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In its meeting on 26 June 2012, the Commission for Approval and Supervision of the Media Authorities (Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht - ZAK) decided that the sports channel “Sport1” has to pay a total amount of EUR 28,000. The reasons for this decision were several deceptions and illusions of the viewers in various editions of the show “Sports Quiz”. In a first step, the ZAK ordered that “Sport1” has to pay EUR 24,000. This amount corresponds to the amount “Sport1” has earned with the inadmissible presentation of sweepstakes in the show “Sport Quiz”. In addition, the ZAK imposed in a second...

The Gesellschaft zur Verwertung der Urheber- und Leistungsschutzrechte von Medienunternehmen (Society for the Collection of Copyright and Performance Rights of Media Companies - VG Media) has published a press release announcing that it reached a settlement concerning the retransmission of broadcast signals before the Landgericht Leipzig (Leipzig District Court - LG) on 29 May 2012 with a Saxon company that receives the broadcast signals of various providers and distributes them to connected households (case no.: 05 O 3233/11). According to reports, the parties could not agree as to whether operators...

On 23 May 2012, the Ausschuss für Kultur und Medien (Culture and Media Committee) of the German Bundestag (lower house of parliament) voted by a majority to approve a proposal from the coalition parties to increase the provision of barrier-free films. The proposal began by stating that there were around 9.6 million disabled persons living in Germany, who, according to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, for example, were entitled to participate in artistic and cultural life. For blind and deaf persons, subtitles and audio description helped to provide access to audiovisual...

On 25 June 2012, the Bundestag adopted the Act strengthening the freedom of the press in the Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure (PrStG). On 11 May 2012, the German Bundesrat (upper house of parliament) had approved the bill and the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) had previously voted to adopt the bill tabled by the Federal Government without any amendments (see IRIS 2012-5/13 and IRIS 2010-9/22). Under the bill, press freedom will be strengthened through improved protection for journalists and their sources. To this end, Article 353b of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code - StGB;...

On 22 May 2012, the Landgericht Hamburg (Hamburg District Court - LG) ruled that a blogger was liable for a YouTube video that he had embedded on his website. The video showed a television report about the plaintiff, a doctor, broadcast on the ZDF magazine programme “WISO”. In the report, the doctor was accused of using dubious methods to treat cancer patients. However, the report also included false allegations, for example, it claimed that there was no expert evidence verifying the effectiveness of the plaintiff’s methods, which proved to be untrue. The doctor’s complaint at the time was therefore...