Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 14 February 2008 (reference for a preliminary ruling from the Landgericht Koblenz - Germany) - Dynamic Medien Vertriebs GmbH v Avides Media AG
(Free movement of goods - Article 28 EC - Measures having equivalent effect - Directive 2000/31/EC - National rules prohibiting the sale by mail order of image storage media which have not been examined and classified by the competent authority for the purpose of protecting children and which do not bear a label from that authority indicating the age from which they may be viewed - Image storage media imported from another Member State which have been examined and classified by the competent authority of that State and bear an age-limit label - Justification - Child protection - Principle of proportionality)
Language of the case: German
Referring court
Landgericht Koblenz
Parties to the main proceedings
Applicant: Dynamic Medien Vertriebs GmbH
Defendant: Avides Media AG
Re:
Reference for a preliminary ruling - Landgericht Koblenz - Interpretation of Articles 28 EC and 30 EC and the provisions of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the internal market (OJ 2000 L 178, p. 1) - National legislation on the protection of youth prohibiting mail order sales of image storage media not labelled as having been declared available to young persons by the competent authority of the Member State - Image storage media imported from another Member State having been declared available to young persons above a certain age limit by the competent authority of that Member State - Principle of proportionality
Operative part of the judgment
Article 28 EC does not preclude national rules, such as those at issue in the main proceedings, which prohibit the sale and transfer by mail order of image storage media which have not been examined and classified by a higher regional authority or a national voluntary self-regulation body for the purposes of protecting young persons and which do not bear a label from that authority or that body indicating the age from which they may be viewed, unless it appears that the procedure for examination, classification and labelling of image storage media established by those rules is not readily accessible or cannot be completed within a reasonable period, or that a decision of refusal is not open to challenge before the courts.
____________1 - OJ C 178, 29.07.2006.