We are happy to announce that going forward we will be publishing an annual review of the case law of the German Bundesgerichtshof, authored by Jan Bernd Nordemnann (NORDEMANN law firm). In order to bring readers up to date on earlier developments, over the next few days we will be republishing in four parts an…
According to a recent Oberlandesgericht (Court of Appeal – CoA) Cologne ruling, providers of DNS resolvers may be held accountable to DNS block domain names used by websites which run an illegal business model dedicated to copyright infringements. Additionally, providers of content delivery networks (CDNs) have a duty to stop their services for such rogue…
In Part 1 of this blog post, we introduced the core mechanism of ex-ante protection against the blocking of legal uploads in Germany’s implementation of art. 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSMD). In Part 2, we examine other elements of the German implementation bill, the “Act on the Copyright…
On 28 May the German Bundesrat approved the law transposing Directive (EU) 2019/790 on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSMD), thus finalizing the national implementation process. At the core of the German transposition of the CDSMD is the “Act on the Copyright Liability of Online Content Sharing Service Providers” (Urheberrechts-Diensteanbieter-Gesetz – UrhDaG), which implements…
Everybody on the internet needs domain names. This also true for websites which run an illegal business model dedicated to copyright infringements. Such rogue websites are also called structurally copyright infringing websites. The German highest civil court Bundesgerichtshof (“BGH”) [German Federal Supreme Court] has now held that domain registrars have duties of care to disconnect…
On 9 July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its judgment in Case C-264/19 Constantin Film Verleih v YouTube and Google Inc. Providing clarification on the scope of the copyright holder’s right to information, the CJEU decided that the notion of “address”, as set in Directive 2004/48/EC (Enforcement Directive), does…
In Part 1 of this blog post we addressed certain criticisms from our esteemed colleagues Jan Bernt Nordemann and Julian Waiblinger to our 2019 working paper and the German implementation proposal of Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) Directive. In this Part 2, we argue why the latter proposal is…
In a recent two part post on this blog, our esteemed colleagues, Jan Bernt Nordemann and Julian Waiblinger, argued that our 2019 working paper and the German implementation proposal reading of Article 17 Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) Directive are wrong when they treat that entire provision as lex specialis to Article 3…
Summary On 30 April 2020, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) delivered its ruling in the ‘Metall auf Metall’ saga. It decided that the appeals court had erred in finding that reproduction of a two-second sample infringed the reproduction right of a phonogram producer before the coming into force of Directive 2001/29/EC (InfoSoc Directive)….
The new Directive for Copyright in the Digital Single Market (“DSM Directive”) was a controversial piece of legislation. Notably, its article 17 has raised many concerns for its impact on fundamental rights, and particularly freedom of expression. In contrast to the mostly declarative or procedural guarantees included in the directive, I argue that an effective…
