BBC News had an item today about the release of Willem Holleeder. The BBC report also mentions the film “the Heineken Kidnapping” and comments on the lawsuit conducted by Willem Holleeder against the film’s producer IDTV. On that matter I have been briefly interviewed as IDTV’s attorney. Please …read more

On December 1, 2011 the Amsterdam Court rendered its judgment in the second summary proceedings about the Dutch movie ‘De Heineken Ontvoering’ (The Heineken Kidnapping), starring Rutger Hauer. These proceedings were instituted against producer IDTV by two men who were involved in the kidnapping of the beer mogul, Frans Meijer and Jan Boellaard. We reported in the October 2011 newsletter on the first summary proceedings, which were instituted by Willem Holleeder (also one of the kidnappers) against the producer. In that …read more

Could Dutch newspaper Spits call the former Member of Parliament for the PVV James Sharpe ‘porn baron’ and ‘king of online porn’? That question was the reason for the preliminary relief proceedings which Sharpe initiated in 2011 against Spits. In two articles Spits jokingly used the above-mentioned terms, with which it referred to an affair around …read more

This week the Dutch Senate approved the new act that establishes the Dutch Games of Chance Authority (’Kansspelautoriteit’). The Authority shall take over the responsibilities of the previous regulator (’College van Toezicht op Kansspelen’) and shall receive a full array of restrictive measures. The Authority shall start on 1 April 2012 and shall be based in The Hague. An important task will be the issuing of new licenses for games of chance. State Secretary Teeven acknowledged …read more

By Joris van Hoboken

The European Commission draft proposal for a data protection regulation contains the so-called right to be forgotten in Article 15. This is not a surprise but the way it has been drafted is quite terrible as I will try to explain below.

Commissioner Viviane Reding made a right to be forgotten into one of the central themes of the privacy directive’s review of the last two years and her plans to modernize the existing legal framework for the processing of personal data in the EU. While there are some valuable improvements to the existing data protection rules in the EC’s concept proposal, this right to be forgotten is amongst the worst legal inventions …read more

On Oct. 28, 2011, the Court of First Instance in Amsterdam delivered its full judgment in the case of Willem Holleeder v. IDTV (verdict here, in Dutch). The judgment contains important guidelines for makers of historical movies (or other works of art) that mix fact and fiction. The court also confirms the principles laid down in the recent ECHR Mosley ruling.

The facts
In 1983, Dutch beer tycoon Freddy Heineken and his chauffeur Doderer were kidnapped by a group of five men, among whom the claimant in this case, Willem Holleeder. After having been locked for three weeks in two damp cells, without heating and chained to the wall, Heineken and Doderer were freed by the police. The kidnappers escaped with EURO 13.6 million ransom money, but were eventually …read more

Several stakeholders representing the online advertising, publishing and e-commerce industry have requested the Dutch Senate to substantively review the recently adopted Dutch cookie law after the summer recess.

We recently covered the adoption by Dutch Parliament …read more

Sex Tape Leads to Struggle About Pre-Notification Right
The European Court of Human Rights (”ECHR”) has rendered a judgment in the Mosley vs UK case, about which we already wrote here, here and here on our MediaReport website (in Dutch). The ECHR has established that the United Kingdom has not violated the privacy rights of Mosley under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Privacy victims do not have a right to …read more

Last week (on 21 June 2011), Dutch Parliament passed a bill which transposes the amendments to the ePrivacy Directive. Pursuant to the new “cookie law”, incorporated in the Dutch Telecommunications Act (article 11.7a under 1), website operators will be required to obtain prior consent from users before they can store or gain access to cookies on the user’s computer (opt-in). Furthermore, the use of cookies for behavioral advertising is presumed to be a processing of personal data within the meaning of the Dutch …read more

It have been exciting weeks for Danish artist Nadia Plesner. Louis Vuitton sued her over the use of a look-a-like Louis Vuitton bag in her artworks. With these artworks, Plesner tried to raise awareness for the situation in Darfur. See here for further background information.

Louis Vuitton claimed that Plesner’s artworks infringed upon her design rights on the bag. Plesner relied on her fundamental right on freedom of speech. More specifically: her artistic freedom. After Plesner successfully challenged a judge of the Court in preliminary relief proceedings at an earlier stage, (another judge of) the Court in preliminary relief proceedings rendered a judgment in this case yesterday. The Court …read more