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On 02.05.1996 the Minister of Training, Science, Research and Technology, Jürgen Rüttgers, presented the foundations for the legislation on information and communication services. According to these, the Act is to include broader forms of interactive individual communication, various forms of switching between individual and mass communication, and electronic press services. It is intended to lay down outline conditions for the new information and communications technologies, thereby creating optimum conditions for standardised development. Regulations to liberalise the various media markets,...

Increasingly, transactions are being handled electronically, not least because of the so-called "new media". Declarations of intention are being transmitted more and more frequently by electronic media. In certain areas of transactions the application of modern communications techniques has in fact become inescapable (eg tele-banking, on-line messages, tele-shopping, video-on-demand). Having acknowledged the existence of an electronic form of declaration of intention, it is necessary to create a secure legal framework. For this purpose the Federal Law Society has published a bill aimed at adapting...

The League Committee of the German Football Federation (DFB) has sold the contract with the international sport rights agency ISPR, which has links with the private television transmitter SAT.1, for initial broadcasting rights for federal league football matches until mid-2000 for the sum of approximately DEM 540 million. At the same time, the pay-TV transmitter PREMIERE has acquired broadcasting rights for live coverage up to June 1998. A more lucrative offer from a bidding consortium consisting of ARD/ZDF and RTL was turned down. The exclusive sale of television rights for football to the private...

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...