IRIS Plus
For each chosen topic, this new publication looks into:
- the economic and technological backdrop
- the international and European regulatory framework
- the national implementation of these provisions
- self- and co-regulation
- case-law
- recent trends.
The former version of the IRIS Plus series (until 2014) was a paid-for publication that featured a combination of a lead article, related reporting and a Zoom section, comprising overview tables, market data or practical information.
- All published issues are available for free in PDF format (see below).
- Print versions for publications prior to 2022, may be purchased from the Council of Europe online shop.
IRIS Plus 2011-6: Limits to the Use of Personal Data
At the end of September, Facebook announced a plan to extend their service in order to, as it stated, enable users to create a “Life Archive” and thus offer an unlimited number of “friends” all the details and events of their own lives at the click of a mouse. Who would have thought twenty years...
IRIS Plus 2011-5: Why Discuss Network Neutrality?
The freedom to receive and impart information is guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the Council of Europe. As is the case for exercising other fundamental freedoms, the mere recognition of the freedom of expression does not...
IRIS Plus 2011-4: Who Pays for Private Copying?
Triangular relationships are not only a challenge in human life but also in legal settings. In the case of private copying levies, the three points of the triangle are the creators of works, legally acting copyists and copyright pirates. Their interaction is to some extent, and possibly not suffi...
IRIS Plus 2011-3: Media Literacy
Continuous learning is a well established concept to guarantee that graduation from school or university does not mark the end of studying the subjects related to one’s profession. The more an area of knowledge is apt to change the bigger the need to stay on one’s toes. Training on the job is...
IRIS Plus 2011-2: An Insight into Selected Film Funding Systems
Film aid is not only designed to promote creativity, but it can also be remarkably creative itself in terms of the way it is organised. This is presumably linked to the fact that the definition of common film aid objectives, such as the protection and promotion of cultural diversity and identity...
IRIS Plus 2011-1: A Landmark for Mass Media in Russia
When on 15 June 2010 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation adopted Resolution No. 16 “On the Judicial Practice Related to the Statute of the Russian Federation ‘On the Mass Media’”, the first international voice applauding this step was that of Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE Representative on...
IRIS Plus 2010-6: Switchover to the Digital Dividend
Like Siamese twins, the switchover to digital television is inseparable from the spectrum liberated as a result of the process. The twin of the switchover is called digital dividend. If we look closer at these twins, we realize that they are non-identical, as far as at least one important point...
IRIS Plus 2010-5: New Services and Protection of Broadcasters in Copyright Law
A European Audiovisual Observatory publication had already investigated one aspect of the debate in autumn 2004. In IRIS plus “The Legal Protection of Broadcast Signals”, Lucie Guibault and Roy Melzer described in detail current provisions for the international protection of broadcast signals....
IRIS Plus 2010-4: Public Service Media: Money for Content
There have been many public statements on the funding of public service broadcasting and the expectations associated with it. As far as the European Union is concerned, mention might be made of the Communication from the Commission of 27 October 2009 on the application of state aid rules to...
IRIS Plus 2010-3: Product Placement
There are areas of law that are so complex that legislators evidently find it hard to get to grips with them, and one of these areas is presumably product placement. The starting-point for the harmonisation of national solutions, which was the aim of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive...