The district court in Hamburg, Germany ruled on 4 May that the Bauer Media Group violated German copyright law by re-using images of its photojournalists without further payment (Az. 312 O 703/09).
According to the court decision, the flat-rate fee charged by Bauer to cover multiple uses of photojournalists’ work is illegal. The court said second-use of images should be compensated with additional payment.
The decision also overturned previous ruling that photojournalists have to face the legal consequence for the use of their work. However, the court rejected the claim for compensation to photojournalists whose names were not attributed in Bauers’ publications.
The case was brought by journalists unions in Germany, the DJV and dju who sued on behalf of the photojournalists working for Bauer in Germany.
For more information, please contact Benno H. Pöppelmann ([email protected]).