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In a summary procedure, the Verwaltungsgericht Berlin (Berlin Administrative Court - VG) decided on 5 September 2013 (case no. VG 27 L 217.13) to refuse a request to inspect a study commissioned by the Bundesministerium des Innern (Federal Interior Ministry - BMI). It ruled that press information rights did not include such extensive access to official documents. A journalist from a daily newspaper had contacted the Bundesministerium des Innern and, as a member of the press, asserted a claim to receive information under Article 4(1) of the Berliner Pressegesetz (Berlin Press Act - BerlPrG), which...

In a decision of 15 August 2013, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) further clarified the extent of the duty of care of a file-hosting service provider and, in addition to the liability privileges enshrined in Articles 7(2) and 10 of the Telemediengesetz (Telemedia Act - TMG) and Articles 14(1) and 15(1) of the E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC), demanded that hosting service providers be subject to a partly-proactive monitoring obligation. The ruling follows an action brought by the Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (Society for...

On 11 September 2013, the "Connected Continent: Building a Telecoms Single Market" legislative package was launched by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in his 2013 State of the Union speech. The aim of this development is to create one genuine single market for electronic communications in Europe. This development comes after the 2013 Spring European Council call for measures to create a Single Telecoms Market. The Council concluded that there is no genuine single market in the European Union (EU) for electronic communications due to the fact that the Union is fragmented into distinct...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has recently clarified the application of freedom of expression when conflicting with personality rights in the environment of online news media and digital archives. The case concerns the complaint by two lawyers that a newspaper article damaging to their reputation - which the Polish courts, in previous libel proceedings, had found to be based on insufficient information and in breach of their rights - remained accessible to the public on the newspaper’s website. They complained that the Polish authorities, by refusing to order that the online version...

On 27 June 2013, the Supreme Court (“Court”) confirmed the decision of the Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission of the Slovak Republic (“Council”) imposing a fine of EUR 5,000 on a major Slovak commercial TV broadcaster for violating human dignity in its programme. In March 2012, the Council received a complaint regarding reports aired within the news programme called “Crime” concerning the tragic suicide of a middle-age man from a small town in Slovakia. In their complaint, the bereaved of the deceased man stated that they explicitly asked the broadcaster not to report about the tragic...