On 12 May 2016, the German Federal Supreme Court (“FSC”; Bundesgerichtshof – BGH) made several judgments, confirming and developing its settled case law on the liability of a subscriber of an internet connection (“Subscriber”) for copyright infringements made by third persons (see the FSC’s press release of 12 May 2016). The full judgments are not yet available.

In case 1 (Case No. I ZR 48/15), the FSC found that the Subscriber’s allegations, i.e., that his children (15 and 17 years) had shared the litigious 809 audio files, were irrelevant. In particular, the FSC confirmed its earlier position (as in judgment of 11 June 2015, Case No. I ZR 75/14) that there shall be a presumption that the Subscriber has committed the infringements and that this presumption can only be rebutted if the Subscriber achieves to specify in sufficient detail that specific third persons might be the real infringers (so-called sekundäre Darlegungslast). According to the FSC’s view, the mere reference to third persons living in the same household as the Subscriber cannot eliminate the Subscriber’s liability for damages and reimbursement of legal expenses for warning costs.
Continue Reading German Federal Supreme Court confirms its previous positions on liability for copyright infringements within file sharing networks | At the same time, the German Federal Government announces to release professional Wi-Fi network operators from liability