Search results : 1348

On 27 September 2012, the Landgericht Köln (Cologne District Court) banned the ARD and one of its members, NDR, from distributing a particular version of the Tagesschau app. A total of 11 newspaper publishers that offer electronically accessible services had complained that the version of the application dated 15 June 2011 broke competition regulations. The court rejected the plaintiff’s initial argument that the Tagesschau app had not been granted the necessary approval. Rather, the application, as a telemedium, had passed the three-step test under Article 11f of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State...

On 22 August 2012, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court - BVerfG) rejected a lawyer’s complaint about the obligation to pay a broadcasting tax for his Internet-capable PC, which he used for his work. The lawyer had claimed that his basic rights to freedom of information (Art. 5 of the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) - GG) and occupation (Art. 12 GG) had been infringed. He also complained that he had been treated unequally (Art. 3 GG) vis-à-vis people who did not own such reception equipment. The lawyer claimed that, although he used his PC for Internet applications at work, he did...

On 25 October 2012, a German Civil Court, the Kammergericht (KG) Berlin, decided (file number of the judgment: 10 U 136/12) that the publication of a documentary containing unauthorized recorded images of a third-party about facilities on a foreign land is allowed. The applicant is a public institution operating the public transport system with busses and subways in the city of Berlin. The defendant is a producer and director of a film, which documents the graffiti art scene in Berlin. The disputed film published by the defendant includes unapproved recorded images about facilities and trains of...

In a ruling of 8 August 2012, the Landgericht Leipzig (Leipzig District Court - LG) prohibited Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) from using the so-called “VFF clause” in its contracts. Under this clause, broadcasters that commission films are allowed to claim for themselves all remuneration owed to the film producer by third parties. The court considered that this put the film producer at an unreasonable disadvantage. The ruling followed a complaint from the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dokumentarfilm (German Documentary Association - AG DOK), a professional association of independent authors, directors and...

In a recently published judgment of 27 March 2012, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) decided that text and images made available by a television broadcaster to advertise programmes via an electronic programme guide (EPG) are protected under copyright law and cannot therefore be used by third parties without the copyright-holder’s permission. The legal proceedings were instituted by a collecting society that looks after the copyright of several broadcasting companies, against the provider of an EPG that was free to use and funded through advertising. The defendant was accused of...