Germany

[DE] Bill on Information and Communication Services in legislative procedure

IRIS 1997-2:1/18

Wolfgang Closs

Institute of European Media Law (EMR), Saarbrücken/Brussels

A decision of 11 December 1996 by the Federal Cabinet has sent a Bill regulating the framework conditions for information and communication services (IuKDG) on to the Federal Council for its opinion. As reported in IRIS 1996-6:5 and IRIS 1996-8 :5, the proposed legislation takes the form of a number of framework regulations and is intended, in conjunction with the National Media Services Agreement to be elaborated by the Länder , to lay down the legal framework for the multimedia field. The draft being submitted now to the Federal Council is only slightly different from the original November 1996 draft, mainly as regards the copyright law aspects. Thus a section has been added on the protection of producers of databases under which investments in creation and development would be protected for a period of fifteen years, and the proposed amendment to the Act protecting distance education has been dropped.