2021 saw a very active German Bundesgerichtshof (“BGH” – Federal Supreme Court) in the area of copyright law. This article covers the most relevant copyright law decisions of the BGH from that year. Part I addressed decisions in the areas of scope of protection, exploitation rights, exceptions and limitations, and copyright contract law. Part II…
The implementation transposition of the Copyright Directive 2019/790 (DSMD) in the summer of 2021 represented probably the greatest reform in German copyright law since the German Copyright Act (UrhG) came into force. Germany’s implementation of Art. 17 DSMD was discussed in an earlier blog post by Julian Waiblinger and Jonathan Pukas. The other changes to…
The decisions of the BGH (German Federal Court of Justice) in “YouTube II”, “uploaded II” and “uploaded III” have changed things, at least for hosting providers, in one key aspect: hosting providers can now be (indirectly) liable for the copyright infringements committed by their users, if those hosting providers violate duties of care. This post…
Part I of this post discussed the changes to copyright contract law and the new text and data mining exemption provisions that formed part of the 2021 copyright law reform. Part 2 explores further exemptions for users of works, new aspects of the right of communication to the public and the press publishers’ right. It…
In the last year, the German Copyright Act has experienced what is probably its most substantial reform since it first came into force in 1966. The reason for this was the implementation of the DSM Copyright Directive 2019/790/EU (DSMD) and Directive 2019/789/EU (Online SatCab Directive). Secondly, the legislature felt obliged, in response to certain CJEU…
According to Article 16 EU DSM Directive 2019/790 (“DSM Directive”), a “publisher” may have a claim to a share of the author’s statutory remuneration claims – such as fair compensation for private copies – if the author has granted the “publisher” a right in his work. But who is this “publisher”? After the adoption of…
At the end of 2021, YouTube’s first Copyright Transparency Report 2021 (“Report”) was published. It is interesting to look at this Report against the background of the 2019 EU rules for the liability of platforms like YouTube through the famous Art. 17 DSM Directive 2019/790 (“DSMD”). But first let’s take a look at Mars (the…
Parts 1 to 3 of this post (originally published in “Auteurs & Media”) summarising case law of the German Bundesgerichtshof from 2015 to 2019 are available here, here and here. VII. Copyright contract law (Sections 31 et seqq. UrhG) Right of remuneration (Sections 32 et seqq. UrhG) German copyright law stipulates…
Parts 1 and 2 of this post (originally published in “Auteurs & Media”) summarising case law of the German Bundesgerichtshof from 2015 to 2019 are available here and here, and part 4 will be published on the blog shortly. IV. Related rights In addition to rights of the author, German copyright law also recognises…
Part 1 of this post (originally published in “Auteurs & Media”) summarising case law of the German Bundesgerichtshof from 2015 to 2019 is available here, and parts 3 and 4 will be published on the blog over the coming days. III. Exploitation rights (Sections 15-24 UrhG) Germany has regulated exploitation rights, as…
