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In a ruling of 26 May 2008, the Verwaltungsgericht Berlin (Berlin Administrative Court – VG) rejected an application by the TV broadcaster ProSieben for interim legal protection against an objection lodged by the Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg (Berlin-Brandenburg media authority - mabb) concerning an infomercial. At the start of the broadcast on 30 November 2007, the programme was labelled as a " Dauerwerbesendung " (infomercial) and, during the broadcast, as " Q.-Promotion ". The mabb complained that this breached the programme labelling obligation set out in Art. 7 para. 5 of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag...

German courts have recently dealt repeatedly with various aspects of liability in relation to Internet use. For example, according to a ruling of the Landgericht (LG) München I (Munich District Court I) of 19 June 2008, parents are responsible for copyright infringements committed by their children (who are minors) in connection with Internet use if they have failed to properly fulfil their supervisory and educational obligations. A 16-year old girl had uploaded videos consisting of copyright-protected photographs onto two web portals. In the court’s opinion, her parents had failed to meet their...

In a ruling issued on 17 July 2008, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that CD/DVD duplicators were not subject to a copyright fee. The plaintiff, the Wort collecting society, which collects copyright fees for literary works, had demanded that the defendant, which sells such duplicators, pay a fee of EUR 1,227.10 per device sold. Duplicators can be used to copy data from CDs, CD-ROMs or DVDs without the use of a PC, but using burners. The plaintiff based its demand on Art. 54a para. 1 sentence 1 of the old version of the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act - UrhG), since...

The media authorities of the Länder (States) have recently noted several cases of surreptitious advertising on television and have initiated proceedings against the broadcasters concerned. Surreptitious advertising is defined in section 2(2)(6) of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Broadcasting Agreement) and is prohibited under the first sentence of section 7(6). After conducting a thorough investigation, in particular concerning the contractual relationships between the television station, the producer and the programme organiser, the Media Council of the Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg...

In a judgment of 21 April 2008, the Landgericht Köln (Cologne Regional Court) ruled that copyright protected works can also be created in the context of the “Second Life” online platform. The case concerned a virtual model of Cologne Cathedral. The court stated that a work available on an online platform could also be protected by copyright if it could be classified as one of the types of works mentioned in section 2 of the Urhebergesetz (Copyright Act). As long as this classification was possible, there was, the court said, no need under this section to have recourse to the notion of a potentially...