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The Amtsgericht Potsdam (Potsdam District Court) has ruled in a recently published judgment of 16 April 2015 (Case 37 C 454/13) that flying a drone equipped with a camera over a neighbour’s property violates the neighbour’s privacy rights. This therefore justifies a claim for injunctive relief under Article 1004(1), 2nd sentence of the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (Civil Code -BGB) in conjunction with Article 823(1) BGB, and Article 1(1), 1st sentence, in conjunction with Article 2(1) of the Grundgesetz (Basic Law - GG). The plaintiff is the sole owner of a property protected by high hedges, the main...

On 15 April 2016, the German Chancellor announced that the Federal Government would grant a request to allow investigations to be conducted against a German satirist for insulting a foreign head of state. The satirist had made controversial comments in a television programme about the President of Turkey in the form of a poem entitled Schmähkritik (abusive criticism). On 8 April 2016, the Turkish government had sent the German government a request for criminal proceedings to be brought. The German satire programme Extra 3 had produced a music video featuring the Turkish President that took a critical...

At its sitting on 27 January 2016, the Landtag (parliament) of North Rhine-Westphalia passed a new law providing for changes for the public service broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). The law provides a new overall plan to strengthen the public service broadcasting system and safeguard the diversity of media reporting. The law defines the remit of WDR and lays down its institutional structure. For example, the broadcaster is given a clear mandate for the organisation of information and communication services (Telemedien) and Internet content, with the aim of ensuring its future in the digital...

The Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Regional Court) held, in a judgment of 28 January 2016 (Case 29 U 2798/15), that the online video portal YouTube cannot be held liable for breaches of copyright committed via the platform. The case comprised an action for damages brought against YouTube by the music performing rights society GEMA. For many years, GEMA has been demanding licence fees from YouTube for the use of music in the videos on its platform. YouTube refuses to pay, which GEMA considers unreasonable, especially in view of the advertising revenues generated by YouTube. It claims that YouTube...

The operator of the search engine Google can be held liable for breaches of the law on third-party websites displayed in search results. The precondition for this is that Google has been informed about the breach and has nevertheless not taken any suitable measures to block the content accessed via the search engine. This was the ruling of the Landgericht Köln (Cologne Regional Court) in a judgment of 16 September 2015 (Case 28 O 14/14). In the case at issue, a married couple were confronted with insults in an Internet forum. Among other things, it was claimed that they operated websites with morally...