Category VG Media

The collecting society Corint Media (formerly VG Media) is claiming 420 million euros from Google Germany for the year 2022. It is demanding 11% of the total revenues generated by the search engine provider in Germany. These revenues are to be used to remunerate press publishers for the use of their content under the ancillary copyright. Corint ignores the fact that the Copyright Arbitration Board had already clearly rejected a similarly calculated demand in 2015. Read more

In Germany, the ancillary copyright for press publishers came into force on 1 August 2013. Today, after just over six years, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared it inapplicable with retroactive effect. The reason is an error in the legislative process that was widely known. Read more

In an oral hearing at the district court of Berlin on Tuesday, the presiding judge held that the German ancillary copyright (ac) had to be notified by the German Government. If the court clings to this assessment the German ac could be declared ineffective, null and void. Read more

Yesterday, the copyright arbitration board of the German Patent and Trademark Office (GPTO) released its ruling on the "tariff news publishers". The outcome: The tariff is inadequate, thus unlawful. The ancillary copyright for press publishers remains pointless. Read more

The German collecting society VG Media will have a panel discussion on "The relevance of ancillary copyrights for the European Media Diversity" on 17th June, 2015 at 11.30 a.m. Host will be the Representation of the Free State of Bavaria to the EU in Brussels. The VG Media exercises copyrights and ancillary copyrights for almost all German broadcasters and over 200 digital products of German newspaper and magazine publishers. Read more