Search results : 1381

The long-standing legal dispute between the Verband privater Kabelnetzbetreiber (Union of Private Cable Network Operators - ANGA) and pay-TV broadcaster Premiere over fees for carrying the analog TV channel has been settled out of court. Under the terms of the settlement, Premiere is obliged to withdraw its appeal to the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) against a decision of the Hanseatische Oberlandesgericht (Hanseatic Court of Appeal - OLG Hamburg) and a complaint it lodged with the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court). Premiere has also agreed to reimburse...

The RTL group has purchased audio rights to the football Bundesliga (national football league) for its Internet service. Match coverage will be taken from a webpage hosted since February 2000 by Internet Service Provider Altus Analytics AG in accordance with the instructions of the Deutscher Fußball-Bund (German Football Federation - DFB). The deal was possible because the Kirch group, which owns the rights to motion picture transmissions and exclusive Internet rights to live motion picture coverage, did not acquire Internet rights for audio transmissions. The rights thus acquired by RTL cover...

On 15 February 2001, the German Bundestag (Lower House of Parliament) adopted the new Signaturgesetz (Electronic Signature Act - SigG), which was approved by the Bundesrat (Upper House of Parliament) on 9 March. Under the terms of the Act, which is designed to transpose into German law the provisions of Directive 1999/93/EC of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures (see IRIS 2000-1: 5), the current 1997 Electronic Signature Act will be abolished. A key feature of the new Act is the creation of a new security infrastructure for qualified electronic signatures, which...

On 20 February 2001, the Niedersächsische Landesmedienanstalt für privaten Rundfunk (Lower Saxony Commercial Broadcasting Authority - NLM) instituted proceedings against TV production company Endemol and imposed a fine of DEM 100,000. The case was brought because, in the NLM's view, there had been a breach of the ban on surreptitious advertising contained in Section 7.6.1 of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Agreement between Federal States on Broadcasting - RStV) in connection with the Land media authorities' common guidelines on advertising, the separation of advertising and programme material and...

In a judgment of 4 October 2000, the Verwaltungsgericht Hamburg (Hamburg Administrative Court) dismissed a complaint by Premiere Medien GmbH & Co. KG (appellant). The appellant had challenged a decision by the defendant, the Hamburgische Anstalt für neue Medien (Hamburg New Media Authority - HAM), in which it had found the appellant to have breached the ban on pornography by broadcasting five films. The appellant claimed in the proceedings that the HAM's decision had been unlawful, in particular on the grounds that it had based its assessment of the films concerned on a false definition of pornography....