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At a special conference held on 6 April 2011, the Prime Ministers of the Länder approved the draft amendment to the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Gambling Agreement - GlüStV), which is currently valid until the end of 2011. A key aspect of the draft is an experimental clause, valid initially for seven years, under which seven national sports betting licences will be granted. The extent to which the objectives of the licensing system have been achieved will be evaluated five years after it comes into force. The licence fee will be 16.66% of all stakes. Licence-holders must undertake not...

In a decision of 24 March 2011, the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Appeal Court -OLG) ruled on a dispute between the Wort collecting society for authors and publishing companies (VG Wort) and the Bundesländer concerning claims under Article 52a of the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act - UrhG). The plaintiff, VG Wort, wanted the defendants, the 16 Bundesländer, in their role as university providers, to conclude a so-called overall agreement, to be valid from 1 January 2008, in accordance with the Urheberrechtswahrnehmungsgesetz (Copyright Collection Act - UrhWG). The claims were not disputed...

On 23 March 2011, the Bayerische Verwaltungsgerichtshof (Bavarian Administrative Court - BayVGH) endorsed the decision to restrict the broadcast times of two episodes of the programme "MTV I want a famous face" to between 11pm and 6am, thereby upholding the appeal of the Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (Bavarian Centre for New Media - BLM) on youth protection grounds (see IRIS 2009-10/8). The decision followed a complaint by the provider of the MTV music channel against the broadcast time restriction imposed by the BLM for several episodes of the “MTV I want a famous face” series, which...

On 21 March 2011, the Bayerische Verwaltungsgerichtshof (Bavarian Administrative Court - BayVGH) decided, in a temporary injunction procedure, that the state monopoly on sports betting based on the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Gambling Agreement), which is valid until the end of 2011, does not comply with European legislation (see cases C-447/08 and C-448/08). In the court’s opinion, due to the steadily increasing number of licensed slot machines in amusement arcades, which can be much more addictive than sports betting, the objective of systematically and coherently limiting betting and...

According to media reports, the CDU/CSU and FDP coalition committee decided on 5 April 2011 to overturn the Gesetz zur Erschwerung des Zugangs zu kinderpornographischen Inhalten in Kommunikationsnetzen (Act on the obstruction of access to child pornography via communication networks - Zugangserschwerungsgesetz), which was passed by the previous government on 18 June 2009 with the aim of enabling internet sites with child pornography content to be blocked. The law came into force on 17 February 2010 but, in accordance with the coalition agreement of the then newly-formed Federal Government and on...