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IRIS 2014-5:1/15 [DE] Consultation on amendment of Inter-State Agreement on Youth Protection in the Media

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...

IRIS 2014-5:1/14 [DE] Berlin District Court rules that “keyselling” business model breaches Copyright

In a decision of 11 March 2014 (case no. 16 O 73/13), the Landgericht Berlin (Berlin District Court) ruled that the isolated sale of computer game product keys, known as “keyselling”, breaches copyright. The plaintiff runs an online shop, from which he sells computer game product keys that he has obtained from business partners in Great Britain and Poland. The defendant, who sells a computer game in Germany, sent a warning letter to the plaintiff on 12 December 2012 concerning his business practice relating to the game. The letter asked the plaintiff to stop reselling serial numbers of the game....

IRIS 2014-5:1/13 [DE] Obstruction via typing-error domain can breach Unfair Competition Act

In a ruling of 22 January 2014, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that the use of typing-error domains to intercept customers can constitute an infringement of the ban on deliberate obstruction of competitors enshrined in Article 4(10) of the Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (Unfair Competition Act - UWG). The operator of the domain “www.wetteronline.de”, who operates an online weather service, had brought an action against the owner of the domain “www.wetteronlin.de”. Users who had landed on the latter website due to a typing error had been taken to the website...

IRIS 2014-5:1/12 [DE] Cologne District Court equates non-commercial use with private use under Creative Commons licences

In a ruling of 5 March 2014, the Landgericht Köln (Cologne District Court - LG) dealt for the first time with the meaning of the condition “no commercial use” attached to Creative Commons (CC) licences (case no.: 28 O 232/13). The plaintiff, a photographer whose pictures were made available for public use under a “Creative Commons Licence Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0″, had launched court proceedings against Deutschlandradio after the broadcaster had made one of his photographs available to the public on its website “dradiowissen.de” in order to illustrate a programme. The LG Köln did not think...

IRIS 2014-5:1/11 [DE] Judicial review applications against ZDF Inter-State Agreement largely successful

In a ruling of 25 March 2014, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court - BVerfG) decided that the provisions of the Staatsvertrag über das Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen (Inter-State Agreement on Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen - ZDF-StV) on the composition of the supervisory bodies breached Article 5(1)(2)(2) of the Grundgesetz (Basic Law - GG) in several respects and were therefore unconstitutional. The ruling explained that the basic right of broadcasting freedom (Article 5(1)(2)(2) GG) required that a system should be established that ensured that the diversity of opinions was presented...