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At its meeting on 27 November 2020, the Bundesrat (Federal Council), through which the German Länder participate in federal legislation and matters relating to the European Union, criticised the federal government’s bill amending the Jugendschutzgesetz (Youth Protection Act) on the grounds that it had failed to achieve its purpose of creating a convergent and coherent system for protecting young people in the media. In its statement concerning the bill, it mainly addressed questions relating to legal competence and substantive issues, and called for a fundamental revision of the document. The...

After the end of the Brexit transition period, Amazon’s Prime Video on-demand service within the European Union will fall under the jurisdiction of German regulators, and more specifically the Munich-based Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (Bavarian new media authority – BLM). The BLM and Amazon recently announced that, following joint discussions, Amazon had met the necessary conditions for its service to come under German jurisdiction, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). Under Article 2 of the AVMSD, which...

In a decision issued on 22 December 2020 in the dispute over a proposed increase in the broadcasting licence fee used to fund public service broadcasting in Germany, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court – BVerfG) rejected urgent applications submitted by the broadcasters forming the ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio contesting the block that one of the German Bundesländer had placed on the proposed increase. The broadcasters therefore failed in their attempt to ensure that the increase took effect on 1 January 2021 despite opposition to it, which was partly political...

On 17 December 2020, the Medienanstalt Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein (Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein media authority – MA HSH) – one of Germany’s 14 media regulators – initiated media law proceedings against Google Ireland Ltd. (Dublin) regarding its compliance with the new anti-discrimination rules that apply to media intermediaries under the Medienstaatsvertrag (State Media Treaty – MStV), which recently entered into force. The proceedings will examine cooperation between Google and the German Federal Ministry of Health which led to content from the ministry’s Internet...

In a judgment of 27 October 2020 (Case no. 15 O 296/18), the Landgericht Berlin (Berlin regional court – LG) decided that a screenplay writer was entitled to information about the revenue generated from the exploitation of film productions so she could demand an adjustment to her remuneration for use of her screenplays. The dispute between the screenplay writer on the one hand and the production company that owned the rights to two well-known German films and a film and media group on the other concerned the right to further equitable remuneration as enshrined in Article 32a of the German...