LHR obtains preliminary injunction before the Düsseldorf District Court for not naming the author under the Creative Commons licence and negotiates damages of € 7,300
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According to the Regional Court of Cologne (LG Köln, decision of 23 July 2013, Ref. 28 O 325/13, we reported) an application by Lampmann, Haberkamm & Rosenbaum Rechtsanwälte (LHR), the Düsseldorf Local Court (AG Düsseldorf, Ref. 57 C 15202/13, order of 6 November 2013) has now also ruled by way of an interim injunction that the provisions of the Creative Commons licences must be observed.
The dispute was once again about 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:
– Title of the work,
– Name of the author,
– Link to the work and/or the author and
– Link to the licence certificate at Creative Commons.
(Tenor accordingly)
The decision does not contain a written statement of reasons as it was issued as an emergency ruling.
Administrative fine of up to € 250,000
Following the Regional Court of Berlin, which had already ruled in 2010 in an injunction (LG Berlin, decision of 8 October 2010, ref. 16 O 458/10) that the provisions of the Creative Commons licences must be observed and are enforceable in court, the Local Court of Düsseldorf has now confirmed this view and threatened the defendant with a fine of up to € 250,000 and imposed the costs of the proceedings if the injunction is violated. The defendant has now recognised the interim injunction as a final ruling.
Compensation totalling € 7,300
Although several photographs were affected, the client was able to quickly reach an agreement with the infringer for a comparatively low sum totalling € 7,300 (in June 2013, the client was able to negotiate an amount of € 14,000 for a photographer for just one photograph, see below), as the latter had immediately endeavoured to make full compensation for the damage.
Lawyer Arno Lampmann from the law firm LHR:
“The decision of the Düsseldorf District Court joins a now considerable number of court decisions, such as those of the Berlin and Cologne Regional Courts. Even if it is not yet possible to speak of established case law, this case shows that it is worthwhile for authors who place their works under Creative Commons licences and thus release them for use free of charge to take action against serious and commercial infringements.”
Practical tips for webmasters and photographers on Creative Commons licences can be found in our article “LHR achieves record sum for client: Photographer receives €14,000 in damages for not being named as author“
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