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The Minister-Presidents of the Länder have agreed in Berlin on the draft of an Agreement between the Länder (Federal States) on media services. The draft was submitted to the groups concerned for the first time on 3.3.1996. From January 1997, this would replace the previously applicable Agreement between the Länder on interactive videotext. The Länder have proposed their own unified regulations for the new services equivalent to the federation's planned legislation on the multi-media. This would cover all services not included in the Agreement between the Länder on broadcasting. Thus the Agreement...

The German Federal Court (BGH) considers that under cartel legislation there is no duty on the part of operators of community antenna installations to distribute pay-TV channels free of charge. This judgment reverses the decision of a lower court. A duty to distribute free of charge is not deemed to arise merely because operators already receive a fee from those households which are connected to the antenna installation. Nor does the fact that programmes of other television broadcasters are distributed free of charge justify any other decision. The prohibition of different treatment under cartel...

The Federal Constitutional Court is at present considering a constitutional complaint submitted on 27 December 1995 by a video rental operator. This concerns the third Act amending the Copyright Act ( see : IRIS 1995-8: 1), which came into force on 1 July 1995, and is intended to implement the EC Directive of 19 November 1992 on rental and lending rights and certain rights related to copyright in the field of intellectual property. CD rental firms, the Government, the Federal Court and the Federal German Industrial Association, complain that the EC Directive fails in its purpose, which is to give...

Germany's Land presidents have reached agreement on a number of previously unsettled questions concerning amendment of the Broadcasting Agreement between the Federal States. As reported in IRIS 1995-10:13, it was already agreed last autumn that the decisive factor in monitoring media concentrations would in future be the operator's actual share of the market. The aim here is to ensure that no single operator has power to dominate public opinion. In general, a 30% share of the market is to be the upper limit, and full and information programmes will be required to relinquish air-time as soon as...

On 19 December 1995, Princess Caroline of Monaco (plaintiff) won an action against the publishing house Burda (defendants) in the sixth Civil Chamber of the Federal Court. The case was concerned with a photo feature published in the picture magazine, Freizeit-Revue , No. 30, on 22 July 1993. Under the heading, "The sweetest pictures of her romance with Vincent", this featured photographs of Princess Caroline and the actor Vincent Lindon in a garden cafe. Both obviously assumed that no one was watching them, and the pictures were taken from a considerable distance, using a telephoto lens. The...