Judgment of the Federal Supreme Court of 21 February 2019 - I ZR 15/18
The plaintiffs are visual artists. The 1st defendant of which the second defendant was the managing director, operated a mini-golf in the basement of a house. The plaintiffs designed the rooms with colours that glowed under black light, a fountain installation in the fountain installation in the entrance area and a star installation.
The mini-golf course was opened in July 2010 and remodelled at the end of 2011/early 2012, when the installations were removed and destroyed. were destroyed.
The Regional Court dismissed the claim brought by the plaintiffs for for damages for pain and suffering due to the removal and destruction of the installations. The plaintiffs' appeal against this decision was unsuccessful. remained unsuccessful.
The Federal Court of Justice overturned the impugned judgment on the plaintiffs' the plaintiffs' appeal and referred the matter back to the the case back to the Court of Appeal for a new hearing and decision. The destruction of a copyrighted work constitutes - in contrast to what the Kammergericht Court - constitutes an "other impairment" within the meaning of § 14 UrhG. constitutes. When examining whether the destruction is suitable to impair the legitimate the author's legitimate personal and intellectual interests in the work, a comprehensive weighing of the a comprehensive balancing of the interests of the author and the owner of the work. to be carried out. This is to be carried out by the Kammergericht in the reopened appeal instance. appeal instance. If the weighing of interests is in favour of the the plaintiffs, the Court of Appeal will have to further examine whether there has been a serious infringement. serious infringement of the moral rights of the author, which cannot be which cannot be compensated in any other way than by monetary compensation. other than monetary compensation.
Lower courts:
LG Berlin - Judgment of 3 November 2015 - 16 O 689/13
KG Berlin - Judgment of 9 August 2017 - 24 U 173/15
Source: BGH press release of 21.02.2019
