Search results : 1348

On 27 April 2010, the Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Regional Appeal Court - OLG) ruled that file-hosting site "Rapidshare" was not liable for copyright infringements committed by third parties using its service. In the OLG's view, Rapidshare was not responsible, either as perpetrator or participant, for copyright infringements committed by users. Rapidshare made storage space available for the uploading of files and offered access to stored data by providing a download link. The site operator itself did not publish any content, so it could not be guilty of infringing copyright. As long...

In a recently published ruling of 19 November 2009, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that the use of photographs taken in connection with the production of a film does not infringe the right of cinematographic exploitation enshrined in Art. 91 of the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act - UrhG). The defendant operates an online archive of around 400,000 photographs from various films, including some the rights to which are owned by the plaintiff, a film producer. These images can be viewed in thumbnail form and downloaded for a fee. The plaintiff argued that this service...

On 12 May 2010, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) granted an injunction to a music rights marketing company against the private operator of a WLAN under contributory negligence rules. A piece of music, the rights to which were marketed by the plaintiff, had been shared on the Internet using the defendant's WLAN. The plaintiff claimed damages from the defendant and demanded an injunction as well as reimbursement of the cost of sending a cease-and-desist demand. The Landgericht Frankfurt/Main (Frankfurt/Main district court) had essentially upheld the plaintiff's application. On...

On 8 June 2010, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) confirmed the decision taken by the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office - BKartA) in 2006 to ban the merger between Axel Springer AG and TV broadcaster ProSiebenSat1. The BKartA had prohibited the planned merger due to concerns about competition (see IRIS 2006-4: 10/16). Springer's appeal against this decision was initially rejected by the Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Regional Appeal Court - OLG) as inadmissible. Springer successfully appealed to the BGH against this ruling and the matter was referred back to the...

In his report on the financing of public service broadcasting, published on 6 May 2010, Prof. Dr Kirchhof, former Federal Constitutional Judge, recommends that the licence fee obligation should no longer be dependent on whether the fee payer owns a broadcasting reception device, but should apply to each household. ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio had commissioned Kirchhof to write the report. He believes that linking the licence fee to reception devices is inappropriate, raising doubts over the legality of the current licence system. One reason for this is media convergence. Whereas in the early days...