In the public interest
IRIS Plus 2014-1: The new Cinema Communication
Younger generations nowadays take the existence of the European Union for granted. Today’s European adolescents were born into the European Union, so to speak, but it is a very recent development if we take into consideration the history of Europe as a whole. It is an organisation that was not...
IRIS Plus 2013-6: How Private is Personal Data?
There is an uneasy relationship between copyright and data protection, the main reason being that the legal rules governing both these areas are based on a potentially conflicting idea. There is a clash of objectives between copyright law and data protection law, but this does not immediately...
IRIS Plus 2013-5: Audiovisual Heritage 2.0
The destruction of the Library of Alexandria is a symbol of knowledge lost forever. Although the facts about this historical event are not entirely clear, the myth of a centralised source of knowledge ravaged by the flames remains in the collective conscience as a reminder of the fragility of...
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 2013-2: Open Journalism
Publish and be damned? The Duke of Wellington's famous phrase could be used to describe the challenges for regulators dealing with the complex legal issues surrounding open journalism. In the age of Internet and the smart phone, we are ALL potentially journalists capable of generating copy, sound...
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...
La protection des mineurs dans le domaine des médias en République tchèque
[This text is only available in French] Le présent article aborde le thème de la protection des mineurs dans le domaine des médias en République tchèque en deux parties : la première partie concerne le domaine de la télédiffusion et des services de médias audiovisuels à la demande en y incluant...
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...