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On 13 December 2011 the 3134th Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting was held in Brussels. The Council underlines that ICT contributes significantly to economic growth, innovation and job creation in the EU. An important policy objective according to the Council is a competitive digital single market which offers affordable and secure high bandwidth communications and rich online content, applications and services. The Council notes that, in spite of the crucial role ICT plays in the European economies, the creation of a well-functioning competitive digital single market by 2015...

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (“Assembly”) adopted a Resolution and a Recommendation on 7 October 2011, both entitled “The protection of privacy and personal data on the Internet and online media”. Since the late 1960s, the Council of Europe has been influential in the context of data protection regulation. In 1981 the Council of Europe drafted the first legally binding international instrument on data protection, the Data Protection Convention (Convention No. 108). Some main points of the new Recommendation and the Resolution are listed below. In the Resolution the Assembly...

In a judgment of 25 October 2011 (Case VI ZR 332/09), the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice - BGH) ruled that an actor who takes part in pornographic films in a way that enables him to be identified must accept his name being mentioned in a tabloid newspaper. The plaintiff was a sculptor but starred a total of eight times in pornographic films, in which all of his body was shown, including his face. His face was also printed on the cover of the corresponding film material, although his real name was not mentioned. He clearly does not use condoms in the sex scenes. At an event to present...

In a judgment of 25 October 2011, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that claims arising from breaches of personality rights on the internet can also be brought before courts of a member state in which the person concerned has his or her “centre of interests”. It also held that the nature of Article 3 of the E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EG) was not such that it required transposition in the form of a specific conflict-of-laws rule. Both the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris (Paris Regional Court) (Case C-161/10) and the Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court of Justice) (Case C-509/09)...

On 15 November 2011, the Oberlandesgericht Köln (Cologne Court of Appeal - OLG) delivered three further judgments in connection with media reporting on the trial of a well-known weather presenter. In these decisions, the court considered the relationship of press freedom to the personality rights of the individual concerned. The Landgericht Köln (Cologne District Court - LG) had previously decided in several instances, the last on 9 November 2011 (Ref. 28 O 225/11, see IRIS 2012-1/19), that photographs showing the presenter in the prison exercise yard could not be disseminated by the defendant...