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In two judgments of 1 July 2015 the Oberlandesgericht Hamburg (Hamburg Court of Appeal - OLG) ruled on the extent of a video platform operator’s liability for the content uploaded by its users (Cases 5 U 87/12 and 5 U 175/10). It explained that a platform operator’s obligations included the prevention of all versions of a work uploaded onto its platform in violation of copyrights. In both cases at issue, private users of the platform had uploaded videos with copyright protected music without possessing exploitation rights in the titles. In one of the two proceedings, the collecting society that...

In a judgment of 7 July 2015, the Oberlandesgericht Hamburg (Hamburg Court of Appeal) decided that the “right to be forgotten” can also be asserted vis-à-vis the operator on an online archive (Case 7 U 29/12). The plaintiff sought injunctive relief against the publisher of a national daily newspaper and operator of its internet site, where, in addition to news items, older reports were made available in an online archive. The reports included the institution, progress and discontinuance of investigation proceedings brought against the plaintiff by the public prosecutor’s office and on third parties’...

At its 69th meeting in Saarbrücken on 23 June 2015, the German media authorities’ Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht (Commission on Licensing and Supervision - ZAK) discussed some fundamental questions concerning platform integrity. In particular, it emphasised that the so-called red button or HbbTV signal does not need to be transmitted by platform operators because it does not constitute part of the programme signal. The HbbTV signal is used to activate the so-called red button that viewers can press on their remote control to participate in votes or select additional content offered by the...

In a ruling of 9 July 2015, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that, in principle, copyright is not infringed by a website operator who uses ‘framing’ to embed, in its own website, copyright-protected content that has been made accessible to the public on a third-party website with the copyright-holder’s consent (case no. I ZR 46/12 - Die Realität II). The plaintiff had commissioned a video entitled ‘Die Realität’, in which it advertised its products and for which it held the exclusive usage rights. According to the plaintiff, the video had been uploaded to the ‘YouTube’...

In a ruling of 30 June 2015 (ZI. Ro 2015/15/0015), which has now been published in full, the Austrian Verwaltungsgerichtshof (Administrative Court - VwGH) decided that notebook computers that can only receive streamed content from the Internet are not broadcast reception devices and are therefore not subject to the broadcasting licence fee. The court held that the legislator at the time of the adoption of the Bundesverfassungsgesetz vom 10. Juli 1974 über die Sicherung der Unabhängigkeit des Rundfunks (Federal Constitutional Act of 10 July 1974 on guaranteeing the independence of broadcasting -...