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The Bundesministerium für Justiz und Verbraucherschutz (Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection) has tabled a bill designed to tighten German sex crime legislation. The bill is designed to transpose into national law the Council of Europe Conventions on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (ETS 201 - Lanzarote Convention, 25.10.2007), and on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (ETS 210 - Istanbul Convention, 11.5.2011), which have been signed by the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as Directive 2011/93/EU of the...

According to media reports, at the beginning of April 2014 the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Appeal Court - OLG) recommended an out-of-court settlement in the case concerning the signature tune of the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) news programme “heute journal” (case no. 6 U 21 65/13). The case followed a complaint by the Birnbach music publisher about the current version of the news programme’s jingle, written in 2009. The plaintiff argued that the broadcaster’s arrangement of the 1962 classic melody “Fanfarenblues”, created without the composer’s permission, as required by Article 23...

In a decision of 8 April 2014, the Oberlandesgericht Köln (Cologne Appeal Court - OLG) ruled that Google can be obliged to delete content in the form of “autocomplete” suggestions that breach personality rights (case no. 15 U 199/11). In the proceedings, a public limited company and its chairman had lodged a claim against the search engine operator after Google had suggested the terms “Scientology” and “Betrug” (the German word for “fraud”) when the chairman’s name was entered. The chairman claimed that this infringed his personality rights, while his company believed that it damaged its commercial...

The European Court of Human Rights has delivered an interesting judgment on the right to freedom of political expression, during pre-election time. The applicant, Mr Ulrich Brosa alleged that a court injunction in Germany, prohibiting him from distributing a leaflet that he had drawn up on the occasion of mayoral elections, had violated his right to freedom of expression. The injunction at issue prohibited Brosa from distributing a leaflet in which he called not to vote for a candidate, F.G. for the office of local mayor, who allegedly provided cover for a neo-Nazi organisation, Berger-88. The...

On 12 March 2014, the Broadcasting Commission of the Länder decided to launch an online consultation on the amendment of the Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (Inter-State Agreement on Youth Protection in the Media - JMStV). The online platform was launched on 24 March 2014 under the overall control of the Saxony State chancellery. The main topic of the discussion paper is the increasing importance of social platforms with user-generated content (UGC). Since, according to the JMStV, operators of private blogs with UGC are telemedia providers, they must ensure that they comply with provisions on...