In four rulings dated January 24, 2014, a civil chamber of the Cologne Regional Court upheld complaints from account holders who had received warnings from 'The Archive AG' for viewing a streaming video on the www.redtube.com platform.
According to the Chamber, 'The Archive AG''s request for the disclosure of names and addresses of Deutsche Telekom customers associated with specific IP addresses should not have been granted. One of the rulings (file reference 209 O 188/13) is available in anonymized form via the aforementioned link. Further decisions are expected shortly.
The Chamber justified its deviation from its original decision by stating that 'The Archive AG' (the applicant) had referred to downloads in its application, whereas it later turned out that the case actually involved the viewing of videos on a streaming platform. According to the Chamber, merely streaming a video file or viewing it via a stream, in contrast to downloading, does not fundamentally constitute a relevant unlawful infringement under copyright law, specifically not a reproduction exclusively permitted to the author pursuant to § 16 of the Copyright Act (UrhG). Furthermore, as streaming was involved, it remained unclear how the investigative program used was able to capture the IP address of the individual accessing a stream from the www.redtube.com provider's server. Even after a hint from the Chamber during the appeal proceedings, the applicant had left unanswered the question of how the program could penetrate this two-way connection.
The Chamber indicated that its decision could also be significant for a prohibition on the use of evidence in a main proceeding (e.g., regarding the justification of warning costs).
The decisions are not yet legally binding (as of January 27, 2014). The applicant, for its part, may file an appeal against the decision now rendered.
As of January 27, 2014, the Cologne Regional Court has received over 110 appeals against decisions permitting the disclosure of information in this matter. In addition to processing these numerous appeals, the prompt response to all requests for file inspection is currently a priority. The option of quickly and unbureaucratically obtaining access to essential documents via fax is well received by those affected and their legal representatives.
In some proceedings, the attorney who represented the applicant at the time resigned their mandate. No reasons for this were provided.
Source: Press release of the Cologne Regional Court
Goldberg Attorneys at Law 2014
Attorney Michael Ullrich, LL.M. (Information Law)
Specialist Attorney for Information Technology Law
Email: info@goldberg.de
