Broadcasting
IRIS Plus 2014-3: Enabling Access to the Media for All
When it comes to barriers to accessing information and to culture for people with disabilities, the concept becomes immediately multifaceted. Depending on how content as such is conceived, whether it is a library with stairs before an entrance door or an immaterial file requiring the command of...
IRIS Plus 2014-2: Media in the Courtroom
The model of separation of powers (legislature, executive and judiciary) in its different declinations forms the basis for the political structure of most democratic states in the world. Not formally one of these powers, the press is nevertheless often called “the Fourth Estate” or “the fourth...
IRIS Plus 2013-4: What Is an On-demand Service?
Few songwriters have captured the presentiment of change as Bob Dylan in his song "The Times They Are A-Changin'". Although written in a very particular period of the twentieth Century, its message is universal and therefore can be applied to virtually any moment in time. Indeed, the fight...
IRIS Plus 2013-3: Converged Media: Same Content, Different Laws?
Convergence is no longer a future vision but can be experienced in the here and now. At least, this is true for those among us who possess a smart TV and manage to use its full technical potential. At the same time, media professionals never tire of pointing to the fact (and to supporting...
IRIS Plus 2013-1: The Digital Switchover
The European Commission's report on the telecommunications market and regulatory development (see also IRIS 2012-9/8) describes, among other things, the current status of the introduction of digital television in the EU member states. According to section 5.3.2 of the report, at the time of...
IRIS Special 2012: Converged Markets - Converged Power? Regulation and Case Law
Eleven years ago, the European Audiovisual Observatory published the IRIS Special entitled “Television and Media Concentration”. Back then it still seemed meaningful to restrict the publication to the regulation of traditional forms of concentration in the broadcasting sector and, to this end,...
IRIS Plus 2012-6: Protection of Minors and Audiovisual Content On-Demand
On-demand services with audiovisual content are continuing to be more and more popular among users. One of the world's best known platforms is no doubt YouTube, which, according to Matthew Glotzbach, the company's EMEA Managing Director, currently has 800 million users a month who upload 72 hours...
IRIS Plus 2012-5: Must-carry: Renaissance or Reformation?
On 11 July 2012, the Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale per il Lazio, an Italian administrative court in Rome decided on a case involving the Italian public service broadcaster RAI (TAR Lazio Decision n. 6320). It found RAI guilty of having violated its charter by encrypting its free-to-air TV...
IRIS Plus 2012-4: Exclusive Rights and Short Reporting
2012 is often called a year of sports as both the Euro 2012 football championships and the Olympic Games will be held. Of course, there will be or have been world championships in other sports, such as the biathlon, ski flying, figure skating, indoor athletics, table tennis, windsurfing,...
IRIS Plus 2012-2: The Lifespan for Copyright of Audiovisual Works
Intellectual property rights are one of the tools, if not the tool for rewarding and stimulating creativity. They are attached to many assets which form part of our cultural heritage but which cannot be tagged physically as personal property, as could be, for example, paintings or sculptures....