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IRIS 2025-1:1/24 [DE] Collecting society files model lawsuit against OpenAI to clarify remuneration rights and usage exemptions

In mid-November 2024, the Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (German collecting society for music rights – GEMA) announced that it was the first collecting society in Europe to file a lawsuit against the US company OpenAI for the unlicensed use of protected musical works. GEMA wants the courts to clarify the remuneration obligation that it thinks should arise from OpenAI’s systematic use of its repertoire to train its AI systems. It has also asked the Landgericht München (Munich District Court) to decide whether the...

IRIS 2024-9:1/19 [DE] Federal Supreme Court rules on admissibility of online display of protected works in the background of video posts

In various judgments issued on 11 September 2024 (case Nos. I ZR 139/23; I ZR 140/23; I ZR 141/23), the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court – BGH) decided that the use of images of a photo wallpaper on the Internet did not infringe rights protected under the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act – UrhG) to the photographs printed on the wallpaper. The court examined in particular whether influencers could breach copyright law if protected works that they had no right to communicate to the public were visible in the background of videos or still images that they published in social...

IRIS 2024-9:1/22 [DE] Merger of Super RTL and Nickelodeon aborted due to impact on children’s advertising market

On 17 September 2024, the notification of the planned merger between children’s TV channels Super RTL and Nickelodeon was withdrawn. The Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartels Office – BKartA), the competition authority responsible for mergers, had expressed concerns over negative effects on the children’s advertising market and was planning to block the merger. The German state media authorities, represented by the Kommission zur Ermittlung der Konzentration im Medienbereich (Commission on Concentration in the Media – KEK), were consulted by the Federal Cartels Office for the...

IRIS 2024-9:1/23 [DE] Court rejects party’s request to participate in public broadcaster’s election programme

In a summary judgment of 13 September 2024 (case No. 3 S 103/24), the Oberverwaltungsgericht Berlin-Brandenburg (Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court – OVG) upheld the lower-instance court’s decision that the Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party – FDP) was not entitled to take part in an election programme to be broadcast by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb) in the run-up to the Brandenburg state parliament election under the principle of equal opportunities for political parties. It ruled that, in accordance with its editorial freedom, rbb could exclude...

IRIS 2024-8:1/19 [DE] European Commission criticises planned reform of youth media protection law in Germany

In April 2024, on the basis of the notification obligations provided for in Directive (EU) 2015/1535, the German Länder, as the competent legislative body, notified the European Commission of a draft amendment to the Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (State Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media – JMStV). However, in its opinion of 1 July 2024, the European Commission was critical of the draft. Although it shared the objective of providing children and young people with safe access to online content and protecting them from harmful content, the Commission considered that, as...