Act (ICA), a person’s image cannot be displayed without his or her consent. Article 97(1) ICA, however, stipulates that no consent is required, inter alia, when the display of a person’s image occurs in association with facts,...