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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...

At the beginning of March 2013, the Landesmedienanstalten (regional media authorities) published the revised version of the Gemeinsame Richtlinien für die Werbung, die Produktplatzierung, das Sponsoring und das Teleshopping im Fernsehen (Joint Guidelines on Advertising, Product Placement, Sponsorship and Teleshopping on Television), which came into force on 22 February 2013. Authorised to issue such guidelines under Article 46 of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Broadcasting Agreement - RStV), the media authorities have therefore put the advertising rules contained in the RStV in concrete...

On 1 February 2013, the Werberichtlinie (Advertising Directive - WerbeRL), designed to put the Staatsvertrag zum Glücksspielwesen in Deutschland (Inter-State Gambling Agreement - GlüStV) into concrete form, entered into force. It had been adopted on 7 December 2012 by the Glücksspielkollegium (Gambling Commission) which, in accordance with Article 9a(5) to (8) of the Inter-State Gambling Agreement, is composed of representatives of all 16 gambling supervisory authorities and acts on behalf of the regional authorities. Under Article 5(3)(1) GlüStV in conjunction with Articles 7 and 2(2)(7) of the...

In a ruling of 12 March 2013, the Oberlandesgericht Dresden (Dresden Appeal Court - OLG) declared the use of the so-called “VFF clause” in contracts between public service broadcasters and commissioned television film producers illegal and therefore upheld the first-instance judgment of the Landgericht Leipzig (Leipzig District Court - LG) of 8 August 2012 (see IRIS 2012-9/17). The disputed clause was regularly used in relation to commissioned productions. It allows commissioning broadcasters to claim for themselves all remuneration owed to the film producer by third parties. The OLG also considered...

On 11 March 2013, the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office) announced that it harboured concerns about the compatibility with competition law of the video-on-demand platform operated by the two public service television broadcasters ARD and ZDF. The broadcasters, together with other production and distribution rights companies, had founded an online platform called “Germany’s Gold” in April 2012. After an initial examination, the Bundeskartellamt had approved the merger on which the plan was based, on the grounds that it would not create or strengthen a dominant market position. However, the...