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In a new judgment with regard to Internet content, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found that a criminal conviction for insult was a justified interference with the right to freedom of expression as guaranteed under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The case of Annen (No. 6) v. Germany concerns a conviction for posting a press release on the Internet and distributing leaflets with insulting statements about a German professor at the University of Bonn, professor B., who was conducting embryonic stem cell research. Annen is a campaigner against abortion and...

On 20 September 2018, a week after issuing its YouTube decision (IRIS 2018-9/10), the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court – BGH) decided to refer a similar set of questions to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) concerning the liability of a shared web hosting service for copyright infringements (Case no. I ZR 53/17 – Uploaded). The case follows a dispute between book and music publishers and the shared hosting service Uploaded, which offers free storage space for anyone to upload files that can, in principle, be downloaded free of charge by other users. Registered users can pay for higher...

In a decision of 12 July 2018 (Case no. I ZB 86/17), which was published on 28 September 2018, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) ruled that a broadcaster had fulfilled its obligations by removing a TV programme from its online media library and taking steps to ensure that it could not be retrieved from the cache of common search engines, and in particular from Google. The case concerned a television programme broadcast in April 2017 by public service broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) which had been the subject of a preliminary injunction on account of infringements of the...

In his opinion delivered on 26 September 2018 in Case C-492/17, Advocate General Manuel Campos Sánchez-Bordona proposed that the Court of Justice declare that the amendment of the event triggering the chargeability of the broadcasting fee used to finance public service broadcasting in Germany does not constitute unlawful state aid. In a 2007 ruling, the Commission had stated that the method for financing public service broadcasting in Germany - then known as the ‘Rundfunkgebühr’ (broadcasting fee) - could be classified as ‘existing aid’ within the meaning of EU law. This means that the aid existed...

Yet again, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has been requested to balance the right to reputation and the right to freedom of expression with regard to Internet content. The cases of Annen v. Germany are about a series of interferences with the right to freedom of expression of Klaus Günter Annen, a campaigner against abortion who also operates an anti-abortion website. While the other cases deal with distributing leaflets and campaigning in the immediate vicinity of medical practices and clinics where abortions are performed, two of the cases concern injunctions against Annen, as well...