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

Yesterday afternoon, 4 May 2011, the The Hague District Court reversed its own earlier order and now decided that the fundamental right of free speech of the Danish artist Nadia Plesner prevails over the design right of Louis Vuitton.

The judgment (in English) can be found here.

An important victory for artistic freedom. We are very happy for Nadia.

Nadia Plesner is represented by Jens van den Brink, Christien Wildeman and Reindert van der Zaal.

The Government has made clear which direction its policy regarding copyright infringements on the Internet is going to take. Downloading from illegal sources will be prohibited. In principle, consumers will not be targeted, but commercial internet intermediaries will. This announcement still has to be converted into a bill and enacted into law. …read more

A lot is going on in the world of games of chance in the Netherlands at the moment. After State Secretary Teeven of Security and Justice had announced his plan for a more liberal games of chance policy on 19 March, the Administrative Law Judicial Division of the Council of State (the highest administrative court) rendered a long-expected ruling in the Betfair case on 21 March. In this ruling the Council of State rapped former Justice Minister Donner on the knuckles for the way in which he had granted licenses for the organizing of sports and horse racing bets.

Under the Act on Games of Chance (Wet op de Kansspelen, “WoK”), the Netherlands have a restrictive games of chance policy, in principle only allowing the organization of games of chance with a government license. Organizing games of chance through the internet is prohibited altogether at present, and licenses for sports and horseracing bets can only …read more

State Secretary Fred Teeven of Security and Justice has announced that there are plans to liberalize the Dutch market for games of chance. Teeven wants to modernize the games of chance policy and to fight gambling addiction, fraud and crime more effectively by widening and expanding the legal offer of games of chance.

The restrictive Dutch games of chance policy, which gives a limited number of operators like Holland Casino and De Lotto a permanent monopoly based on a government license, has been severely criticized in the past years by the European Commission and foreign (online) providers of games of chance, among others. With its Betfair and Ladbrokes rulings of last year, the European Court of Justice still backed up the then Minister of Justice Hirsch Ballin to maintain this policy.

However, the current government has chosen to steer a different course, the omens of which …read more

We have already reported on Media Report about the Dutch case over depection of a bag in an artwork between Louis Vuitton and Danish artist Nadia Plesner.

There is now an English translation of the Dutch court order available here.

Danish artist Nadia Plesner is studying at the Rietveld Academie in the Netherlands. One of Plesner’s works of art, Darfurnica (see picture on the left), is modeled after Picasso’s Guernica and expresses the artist’s surprise at the attention that is paid to nondescript celebrities like Paris Hilton, while humanitarian disasters like those in Darfur remain rather unnoticed. In the middle of the painting an African child is depicted, holding a bag. Louis Vuitton is of the view that the pattern of this bag infringes its …read more

In 1995 the Spanish newspaper Diario 16 reported on the discovery of almost 5000 kilos of hashish in the false bottom of a lorry of the “Domaines Royaux” company, which belongs to the Moroccan Royal Family. The headline read “A family company belonging to Hassan II implicated in drug trafficking.” In Spain, all courts up to the Constitutional Court ruled that this was an illegal interference with the “droit fondamental au respect de l’honneur” of the King of Morocco. The newspaper was sentenced to pay compensation not only because …read more