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In a judgement on 12 November 1998, the First Court of Appeal of the Federal High Court ( BundesgerichtshofBGH), whose field of competence includes copyright law, asked to consider the long-running debate over whether broadcasting companies, as phonogram manufacturers, should be entitled to a share of revenue from sales of recording equipment and blank cassettes, ruled in favour of the broadcasting companies. The West German Broadcasting Corporation ( Westdeutsche Rundfunk - WDR) had asked to sign a copyright protection agreement with the Performing Rights Society ( Gesellschaft zur Verwertung...

In a judgement on 10 December 1998, the Federal High Court ( Bundesgerichtshof - BGH), overruled a decision of the Düsseldorf Court of Appeal ( Oberlandesgericht - OLG) on the admissibility of electronic press archives and remitted the case to that court. The appellant was the publisher of the " Handelsblatt" newspaper and economic magazine "Wirtschaftswoche" and also operated an economic database. The defendant used these publications as part of her occupation, which was the subject of the action. The defendant received from her customers original copies of these publications and then digitalised...

In January this year, the Federal Constitutional Court ( Bundesverfassungsgericht - BVerfG) dismissed a complaint by the public broadcasting company " Radio Bremen" concerning an alleged infringement of the Constitution. The appellant had opposed temporary provisions set out in the Act amending the Radio Bremen Act of 27 October 1998, under which the Board of Directors was to be dismissed. The Board of Directors, of which the Executive Director ( Intendant) was a member under the previous law, was to be dismissed as soon as the Amendment Act came into force. Radio Bremen's complaint was partly...

In a recently published judgement, the Wiesbaden Regional Court ( Landgericht) ruled that comparative advertising on the Internet was not in itself inadmissible (see also IRIS 1998-3:3 and IRIS 1998-7:6). In 1997 the defendant, a health insurance company, had introduced a facility on its Internet site enabling people to compare its prices with those of other health insurance companies. If the user inputted his or her personal data and other information, the company's premium appeared on the screen. Another health insurance company could then be selected and its own premium would be shown. The premiums...

On 12 January, betaresearch, the Kirchgruppe R & D company, published the "betanova" Application Programming Interface (API) for its digital set top box (d-box). The set top box is necessary to decode the digital datastream into a television picture. With the publication of the programming interface it will now be possible for any programme supplier to develop its own new applications for the decoder. These can be electronic programme guides, for instance, and to implement these applications betaresearch has put a software development package on the market. The decision to open up the d-box to...