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In a judgment of 25 October 2011, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that claims arising from breaches of personality rights on the internet can also be brought before courts of a member state in which the person concerned has his or her “centre of interests”. It also held that the nature of Article 3 of the E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EG) was not such that it required transposition in the form of a specific conflict-of-laws rule. Both the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris (Paris Regional Court) (Case C-161/10) and the Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court of Justice) (Case C-509/09)...

On 15 November 2011, the Oberlandesgericht Köln (Cologne Court of Appeal - OLG) delivered three further judgments in connection with media reporting on the trial of a well-known weather presenter. In these decisions, the court considered the relationship of press freedom to the personality rights of the individual concerned. The Landgericht Köln (Cologne District Court - LG) had previously decided in several instances, the last on 9 November 2011 (Ref. 28 O 225/11, see IRIS 2012-1/19), that photographs showing the presenter in the prison exercise yard could not be disseminated by the defendant...

On 27 October 2011, the Bundestag adopted, at the third reading, an amendment to the Telekommunikationsgesetz (Telecommunications Act - TKG), the main purpose of which is to transpose into German law the 2009 reforms of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications. A large number of last-minute changes had been made to the government draft of 2 March 2011 (see IRIS 2011-5/17). These concerned issues such as net neutrality: under the newly added section 41a(1) TKG, the federal government can establish this principle by means of a statutory order with the agreement of the Bundestag and...

According to media reports, the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Appeal Court - OLG) decided in an urgent procedure on 17 November 2011 that YouTube was not obliged to disclose data identifying a user who had uploaded copyrighted material to the copyright holder. In the case at hand, a YouTube user had published film material, which he had obviously created by filming a cinema screen, on the video portal. The film distributor concerned claimed that this breached its rights and demanded that YouTube remove the material and provide it with information about the user’s identity. YouTube immediately...

At the end of October 2011, the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartels Office - BKartA) expressed serious concern about the takeover of cable network operator Kabel Baden-Württemberg by the American media group Liberty. In its provisional legal assessment, the BKartA states that Liberty is already active in Germany - particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hessen - through its subsidiary Unitymedia. The purchase of Kabel Baden-Württemberg would strengthen an oligopoly in the German cable supply market and hinder competition in this market. The cable supply market, which primarily concerns the delivery...