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In May, in the dispute over the use of programme information in electronic programme guides (EPGs) on the Internet, the Landgericht Leipzig (Leipzig District Court - LG) ruled in favour of the plaintiff, the collecting society VG Media (case no. 5 O 2742/08). According to this decision, the information may only be used if a licence fee has been paid to the relevant rightsholders (see IRIS 2008-4: 12). The defendant company, tvtv, operates a website under the domain name tvtv.de, which contains information about television programmes. It uses additional information, such as content descriptions...

The Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court - BVerwG) has reinstated the delaying effect of two legal challenges in an accelerated procedure (case nos. 6 VR 3.08 and 6 VR 4.08). The challenges were lodged by two public limited companies under Danish law, which operate the Kurdish-language television station Roj TV under a Danish licence. The channel can be received all over Europe via satellite. The Bundesministerium des Inneren (Federal Ministry of Home Affairs - BMI) had assumed that the television channel was a propagandist mouthpiece of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which...

The Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) has dismissed as unfounded the defendant's appeal against the ruling of the Landgericht München I (Munich District Court I - LG) of 15 December 2008 (case no. 12 Kls 468 Js 310758/07) concerning five concurrent cases of sexual abuse of children and the distribution of pornographic material via teleservices. The defendant, who had several previous convictions for sexual offences, had made contact with five children from Belgium via the Internet. During their conversations, live images of the defendant and the children had been transmitted using...

In a ruling issued on 26 May 2009 (case no. VI ZR 191/08), the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH), overruling the two previous decisions of the Landgericht Kassel (Kassel District Court - LG) and the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt (Frankfurt Appeal Court - OLG), decided that the cinema film about the so-called "Cannibal of Rotenburg" could be shown. The film portrays the life story of the plaintiff, known as the "Cannibal of Rotenburg", who was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and disturbing the peace of the dead after killing a man in March 2001, removing the bones from his...

In a ruling of 22 April 2009, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that Internet-based video recorders regularly infringe copyright. On its website, the defendant company offers an "Internet-based personal video recorder", which records television programmes, including those of the plaintiff (the broadcaster RTL), on the customer's instructions. The recorded programmes are stored in an area allocated to the individual customer on a server owned by the defendant, to be downloaded by the customer at a time of his choice. The BGH began by considering the recording process itself...