LHR obtains preliminary injunction before Cologne Regional Court for not naming the author under Creative Commons licence
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At the request of Lampmann, Haberkamm & Rosenbaum Rechtsanwälte (LHR), the Regional Court of Cologne (LG Köln, decision of 23 July 2013, ref. 28 O 325/13) has recently ruled by way of an interim injunction that the provisions of the Creative Commons licences must be observed.
The dispute concerned the licence ‘Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported’.
The court ordered the defendant to refrain from making the photographic work publicly available under the Creative Commons licence without providing the following information:
– Work title,
– Name of the author,
– link to the work and/or the author and
– Link to the licence certificate at Creative Commons.
(Tenor analogous)
The decision does not contain a written statement of reasons as it was issued as an emergency ruling and is not legally binding.
Bußgeld von bis zu 250.000 €
Following the Regional Court of Berlin, which had already ruled in 2010 by way of an order (Regional Court of Berlin, order of 8 October 2010, case no. 16 O 458/10) that the provisions of the Creative Commons licences must be observed and are enforceable in court, the Regional Court of Cologne has now confirmed this view and threatened the defendant with an administrative fine of up to € 250,000 and imposed the costs of the proceedings in the event of a breach of the order.
Lawyer Arno Lampmann from the law firm LHR:
“At the beginning of the year, we were negotiate the record sum of €14,000 for a photographer for not being named as the author out of court. The decision by the Regional Court of Cologne not only shows that the courts also take the protection of Creative Commons licences seriously, but also that legal protection can also be obtained effectively by way of interim legal protection. For authors who place their works under Creative Commons licences and thus release them for use free of charge, it is particularly annoying if not even the few conditions they set for this are complied with. The decision is therefore to be welcomed without reservation.”
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