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On 10 April 2012 the Dutch government adopted an amendment to Article 2139 of the Dutch Media Act 2008, which makes programme data available by abolishing the monopoly held by public broadcasting organisations. The new Article 2139 of the Dutch Media Act 2008 will enter into force on 1 January 2013. The amendment is based on the main conclusions set forth in a 2011 report by the Commissariaat voor de Media (Dutch Media Authority) initiated by the Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science - OCW). The goal of the amendment is to liberalise the market...

The English High Court has ordered the Internet Service Provider O2 to hand over the personal details of over 9,000 customers to a company acting on behalf of copyright owners and to a pornographic film production company, whilst rejecting similar claims by 12 other copyright owners. Golden Eye International Limited, an organisation acting on behalf of copyright owners, and 13 pornographic film producers sought a ‘Norwich Pharmacal Order’ to compel O2 to give them the personal details of 9,124 O2 customers in order to demand GBP 700 each in damages for alleged copyright infringement, and to threaten...

On 6 March 2012 the Constitutional Court issued a decision concerning the Czech writer Michael Viewegh. In 2004 the newspaper Aha! published a report about Viewegh’s alleged affair with a mistress with the subtitles "My secret lover", "V. likes young author" and "He showed me his big pencil sharpener”. The writer claimed that he knew the woman only as a pupil and met with her only in the classroom. He said months after the publishing of the article he still was not at ease. Furthermore, advertising on television repeatedly aired the article and the information therefore reached not only readers...

In February 2010, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) issued a first opinion on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) on its own initiative (See IRIS 2010-4/5) to draw the European Commission’s attention to privacy and data-protection related aspects. At that time, negotiations on ACTA were conducted in secret. Now that the text of the proposed agreement has been made public and that the adoption procedure has started at EU level (see IRIS 2011-8/7), the EDPS considered it appropriate to issue a second opinion on the privacy and data protection issues raised by ACTA. In its Opinion...

On 19 April 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a judgment in the case of Bonnier Audio AB and others v. Perfect Communication Sweden AB. Bonnier Audio and others are publishing companies, which hold, inter alia, exclusive rights to the reproduction, publishing and distribution to the public of 27 audiobooks. The publishing companies claim that their exclusive rights are infringed by public distribution of the 27 audiobooks, without their consent, via an online filesharing programme. Based on Article 53c of the Swedish Copyright Act, the publishing companies applied...