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The Kommission zur Ermittlung der Konzentration im Medienbereich (Commission on Concentration in the Media - KEK) has raised no objections to the granting of a broadcasting licence to Arena. This decision was announced on 12 April 2006. However, the KEK added that Arena's parent company, Unity Media, would have to be monitored in order to ensure that this combination of content provision and network operation did not form an obstacle to other pay-TV providers. When the broadcasting rights for the football Bundesliga were sold, Arena had been awarded the pay-TV rights, leaving the previous rightsholder,...

After the ruling on the lottery by the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Constitutional Court - BVerfG), interested parties are now debating its consequences for advertising law. The Landesmedienanstalten ( Land media authorities), as the regulators of private broadcasting, are currently discussing the different versions of the ruling with private broadcasters. In its decision of 28 March 2006, the Bundesverfassungsgericht had ruled that the state's sports betting monopoly in the Bundesland of Bavaria was incompatible with the basic right to the freedom of occupation. Under the Gesetz über die vom...

The Landgericht Hamburg (Hamburg District Court - LG ) ruled in a recently published judgment that operators of Internet forums are responsible for illegal content posted on their fora from the moment it becomes accessible to the public rather than when it is actually read. The defendant in the case at hand was the on-line news service Heise , which regularly publishes articles relevant to the IT sector and operates Internet fora in which readers can post their views on current issues. Following an article concerning the business practices of a particular company, several forum participants had...

In a ruling of 26 January 2006, the Bundesfinanzhof (Federal Court of Finance - BFH) confirmed that the standard rate of taxation applies to the turnover of pay-TV companies. Pay-TV providers cannot benefit from the tax reduction for cinemas provided for in Art. 12 para. 2 no. 7b of the Umsatzsteuergesetz (Turnover Tax Act - UStG 1980). The broadcast of a television programme is not the same as a film presentation in the sense of the aforementioned Act. The plaintiff is a pay-TV provider whose customers can watch an encrypted television channel in return for a fixed monthly fee. In the year of...

Satellite operator SES Astra plans to encrypt its digital satellite services. From 2007, the channels of the ProSiebenSat1 and RTL groups will only be broadcast in coded form, opening up new sources of income for the broadcasters. The channels concerned will cost an initial once-off payment of less than EUR 10, plus a monthly charge of less than EUR 5. Viewers will also have to buy a special set-top box and smart card. When analogue satellite transmission is finally cut off in 2010, the channels concerned will no longer be available free of charge via satellite. However, public service channels...