Search results : 1348

In a recently published decision of 27 December 2010, the Oberlandesgericht Köln (Cologne regional court of appeal - OLG) considered the concept of “commercial scale” of file-sharing in relation to the right to information enshrined in Article 101 of the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act - UrhG) (see IRIS 2011-1/17). Taking previous case-law into account, the OLG Köln repeated that, on the one hand, a commercial scale was present if the work being offered was particularly valuable, before looking more closely at a second scenario, whereby a sufficiently large file was made available to the public...

In a ruling of 18 January 2011, the Verwaltungsgericht Berlin (Berlin Administrative Court - VG) rejected a claim by the Filmförderungsanstalt (Film Support Office - FFA) to payment of the film tax. The case concerned DVDs produced and sold by the video marketing company of the Berlin-Brandenburg public service broadcaster (RBB), each containing several episodes of various television series produced by the broadcaster. The FFA wanted the video marketing company to pay a film tax on these DVDs on the basis of Article 66a of the Filmförderungsgesetz (Film Support Act - FFG). Under this provision,...

On 10 December 2010, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court - BVerfG) decided to uphold the appeal by the Hamburg-based local broadcaster “Freies Sender Kombinat” (FSK) against an order to search its business premises and confiscate its editorial documents, and to overturn the lower instance rulings. In October 2003, FSK had broadcast a report on alleged infringements by police officers at a demonstration. During the programme, an unknown presenter had played recordings of two telephone calls between a police press officer and somebody who had introduced him/herself in the telephone...

On 16 December 2010, the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) adopted two bills ratifying and implementing the Additional Protocol of 2003 to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime (see IRIS 2001-10/3) and taking into account Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of the Council of the European Union of 28 November 2008 (see IRIS 2009-2/5). The Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime generally criminalises the dissemination of racist and xenophobic material via computer and distribution systems such as the Internet. This includes “any written material, any image or any other representation...

The heads of government of the Länder signed the 15. Rundfunkänderungsstaatsvertrag (15th Agreement Amending the Inter-State Broadcasting Agreement - RÄStV) at the Minister-Presidents’ conference held in Berlin on 15 December 2010. Under the agreement, a new contribution model for the financing of public service broadcasting will be introduced in 2013. The obligation to pay the licence fee will no longer be based on ownership of a reception device, but on that of a home (Art. 2(1) RÄStV), place of business (Art. 5(1) RÄStV) or non-privately used vehicle (Art. 5(2) RÄStV; see IRIS 2010-6/21). In...