Germany

[DE] Exploitation Rights Agreement between ARD, ZDF and Film Producers

IRIS 2002-10:1/11

Caroline Hilger

Saarbrücken

On 4 September 2002, public service broadcasters ARD and ZDF announced that they had reached an agreement with the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neuer Deutscher Spielfilmproduzenten (Association of New German Film Producers), under which the rights to publicly funded co-productions would, in future, revert back to the producers after five rather than seven years. ARD and ZDF have therefore met the request of German film producers, who had originally demanded that the period be limited to three years. German production companies had complained that they would not benefit sufficiently from the growth potential created by digital technology for the exploitation of films since, once they had been broadcast about three times, films were usually stored in broadcasters' archives for several years and not used again. This represented a considerable competitive disadvantage for German film producers compared to their foreign counterparts.