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In a judgment of 9 October 2014 (case no. 11 O 15/14) that has not yet been published, the Landgericht Stuttgart (Stuttgart District Court - LG Stuttgart) ruled that illegally obtained information may be broadcast on television in accordance with the principle of broadcasting freedom. The case concerned the broadcast on 13 May 2013 of a report on the TV channel “Das Erste” on the theme of “Starvation wages on the production line - how wages are being undermined”, which contained footage filmed secretly at a Daimler car factory. The video footage was recorded on four hidden cameras by a journalist...

If a member of the press requests information about the names of people who participated in a court procedure, such a request should, in principle, be granted, according to a decision issued by the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court - BVerwG) on 1 October 2014 (case no. 6 C 35.13). An editor for the magazine “Anwaltsnachrichten Ausländer- und Asylrecht” instigating the proceedings after asking the director of the Amtsgericht Nürtingen (Nürtingen District Court - AG Nürtingen) to send him a copy of a criminal court decision. The AG Nürtingen then sent him a copy of the ruling...

Excessive demands may not be made of a journalist who requests temporary legal protection in order to obtain information under German press law, according to a decision issued by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court - BVerfG) on 8 September 2014 (case no. 1 BvR 23/14). The BVerfG based its decision on the fundamental right to effective legal protection, enshrined in Article 19(4) of the Grundgesetz (Basic Law - GG). It ruled that the press can be granted temporary legal protection if the level of public interest and topical relevance of the reporting are high. Limiting temporary...

On 21 October 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a decision in Case C-348/13 (BestWater v. Mebes), following a request for a preliminary ruling from the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof). The case arose when a water filtering company’s marketing video was made available on YouTube and a competitor decided to embed this video on their own website. The filtering company brought an action for damages in the German courts over the embedding of their video. The question referred to the CJEU was whether “embedding, within one’s own website, of another person’s...

On 19 September 2014, the Conference of Chairpersons of the Decision-Taking Councils (the Gremienvorsitzendenkonferenz - GVK) of the Land media authorities (Landesmedienanstalten) and the Private Broadcasting and Telemedia Association (Verband Privater Rundfunk und Telemedien e.V - VPRT) announced that, following joint discussions, they had agreed on a set of guidelines on the clear labelling of own-produced scripted reality formats. The purpose of these guidelines is to give viewers a standard level of transparency and information across all broadcasters and formats. Broadcasters are required...