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In parallel with the increased use of co-regulation systems in the context of the protection of minors, a legal requirement has been introduced to evaluate the effectiveness of these systems. In preparation for the evaluation by the legislature, the Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) examined, on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) and the Länder, whether and to what extent youth media protection works effectively. According to the results of the study, the new approach to youth media protection established in 2003 (see IRIS 2002-9: 15) has improved...

The leading German mobile telephone companies intend to work with the Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter e.V. (Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation of Multimedia Service Providers - FSM), which was set up by media associations and online marketing companies in 1997, to take action against violent and pornographic videos sent to the mobile telephones of children and young people. On the initiative of the Rhineland-Palatinate Youth Ministry, the companies have signed a voluntary undertaking according to which the network operators Debitel, E-Plus, Mobilcom, Talkline, T-Mobile,...

On 18 October 2007, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice - BGH ) ruled that making pornographic offerings accessible on the Internet by simply entering an identification card or passport number did not meet the demands of legislation on the protection of minors (Case no. I ZR 102/05). Nor was it sufficient to impose an additional requirement to effect an account transaction or state a postcode. The parties to the dispute were both suppliers of age verification systems (AVSs) for operators of websites with pornographic content. The purpose of these systems is to prevent minors from accessing...

The European Commission has prohibited state aid provided by the Landesanstalt für Medien Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia Media Authority - LfM) to private broadcasters for converting to digital terrestrial television, as this is in breach of EC state aid rules. The authority had planned to bear part of the costs incurred by private broadcasters for the digital transmission of signals and had made available a total of EUR 6.8 million, to be disbursed over a period of five years. As early as November 2005, the Commission stated that a similar DVB-T subsidy planned by the Medienanstalt...

On 21 September 2007, the German parliament approved the second law on the settlement of copyright in the information society. In so doing, it followed the recommendation of the coordinating legal committee i.e. not to establish a mediating committee. With this law that will presumably come into effect on 1 January 2008, the long-running discussions on the “second basket” of copyright reform (see IRIS 2006-5: 11 and IRIS 2006-3: 11) will come to a temporary end. The new law contains amendments of particular relevance to the field of unknown forms of use, provision of access to works through libraries,...