Search results : 1348

On 18 November 2010, the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Appeal Court - OLG) ruled in favour of RTL Television GmbH in its dispute with a company that provides technical support for the online video recorder (OVR) service Save.TV. In the first instance proceedings, RTL had obtained a temporary injunction against the Save.TV service company from the Landgericht München I (Munich District Court 1) for breach of its retransmission rights set out in Articles 87 and 20 of the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act - UrhG) (see IRIS 2010-9/17). The Appeal Court upheld this decision with reference to the...

In a judgement of 24 November 2010, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court - BVerwG) quashed the decision of the Bayerische Verwaltungsgerichtshof (Bavarian Administrative Court - BayVGH) concerning Axel Springer AG’s planned takeover of private television broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 (P7S1) and referred the case back to the BayVGH. The legal dispute concerned Axel Springer AG’s plan to acquire all the shares in P7S1 and to submit a public takeover bid for the free-floating preference shares without voting rights attached. The Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (Bavarian...

The Bundesministerium des Innern (Federal Ministry of the Interior - BMI) tabled a bill amending data protection law on 1 December 2010. The bill particularly included measures to prevent serious breaches of privacy. According to the ministry, the bill, which was initially submitted to the department ministers for a federal government vote, is mainly designed to strengthen the right of individuals to decide how their personal data is used on the Internet. For this reason, a new Article 38b is to be included in the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (Federal Data Protection Act - BDSG), regulating the publication...

On 17 December 2010, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that the owner of a plot of land could, in principle, prohibit the unauthorised creation and exploitation of photographs and film recordings of its property for commercial purposes. The plaintiff, the “Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten” (Prussian Castles and Gardens Foundation), a public law foundation, is responsible for looking after, maintaining and providing public access to numerous historic buildings and gardens of interest to tourists in the Länder of Berlin and Brandenburg. Two of the defendants sell...

On 14 October 2010, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) issued a ruling on whether it was reasonable to expect a collecting society to enter into a general agreement. In the case concerned, the Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V. (Federal Music Industry Association), which represents 13 music download services, had taken legal action against the Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (Society for Musical Performance and Mechanical Reproduction Rights - GEMA) because the latter had refused to sign a general agreement with it on the use of...