Search results : 1375

The Bertelsmann media giant has been granted temporary legal protection in Germany from a claim for compensation filed in the USA in connection with its support of the Napster Internet file-sharing service. On 25 July 2003, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court - BVerfG) granted the company's claim for such protection in emergency proceedings. Bertelsmann's competitors EMI and Universal had lodged a joint claim in the USA for USD 17 billion in compensation for copyright infringements related to Bertelsmann's stake in Napster. However, the Second Chamber of the BVerfG prohibited...

On 17 July 2003, the 1st Civil Chamber of the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) issued a verdict following a claim by the publishing group Handelsblatt GmbH for an injunction concerning " Paperboy ", an Internet search engine for press articles. It decided that the plaintiff's copyright had not been infringed and that the use of so-called "deep links" was not anticompetitive. The plaintiff publishes the " Handelsblatt " and " DM " newspapers. It also publishes individual articles from these newspapers on its Internet site. The defendant operates a so-called meta-search engine for...

In a ruling of 26 June 2003, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) established that TV show formats are not protected by copyright. In the corresponding dispute, a French TV company had filed for an injunction against the broadcaster Südwestrundfunk (SWR) concerning the transmission of the SWR series " Kinderquatsch mit Michael ". The plaintiff owns the rights to the series "L'école des fans", which has been broadcast in France since 1977, and claimed that the SWR series was based without permission on the format of its own series. In both series, children aged between 4 and 6 are...

In a ruling of 2 July 2003, the Bundesarbeitsgericht (Federal Employment Court - BAG) decided that an actor's employment may be terminated if the character they play is written out of a TV series, even if their contract of employment covers a longer period. The plaintiff had been a cast member in the RTL series " Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten ", produced by the defendant, Grundy-UFA TV, until early 2001. Her contract of employment had been due to expire on 20 July 2001, when production work on episode 2310 was due to be completed. According to the contract's provisions, the contract could be terminated...

According to Art. 3.1 of the Zugangskontrolldienstegesetz (Conditional Access Services Act - ZKDSG), which transposes Directive 1998/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the legal protection of services based on, or consisting of, conditional access of 20 November 1998, the manufacture, import and distribution for commercial purposes of illicit devices, ie technical procedures and devices designed or specially adapted to facilitate unauthorised access to protected services, are prohibited. The Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt a.M. (Frankfurt Regional Appeals Court) recently decided...