In a recent decision of December 19, 2021, case no. 1 BvR 1073/20 (published with an official press release dated February 2, 2022), the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht – BVerfG) set aside several judgments of the Berlin civil courts. The Berlin civil courts had denied the plaintiff, who alleges she was exposed to hate speech on a social network, the right to demand from the operator of the social network access to customer data, i.e., the full names of the users who had posted the content that the plaintiff considered to be hate speech. In the view of the BVerfG, the Berlin courts had failed to properly balance the parties’ interests and thereby had violated the plaintiff’s fundamental rights.
Continue Reading Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court provides guidance for assessing claims against hate speech on social media

On 2 June, the German Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag) passed a bill (2. Gesetz zur Änderung des Telemediengesetzes – 2nd Amending Law to the Federal Telemedia Act;New Law”). The New Law limits the scope of potential liability for transmitting information for all professional and non-professional operators of Wi-Fi networks. In particular, operators of Wi-Fi networks shall not be liable for copyright infringements committed by the relevant Wi-Fi networks’ users, providing that:

  • The network operator has not caused the relevant transmission;
  • The network operator has not chosen the recipient of the transmitted information
  • The network operator has not chosen or changed the transmitted information.

The above exemptions shall also apply to short-term automatic store of the relevant information. The exemption shall not apply in the event that the Wi-Fi network operator collaborates with the user in order to commit illegal acts. Notably, there is no specific requirement for Wi-Fi network operators to implement and maintain reasonable security measures, such as access controls.Continue Reading German Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag) releases operators of Wi-Fi networks from liability for copyright infringements committed by the Wi-Fi network users (so-called Störerhaftung)