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In mid-September 2014, the Federal Government submitted a “report on the measures taken in 2013 to remove telemedia services containing child pornography” in accordance with Article 184b of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code - StGB) to the German lower House of Parliament (Bundestag)”. In the digital world, images of sexual abuse of children are distributed to a high but unknown number of users worldwide. There is therefore an urgent need to effectively protect the victims of this abuse. With this aim in mind, the Federal Criminal Police Authority (Bundeskriminalamt - BKA), the national body jugendschutz.net,...

In a ruling of 22 September 2014 (case no. 13 K 4674/13), the Verwaltungsgericht Köln (Cologne Administrative Court - VG) upheld a private collector’s right to a copy of a pornographic film. The plaintiff had initially asked the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young People - BPjM) for a copy of the classified video film, which was no longer available to buy, “for his own use”. His request was rejected by the BPjM on the grounds that, firstly, the request had not been made within the scope, and for the purposes of the Freedom of Information...

According to media reports, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH), in a ruling of 18 September 2014, which has not yet been published in full (case no. I ZR 34/12), decided that an advertisement for video game accessories, written in language likely to appeal to children, represented an unlawful exhortation to children to purchase and therefore infringed Article 3(3) of the Act against unfair competition (Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb - UWG). This ruling is also relevant to the audiovisual media sector, firstly because video games and their advertisement represent audiovisual...

In a ruling of 30 September 2014, which has not yet been published in full (case no. VI ZR 490/12), the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that the public’s right to information should take precedence over a politician’s general privacy rights. Although the judgment concerns print media, it is also relevant to reporting in the audiovisual media sector. The plaintiff held various political posts between 1994 and 2010, including that of Finance Minister, Home Affairs Minister, and Head of the State Chancellery of a German Bundesland. In 1997, he had a daughter from an extra-marital...

On 18 August 2014, the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Committee for Youth Protection in the Media – KJM) published a press release, in which it presented the cases it had examined during the first half of 2014 following alleged breaches of the Staatsvertrag über den Schutz der Menschenwürde und den Jugendschutz in Rundfunk und Telemedien (Inter-State Agreement on the Protection of Human Dignity and Minors in Broadcasting and Telemedia – JMStV). In order to monitor the broadcasting sector, the KJM relies on the staff of the Land media authorities, which evaluate possible breaches of the JMStV...