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In a judgment of 29 July 2019 (Case no. C-469/17, Funke Medien NRW GmbH v Bundesrepublik Deutschland), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) explained that freedom of information and the freedom of the press cannot justify derogations from the rights of authors beyond the exceptions or limitations provided for in the Copyright Directive (Directive 2001/29/EC). The court’s decision was surprisingly clear, given that, both at national level and in the Opinion of the Advocate General, the right to protection of the disputed ‘Afghanistan papers’ had been seriously questioned.  The decision follows a...

In a ruling of 29 July 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union strengthened the rights of artists with regard to so-called sampling and decided that the use of sound samples taken from a phonogram may, under certain circumstances, be used in a new piece of music without the consent of the phonogram producer. At the same time, however, a special rule on ‘free use’ in German copyright law was classified as incompatible with EU law. The procedure concerned a legal dispute in Germany that has gone unresolved for more than 20 years. In 1997, the composers Moses Pelham and Martin Haas had copied...

According to the German Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (Inter-State Agreement on the protection of minors in the media - JMStV), some telemedia content that may be harmful to minors may only be transmitted if the provider ensures, through closed user groups, that it can only be accessed by adults. Content that may impair the development of children may be distributed if, for example, the provider ensures through a technical system that it cannot normally be accessed by children and young people in the relevant age groups. On 15 May 2019, the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for the...

On 15 May 2019, the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for the protection of minors in the media - KJM), which comprises 12 representatives of the highest federal and state authorities responsible for youth protection and directors of the Landesmedienanstalten (state media authorities), decided that the Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Dienstleister e.V. (FSM) had exceeded its scope of discretionary power in its assessment of the suitability of “JusProg” as a youth protection system within the meaning of Article 11(1) of the Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (Inter-State Agreement...

Under the amended German Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Broadcasting Agreement - RStV), which came into force on 1 May 2019, some of the rules governing the public service broadcasters’ telemedia remit have been revised. The RStV, an agreement between the German Bundesländer concerning broadcasting and telemedia, is one of the legislative cornerstones of Germany’s dual broadcasting system. In the document that entered into force in May, the rules on the retention time of public broadcasters’ programmes in online media libraries were relaxed. The so-called “seven-day rule”, under which public...