IRIS newsletter 2024-5

Publisher:

European Audiovisual Observatory
76, allée de la Robertsau
F-67000 STRASBOURG

Tel. : +33 (0) 3 90 21 60 00
Fax : +33 (0) 3 90 21 60 19
E-mail: obs@obs.coe.int
www.obs.coe.int

Comments and Suggestions to: iris@obs.coe.int

Executive Director: Susanne Nikoltchev

 

Maja Cappello, Editor • Sophie Valais, Amélie Lacourt, Justine Radel, Deputy Editors (European Audiovisual Observatory)

Documentation/Press Contact: Alison Hindhaugh

Tel.: +33 (0)3 90 21 60 10

E-mail: alison.hindhaugh@coe.int

Translations:

Sabine Bouajaja, European Audiovisual Observatory (co-ordination) • Paul Green • Marco Polo Sarl • Nathalie Sturlèse • Brigitte Auel •   Erwin Rohwer • Sonja Schmidt • Ulrike Welsch

Corrections:

Sabine Bouajaja, European Audiovisual Observatory (co-ordination) • Sophie Valais and Amélie Lacourt • Linda Byrne • Glenn Ford • David Windsor • Aurélie Courtinat •  Barbara Grokenberger  

Web Design:

Coordination: Cyril Chaboisseau, European Audiovisual Observatory
ISSN 2078-6158

© 2024 European Audiovisual Observatory, Strasbourg (France)

 

Editorial

The media regulatory environment is a complex tapestry, woven from a multitude of intricate threads, as illustrated in this edition of the newsletter.

One thread of this tapestry is legislation. New laws and rules have been adopted, by Government or by Parliament, in countries like Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Georgia.

But the adoption of new legislation is rarely a walk in the park. In Georgia, the law on foreign agents has sparked a wave of protests. Following a failure to adopt the bill “On transparency of foreign influence” in March 2023, the Parliament adopted, on 14 May 2024, a revised version of the text which could potentially carry substantial consequences, with an obligation on organisations receiving foreign funding to publish their annual financial reports.

Another thread is the intervention of regulatory bodies. In Portugal and the United Kingdom, the media regulators reported respectively on advertising targeting children and commercial communications in children's channels and/or programs, suggesting lack of compliance by TV channels, and on the breach of due impartiality rules by broadcasters. At supranational level, the European Commission forms a crucial component of this intricate design with its decision to open a second formal proceedings against TikTok, for the launch of TikTok Lite without prior diligent assessment of the risks it entails. It also urged a handful of countries to comply with the DSA by designating and fully empowering their Digital Services Coordinators.

Completing the tapestry are court decisions, including that made by the Czech courts on the copyright protection of content created by generative AI.

With a little hindsight, the tapestry we unfold in this newsletter is a vibrant display, featuring a wide range of topics, including influencers, election campaigns, protection of journalists, artificial intelligence, and many more.

 

Enjoy the read,

 

Maja Cappello, Editor

European Audiovisual Observatory

 

International

COUNCIL OF EUROPE

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has delivered an interesting judgment that further clarifies the application of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on the right to access public documents containing personal data. Although the ECtHR found that the protection of personal information of grant beneficiaries constituted a legitimate aim for refusing access to such data, it emphasised that the information request by a journalist aiming to contribute to transparency in the allocation of taxpayers’ money, clearly satisfied the public interest test. The ECtHR...

Read more

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has once again found a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a criminal defamation case, related to an issue of public interest. The ECtHR in particular observed that the criminal conviction of the applicant appeared to be manifestly disproportionate, as the Portuguese Civil Code provided for a specific remedy in respect of damage to honour and reputation. The ECtHR also found the award of damages which the applicant was required to pay manifestly disproportionate, taking into consideration that the critical...

Read more

EUROPEAN UNION

In April 2024, TikTok launched TikTok Lite in France and Spain, a new app featuring a new functionality aimed at users over 18. According to the European Commission, the “Reward Program” allows users to earn points while performing certain “tasks” on TikTok, such as watching videos, liking content, following creators, inviting friends to join TikTok, etc. These points can be exchanged for rewards, such as Amazon vouchers, gift cards via PayPal or TikTok's coins currency that can be spent on tipping creators. Fearing potential impact of this new programme on the protection...

Read more

The Digital Services Act (DSA) required all member states to designate their Digital Services Coordinators (DSCs) by that 17 February 2024. Article 49 of the DSA requires the selection of a DSC from among the competent authorities responsible for the supervision of intermediary services and the enforcement of the DSA. However, on 24 April 2024, the European Commission decided to open infringement proceedings against six member states for failing to fulfil their obligations under EU law by sending them letters of formal notice. The countries in question have either not designated a DSC (Estonia,...

Read more

NATIONAL

For the first time in history, the Czech courts have directly dealt with the issue of copyright protection for content created with the help of generative AI. The decision was made available by Prague's municipal court. According to the data in the judicial database, no appeal was filed against it and it is therefore final. The dispute was sparked by a Prague law firm's publication of an image created by artificial intelligence. According to the law firm (the plaintiff), the image was created based on a prompt/assignment: "create a visual representation of two parties signing...

Read more

On 21 March 2024, the Bundestag (German federal parliament) adopted the draft Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (Digital Services Law – DDG) to regulate the single market for digital services and promote fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services. The Bundestag vote followed a recommendation by the Ausschuss für Digitales (Committee on Digital Affairs). The DDG aims to bring German legislation into line with the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) and clarify some outstanding questions regarding its implementation. The DSA and DDG are primarily designed to combat...

Read more

On 21 March 2024, the Landesanstalt für Medien Nordrhein-Westfalen (North-Rhine Westphalia media authority), one of the 14 German state media regulators, published a study it had commissioned on the acceptance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in journalism. The study concludes that the majority of people who were questioned are, in principle, open to the use of AI to support the work of journalists. However, based on the results of a number of experiments, the study suggests that, in order to increase acceptance and dispel people’s reservations, transparent regulation is required when...

Read more

In March 2024, the state media authorities’ Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht (Commission on Licensing and Supervision – ZAK), the main German media regulator with responsibility, inter alia, for regulating national media platforms, issued two noteworthy decisions in relation to the distribution of media content by new media stakeholders. The first decision concerns in-car entertainment systems, which are set to be governed by German media regulations, in particular provisions on public value. The second concerns an infringement of anti-discrimination rules by Google’s...

Read more

On 30 April 2024, the Council of Ministers, at the proposal of the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service led by José Luis Escrivá, approved Real Decreto-Ley 444/2024 (Royal Decree-Law no. 444/2024) which, for the first time, establishes conditions for the regulation of the activities of Spanish influencers (or content creators or vloggers) in accordance with the 2022 Ley General de Comunicación Audiovisual (General Law on Audiovisual Communication). According to the royal decree, the text is designed to create an up-to-date legal framework that reflects...

Read more

In a decision adopted on 3 April 2024, the Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique (the French audiovisual regulator – ARCOM) issued a formal notice to BFM TV, urging it to meet its obligations to exercise honesty and rigour in the presentation and processing of information, and to control its programmes. The warning followed a discussion in the “120 minutes” programme broadcast on 26 November 2023 concerning words spoken by a former prime minister in the “Quotidien” programme broadcast on the same channel three days...

Read more

On 15 March, the Autorité de la concurrence (French competition authority) issued a fine of EUR 250 million against the companies Alphabet Inc, Google LLC, Google Ireland Ltd and Google France for failing to meet their obligations under the decision of 22 June 2022 concerning the application of the Law of 24 July 2019 creating a neighbouring right for press publishers and agencies. This was the fourth decision taken by the competition regulator since the case was referred to it following a complaint lodged in November 2019 by the Syndicat des éditeurs de presse magazine (Magazine...

Read more

Decree no. 2024-313 of 5 April 2024 has extended the permission for television advertising for cinema that was temporarily granted under decree no. 2020-983 of 5 August 2020 and extended twice due to the lengthy closure of cinemas during the COVID-19 epidemic. According to the Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique (the French audiovisual regulator – ARCOM), an impact study conducted on behalf of the Direction générale des médias et des industries culturelles (General Directorate of Media and Cultural Industries –...

Read more

On 22 April 2024, Prime Video and LaScam (Société civile des auteurs multimédia, a collective management organisation for multi-media authors) signed a licensing agreement for France, Belgium and Luxembourg, which allows Prime Video to use the LaScam repertoire of works on its video-on-demand (VOD) service. In its press release, LaScam announced that the agreement foresees an appropriate and proportional remuneration for authors affiliated with LaScam and those from other organisation with which LaScam is bound by reciprocity agreements. The agreement enshrines Prime Video...

Read more

Ofcom determined five GB News programmes, namely two episodes of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s (a Conservative Member of the United Kingdom Parliament) State of the Nation, two of Friday Morning with Esther and Phil and an episode of Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, broadcast between 9th May and 23rd June 2023, breached due impartiality rules. The five programmes breached Rules 5.1 and 5.3 of the Broadcasting Code. Esther McVey is also a Conservative Member of the United Kingdom Parliament.   Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code requires that news, in whatever form, be presented...

Read more

On 1 May 2024, Ofcom announced that it had opened an investigation into Fenix International Limited, in its capacity as provider of the video-sharing platform (VSP) OnlyFans. The goal of the investigation is to determine whether OnlyFans is doing enough to prevent children from accessing pornography on the platform. OnlyFans, a VSP under the jurisdiction of Ofcom allows content creators to share videos with their communities. While it is open to all types of creators, it is widely used by adult-content creators, leading to a large proportion of the content available on the platform to be of pornographic...

Read more

Following a failure to adopt the bill "On transparency of foreign influence" in March 2023 (see IRIS 2023-4:1/30 ), on 14 May 2024, the Parliament of Georgia adopted, in the third and final reading, a slightly amended version of the draft law tabled by the ruling party “Georgian Dream” and supported by the Government. The draft replaced the term “agent of foreign influence” with “organisation pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” All other parts of the draft law remain unchanged. One of the four categories of such organisations, according to the...

Read more

On 30 April 2024, the Irish media regulator Coimisiún na Meán published Guidelines in Respect of Broadcast Coverage of Elections (hereinafter “the Guidelines”), in advance of the European and local elections and the election for a directly elected Mayor of Limerick, scheduled to be held on 7 June 2024. These Guidelines were developed further to Rule 27 of the Code of Fairness, Objectivity and Impartiality in News and Current Affairs (hereinafter “the Code”), reviewed in 2022. The Guidelines apply only to broadcasters (excluding print, social media, audiovisual...

Read more

The corrective decree (“Corrective Decree”), which supplements and amends Legislative Decree No. 208 of November 8, 2021 (“AVMS Code”), was published in the Italian Official Gazette on April 17, 2024. The approval of the Corrective Decree has followed a complex legislative itinerary, during which the Advisory Section for Regulatory Acts of the Council of State and the ad hoc commissions of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies rendered interesting opinions on the legislative novelties introduced.  The Corrective Decree introduced a vast array of amendments...

Read more

On 5 April 2024, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (Dutch Data Protection Authority) (AP) adopted notable new guidance for Dutch political parties in relation to privacy rules during election campaigns, in the context of upcoming elections to the European Parliament, taking place in June 2024. Notably, the Guidance states that the AP asks political parties to “take note of” and conduct campaigns “as much as possible” in accordance with, and “in the spirit of”, the EU Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising, which will generally only...

Read more

On 1 May 2024, the Openbaar Ministerie (Netherlands Public Prosecution Service) adopted significant new rules in relation to criminal proceedings that may involve journalists. Notably, the new rules require that where there is surveillance, or surreptitious recording, of communication targeting suspects, and where journalists may also be present, an examining magistrate must give prior permission to record the communications. The new rules were adopted following a well-known recent controversy in the Netherlands, where during a criminal investigation, conversations between suspects were recorded,...

Read more

The Portuguese Media Regulatory Agency has published a report on advertising targeting children and commercial communications in children's channels and/or programs, suggesting a lack of compliance by TV channels. Advertising forbidden food due to nutritional composition is among the most irregularities found in the report. In that matter, TV channels present a highly diverse performance, with the public broadcasting service showing that, in the period analysed, there was no advertising or commercial communications in the block programming aimed at children. The study, conducted in the...

Read more