Mandatory Registration Of Influencers/YouTubers - Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing

In 2022, EU Directive 2018/1808 ("Directive") – amending Directive 2010/13/EU on the coordination of certain laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States governing the provision of audiovisual media services – was transposed into Czech law by the Act on Audiovisual Media Services on Demand ("Act"). Its main objective is to protect child users and consumers.

The terms "on-demand audiovisual media service" and "on-demand audiovisual media service provider" are defined in the Act. However, interpretation problems still arise as the interpretation of some of the defining criteria and elements are not entirely clear and understandable at first glance.

In the fall of 2024, with reference to the Directive, but without any previous public discussion, the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting ("CRTB"; it is a Czech body responsible for state administration in the field of radio and television broadcasting) issued a press release stating that all audiovisual content creators (vloggers, youtubers, influencers) whose service is operated as an economic activity will be required to actively register in the Register of On-Demand Audiovisual Media Services in accordance with Section 5 of the Act. Pursuant to the CRTB interpretation, audiovisual content created by creators presenting themselves on social media becomes an on-demand audiovisual media service if the creator (i) is based in the Czech Republic, (ii) posts videos on social networks such as YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram, (iii) pursues profit through their activities, and (iv) has main purpose to inform, entertain, or educate the general public, or to reach the general public through audiovisual content that is under his/her editorial control.

Based on the above CRTB's interpretation – that was at best confusing and inaccurate – basically anyone who has a social media account and posts videos that are divided into relevant categories would have to register. Such an interpretation would thus mean a major change for content creators, as the CRTB could check their content at any time, and anyone could complain to the CRTB about the content of such creators (and CRTB would be obliged to deal with such complaints). The creators would thus be subject to the same conditions as Netflix or HBO, for example.

Negative reactions were not long in coming. Not only the creators were confused and disappointed – even the Minister of Culture himself spoke out against mandatory registration, considering the obligation unreasonable. He also believed that CRTB interprets the law very broadly. As a result, Section 5 of the Act was amended (based on the Minister's amendment proposal), shifting the registration requirement from the creators to CRTB (i.e. it will be CRTB who will register the creators upon meeting the relevant criteria), and the CRTB also provided further clarification of the relevant criteria for registration – in particular, the criteria are as follows:

1. the main purpose of the service provided (or its separable parts) must be to provideprograms to the public at a time chosen by the user, at their individual request, based on a catalog of programs compiled by the provider;
2. the programs are provided for the purpose of information, entertainment, or education and are intended for the general public;
3. the service provided competes with television broadcasting (decisive threshold value is 500,000 views on average per published video recording on a single platform used by the provider per year + a minimum number of 52 published video recordings on a single platform used by the provider per year);
4. the service provider is editorially responsible for the service;
5. the service is primarily of an economic nature (provider's annual income from this activity exceeds CZK 50,000 per year;not usually met by institutions and organizations whose activities are of an educational, informational, cultural, administrative, religious, or similar nature);
6. the service provider must be established in the Czech Republic.

It is therefore clear that the original proposed interpretation by the CRTB, which would have included mandatory registration for tens of thousands of creators, has been somewhat toned down – according to the current interpretation, the registration requirement will likely only affect a small number of creators.

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