Search results : 1375

On 10 May 2013, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (association of German public service broadcasters - ARD) and the Allianz Deutscher Produzenten - Film & Fernsehen e.V. (alliance of German film and television producers - Produzentenallianz) agreed a set of cooperation guidelines for fully financed commissioned documentary productions (see IRIS 2010-2/14; IRIS 2010-10/25). Both parties believe that the guidelines considerably improve contractual conditions for producers. The guidelines are based on the agreement concluded between...

The Culture Committee of the German Bundestag (lower house of parliament) adopted an amendment to the Filmförderungsgesetz (Film Support Act - FFG) at its final meeting on 15 May 2013. Under the main provision of the amendment, the Filmförderungsanstalt (Film Support Office - FFA) will continue to collect film contributions after the current arrangement expires on 31 December 2013. The amendment also contains a number of changes to the film support criteria. The collection of film contributions by the FFA remains indispensable, according to the explanatory memorandum of the bill (see IRIS 2010-8/22,...

In an as yet unpublished decision of 14 May 2013, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) ruled on the admissibility of Google “autocomplete” suggestions that breach personality rights. Google uses a so-called “autocomplete” function, which automatically shows users various suggested search terms in the form of word combinations as they enter search items in its search engine. In the case at hand, a businessman applied for an injunction to stop Google showing his full name as part of the “autocomplete” function with the words “Scientology” and “Betrug” (the German word for “fraud”)...

In an as yet unpublished decision of 16 May 2013, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) submitted to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) a request for a preliminary ruling concerning the admissibility, under copyright law, of embedding online videos. The case concerned a company’s advertising video lasting approximately two minutes, which could be watched without the company’s permission via the online video platform YouTube. Two independent sales representatives of a competitor had embedded the video on their websites so it could be downloaded from the video platform’s...

In a ruling of 31 March 2013 (case no. 1 BvR 1314/11), the Third Chamber of the First Senate of the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court - BVerfG) found a landlord’s decision to ban the installation of a satellite dish incompatible with the basic right to freedom of information if it failed to take the specific situation of linguistic and cultural minorities sufficiently into account. The appellants are Turkish nationals of Turkmen descent and mother tongue, who live in Germany. Without their landlord’s permission, they brought a satellite dish to their rented flat in order to...