Media and personal rights:

We assist you in enforcing and defending against media law-related claims, particularly in the area of press law or any other personal rights, in drafting contracts pertaining to media rights, and represent you at any phase of a legal procedure, in or out of court.  

One area of focus in the area of media law is judicial and out-of-court representation in libel or publicity law-related matters for persons who have been damaged by the media. We advise and represent high-profile private individuals and companies. This may entail taking action against the media (traditional press, TV, radio, online newspapers) as well as other persons who directly or indirectly spread false allegations and make unauthorized expressions of opinion, e.g. through social networks (Facebook), search engines (such as Google), audiovisual material (such as YouTube videos), or ratings portals and for which claims can be asserted with regard to a co-liable party. 

In particular, we also advise companies and associations in employing the proper strategies in the context of so-called crisis communications.

Our media law services

• Cease and desist demands in cases of inaccurate and/or libelous reporting, i.e. “bad press”
• Advice and representation in matters of personal rights infringements resulting from unauthorized reporting about a persons’ private life, in combination rights to pain and suffering compensation if appropriate
• “Right to be forgotten”: deletion of search engine results in connection with more dated media coverage relevant to personal rights
• Assertion of right of reply requests, regardless of whether the objectionable allegation is true or false, as long as the claimant is legally concerned and can claim a legitimate interest
• Legal advice and representation in cases of so-called slander campaigns
• Legal review of ratings and action against business-damaging ratings on portals such as Yelp, Jameda or hotel booking platforms
• Removal of business-damaging content from websites, forums or blogs
• (Corporate) personality protection against unlawful statements, photos or ratings on Facebook.com
• Representation in cases of unauthorized picture publication
• Unauthorized publication or distribution of photos
• Legal assessment of journalistic publications or compliance with the principles of reporting on suspicion and identifying reporting, e.g. in reporting about criminal proceedings
• Reporting on criminal proceedings, for example. Drafting of contracts involving publishing rights (authorship agreements), copyrights (e.g. design contract law), photo rights (granting rights of use), etc.

Copyrights
Copyrights serve to protect what is known as intellectual property, i.e. the (un)authorized private or commercial use, for example, of pictures, drawings, photographs, plans, text (such as articles or books, scholarly compositions) or protected designs. We assist you in enforcing and defending against copyright claims, the structuring of the contracts from a copyright standpoint and represent you at any stage of a process, in or out-of-court.

Our legal services in the area of copyrights:

• Reasonable remuneration of the creator
• Preparation and review of contracts
• Photo rights
• Liability
• Licensing of copyrights
• Online liability
• Reproduction for private use
• Eligibility of text, images, logos, etc. for copyright protection.
• Prosecution of legal violations through warnings, objecting to warnings
• Legal relations
• Protecting the creator’s personal rights
• Out-of-court and judicial enforcement and defense against plagiarism claims in the area of design protection and design patents
• Competition law protection
• Registration of national, European and international design patents

Industrial property protection
In addition to the services already mentioned within the scope of what is referred to as industrial property protection – in particular design protection – we also offer services in the area of advertising law, competition law and trademark law. Here, too, we assist you in enforcing and defending against claims, the structuring of contracts and representing you at any stage of a process, in or out-of-court

Our industrial property law services:

• Appropriate out-of-court and judicial enforcement and defense against injunctions (warning, omission) by the copyright owner
• Protecting your legal position through a counter-warning
• Reviewing websites for competition law infringements
• Registration of trademarks
• Title protection
• Out-of-court and judicial enforcement and defense against trademark claims
• Trademark infringement through domain names or website content
• Trademark infringements through exploitation of technical aspects specific to the Internet (metatags, doorway pages, dynamic content)