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On 12 February 2021, the German Bundestag (lower house of parliament) adopted a draft act bringing German copyright law into line with the requirements of the Digital Single Market. The package, amending both the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act – UrhG) and the Verwertungsgesellschaftengesetz (Collecting Societies Act – VGG), as well as introducing a new Urheberrechts-Diensteanbieter-Gesetz (Copyright Service Provider Act – UrhDaG), is primarily designed to implement the Directive (EU) 2019/790 (DSM Directive) and the Directive (EU) 2019/789 (Online SatCab Directive). The...

Late last year, the German Länder published a discussion draft on strengthening media accessibility, which is designed to expand the related provisions of the Medienstaatsvertrag (state media treaty – MStV). The public consultation process ended on 8 January 2021. Last year’s MStV reforms included measures to improve media accessibility. However, when the MStV was adopted, the Länder stated in a joint declaration that they intended to develop these rules further in the near future. This is reflected in the new discussion draft which, by extending media accessibility, aims...

In judgments issued on 21 January 2021, the first civil chamber of the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court – BGH) ruled on two cases (nos. I ZR 120/19 and I ZR 207/19) concerning the use of images of celebrities for commercial purposes and the related intrusion on image rights. In the first case (no. I ZR 120/19), the image of a celebrity had been used in an editorial article that had no connection with the person depicted. The dispute had arisen after a press company published a Facebook post containing a link to an article about cancer and four images of famous television presenters,...

On 3 February 2021, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled, in Case C-555/19 (Fussl Modestraße Mayr), that the provisions of the German Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (State Broadcasting Treaty – RStV), which was recently replaced by the Medienstaatsvertrag (State Media Treaty – MStV), prohibiting television broadcasters from showing advertising at regional level in programmes broadcast throughout the country could be contrary to EU law, in particular the freedom to provide services. The court cast particular doubt on the proportionality of Article 7(11) RStV (now Article...

In a press release issued on 21 January 2021, the Direktorenkonferenz der Medienanstalten (Conference of Regional Media Authority Directors – DLM) announced that, in 2020, the Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht (Commission on Licensing and Supervision – ZAK) had investigated a total of 22 infringements of the programming rules contained in the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (State Broadcasting Treaty – RStV), which has now been replaced by the Medienstaatsvertrag (State Media Treaty – MStV), by various national television channels. The ZAK is responsible for supervising...