Copyright Law

The field of industrial property protection also includes copyright law which covers an important legal and economic sector. Copyright law and in particular the German Copyright Act protect an author’s rights and titles in and to his or her works. This serves to safeguard authors’ economic and ideal interests.  Copyright protects the author as far as his or her mental and personal relationship to the work and the use of such work is concerned. At the same time it also serves to ensure appropriate remuneration for the use of the work (Section 11 of the German Copyright Act). As a matter of principle the author is the only one who can decide on how his or her work is to be used. He or she can license rights and titles in and to his or her works. These rights are, however, also limited whenever they affect the rights of the general public. In our present-day internet era infringements of copyrights happen in a great many respects. Thus pictures, graphs, designs and photos are simply copied, stored in the copier’s computer or sent to other persons or parties. All of these measures have copyright relevance and if and as long as the author’s consent was not obtained they constitute infringements of the author’s copyright. Software is frequently copied, duplicated and distributed. A website is simply and easily copied. Advertisements are copied. One sector which is greatly affected by the widely-spread practice of copying and distribution of music titles is the music industry. This is why it happens time and again that copyright-related warning letters and warning waves are issued which lead to uncertainties and irritation. It is therefore recommended that legal counsel be obtained before negative covenants will be signed.

 

A fact which is widely unknown is that it is relatively easy to obtain licenes when it comes to the public distribution of music.  In so far as the repertory is covered this is done by GEMA, a copyright collecting society for musical performance and mechanical duplication or reproduction rights, which safeguards the copyrights of composers, song writers or music publishers Apart from that there is still a number of other copyright collecting societies which safeguard authors’ rights (such as e.g. GFL, VG Wort, VG Bild-Kunst, VG Musikedition, etc.).

 

We offer you our services in order to help you protect your copyrights and to assist you in enforcing your copyright claims.  And naturally we will equally assist you in warding off unjustified copyright claims. All you have to do is to contact us.

 

Other legal areas around Commercial and Corporate Law