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On 13 February 2024, the Landgericht Berlin II (Berlin District Court II) granted a federal government application for injunctive relief against the publication of an AI-generated video in which Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared to discuss measures to ban the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany – AfD) political party. The case concerned two essentially identical videos produced by the same organisation but distributed via different social networks. In the AI-generated videos, Olaf Scholz talks about the possible banning of the AfD and urges German citizens to...

On 2 February 2024, the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Appeal Court) upheld RTL Deutschland’s claim that DVB-C cable retransmission rights for free TV programmes can be licensed separately from IPTV or OTT distribution rights. RTL Deutschland licensed its DVB-C cable retransmission rights separately from IPTV or OTT distribution rights. According to an RTL press release issued on 21 February 2024, NetCologne, a regional telecommunications service provider and cable network operator in the Cologne/Bonn region, had claimed that this practice was unlawful. In a legal dispute dating...

Under a decision of 8 February 2024 in case number I ZR 34/23, the first civil chamber of the German Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court – BGH) submitted three preliminary questions to the  Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), requesting clarification of whether a retirement home operator who retransmits radio and television programmes received via a satellite receiver to the home’s residents via a cable network is "communicating to the public" within the meaning of copyright law and should therefore enter into licensing agreements. The three questions...

The Rundfunkkommission (Broadcasting Commission) of the 16 Länder, which are responsible for media regulation in Germany, adopted the key aspects of public service broadcasting reforms at a closed meeting in Bingen am Rhein on 25/26 January 2024. The meeting was held a few days after the publication of a report by the Zukunftsrat (Future Council), an independent panel of experts set up by the Länder to consider the future development of public service broadcasting. The Future Council had been tasked with developing a long-term vision for the future of public service broadcasting and...

On 7 February 2024, the Verwaltungsgericht Hannover (Hanover Administrative Court – VG Hannover) rejected an appeal by the television broadcaster RTL against a complaint lodged by the Niedersächsische Landesmedienanstalt (Lower Saxony state media authority – NLM). The complaint concerned an alleged breach of the requirement for clear visual separation of advertising and programme content during "split-screen" advertising broadcast during an RTL television programme. "Split-screen" advertising for a smartphone, in which editorial content and advertising were...