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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...

In a judgment given on 6 July 1995, the Federal Court ruled that product placement in cinema films is permissible, provided that the audience is made aware of it beforehand, and at latest in the opening credits. The judgment concerns the film, Feuer, Eis und Dynamit , which tells the story of an eccentric millionaire and features a number of sports events. The teams appearing are company teams, and the names and symbols of the companies concerned are displayed on their clothing, equipment and other items (e.g. skis, bicycles, beverages). At least a fifth of the film's production costs were covered...

The agreement amending the Agreement on Broadcasting between the Federal States in United Germany, signed by the Presidents of the Länder (the federal states) on 22 June 1995, took effect on 1 January 1996. This is the second time that the Agreement of 31 August 1991 on Broadcasting between the Federal States in United Germany, has been amended. Details of the first amendment, covering protection of the young and regulations on sponsorship, were given in IRIS 1995-1: 9. The new amendment applies to paragraph 29 of the Agreement, which deals with the use of funds derived from licence fees for specific...