Tag Archives: Embedded Content

YouTube v. GEMA Decision by Hamburg District Court

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After having uploaded quite some posts about how liability for third party Internet content works in German law, and having done so in rather abstract terms (in part, admittedly, for shying away from translating dozens of pages of court decisions) here is a good example of how it works in practice. A colleague from Italy has thankfully posted an English translation of the YouTube v. GEMA decision of the Hamburg District Court of April 20, 2012 on his blog. Continue reading →

Liability for Third Party (Internet) Content under German Law

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One of the core problems of German Internet law today is the question of whether, and, if yes, under which conditions, Internet providers of all kinds can be held liable for content published by their users (or embedded by them). The issue arises for content communities (think YouTube), Internet forums, blogs (thing embedded content and user comments), wikis, social networking sites (you know who), but poses the same questions for “generic” host providers or sharehosters (I hardly dare write the word). Continue reading →

No liability for third party content embedded via RSS-feed unless made aware of infringement

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With judgment dated 27 March 2012 the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) held that the provider of an information portal who puts news online that may easily be detected as third party content – in this case: RSS-feeds – is  generally not required to check the articles with regard to potential rights infringements prior to publishing them.

Once the provider of an information portal has been made aware of an infringement of the personality right by the person affected the provider may be held liable to prevent such infringements in the future.

The reasons of the BGH’s decision dated are now available in German.  Continue reading →

On Facebook Fan Pages

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As you may have heard, as per the self-appointedly competent data protection authorities in Germany you may not set up and maintain a Facebook fan page, nor may you embed Facebook plugins into to your web pages (it’s true, read here, here, here, and here). If you do, you’re acting in violation of German data protection law. Continue reading →

Let’s draw a legal picture of framing: may a frame provider be held liable for a copyright infringement?

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Framing is a convenient tool for journalists and readers alike. Putting a frame around a wide variety of content makes life easier for many jobs, passions and commercial interests. However, does framing provide any legal pitfalls?

Let’s first draw a picture of framing: What’s framing exactly? Other than setting an ordinary link to content of a third party’s website, in the case of framing the content is integrated via a link (“embedded” – e.g. as an iframe – or “inline link”) onto the very website which is called up. Via this link the third party’s content is displayed without any further click and without change of the URL in the browsers address bar in a so called frame of the same screen window whilst being stored on the third party’s server.

And legally? May a frame provider be held liable for a copright infringement? He may, but not necessarily: The Cologne Court of Appeal (Oberlandesgericht) recently held that a frame provider embedding content in the way described above does not commit a copyright infringement. Continue reading →