Search results : 1375

In a judgment of 25 March 2010, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice - BGH) allowed an appeal concerning a breach of copyright resulting from the use of a video film without authorisation. In the proceedings at the centre of the appeal, the plaintiff had filmed the parachute jump of a well-known German politician in June 2007. The politician was killed, and the film was shown several times by one defendant, the operator of a news channel, on 29 June 2007, and made publicly available by another defendant, the operator of an internet portal. Both publications took place without the plaintiff’s...

On 15 February 2010, the Bundesregierung (Federal Government) introduced in the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) a bill amending the Telemediengesetz (Telemedia Act - TMG) and a second bill amending the Vorläufiges Tabakgesetz (Provisional Tobacco Act). Both bills largely correspond with the bill presented in May 2009 (see IRIS 2009-6: 10) and are designed to transpose Directive 2007/65/EC, particularly its provisions concerning on-demand audiovisual media services and the ban on tobacco advertising. The amendments to the TMG concern its scope (Art. 1(6) of the bill), the broadening of concept...

On 15 February 2010, the Oberlandesgericht Hamburg (Hamburg Court of Appeal - OLG) decided that looking at Internet sites containing child pornography is a criminal offence under Art. 184b(4) of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code - StGB). It overturned the first instance ruling and referred the case back to be heard again (case no. 2-27/09 (REV)). In the case concerned, the lower instance court had noted that the defendant had accessed files containing child pornography on the Internet in order to look at them. However, since the defendant had not known that the files would be automatically stored...

On 19 February 2010, the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Appeal Court - OLG) issued a temporary order (case no. 6 WG 6/10) against the Zentralstelle für private Überspielungsrechte (Central Office for Private Copying Rights - ZPÜ), preventing it from setting a tariff for a levy on PCs and/or publishing such a tariff in the Bundesanzeiger (Federal Gazette) before it had reached an agreement with all negotiating parties. If these negotiations were unsuccessful, an arbitration procedure would be necessary. Furthermore, the court ruled that such levies should not be imposed until empirical investigations...

The Oberverwaltungsgericht (Administrative Appeal Court - OVG) of Berlin-Brandenburg has decided in several procedures concerning temporary legal protection that the plaintiffs, multiplex cinema operators, are, for the time being, not obliged to pay film contributions to the Filmförderungsanstalt (Film Support Office) under the Filmförderungsgesetz (Film Support Act - FFG). The OVG granted the cinema operators' applications with reference to the 2009 decision of the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court - BVerwG), which found that the different systems for contributions paid by...