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Not every "du" (the familiar form of address) in an online roll-up game is automatically an anti-competitive advertising. Rather, the average age of the targeted group is important that is to be addressed with the respective advertising within an online game. The District Court of Berlin (Landgericht) found this with a judgment of 21 April 2015 (Az .: 16 O 648/13). The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv) had filed a complaint. The lawsuit of the consumer protectionists was directed against the operator of an online role playing game. The company had promoted virtual game supplements,...

Youth protection programmes, alongside technical precautions and watersheds, are a specific instrument that content providers can use to protect young people in accordance with the Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (Inter-State Agreement on the Protection of Young People in the Media - JMStV) when distributing Internet content that may harm the development of young people. The programmes enable parents to unblock internet content that is suitable for their children depending on their age, and to block unsuitable content. The Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for the Protection of Young...

In a decision of 20 January 2015, the OLG Frankfurt (Frankfurt Court of Appeal - case no. 11 U 95/14) ruled that showing a football broadcast in a pub during normal opening times does not constitute a public screening if the programme is only made accessible to the members of a darts or skat club, to the exclusion of all third parties. Pay TV broadcaster Sky charges different subscription fees for private individuals and pubs. Only customers who pay the more expensive pub fee are allowed to show the programme in public. A pub manager had subscribed to the channel as a private customer, but had...

In its judgment of 26 February 2015 (case no. 4 StR 328/14), the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that video footage in which victims of crime can recognise themselves on the basis of identifiable personal features is covered by the criminal law provision enshrined in Article 201a(1) of the old version of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code - StGB) (Article 201a(1)(1) of the 49th Act amending the Criminal Code). This provision is designed to protect the intimate privacy of individuals from intrusion through the taking of video and photographs. In the case concerned, a gynaecologist...

In two cases related to humorous cigarette advertisements, the European Court of Human Rights found that there had been no reason for the domestic authorities to interfere with the freedom of commercial speech in order to protect the right of reputation and the right to their own names of two public persons referred to in the advertisements, without their consent. The European Court found, in particular, that the German Federal Court of Justice had struck a fair balance between freedom of expression (Article 10) and the right to privacy (Article 8). The first applicant, Dieter Bohlen, is a well-known...