Digital Platforms

Music, films, series, audiobooks, eBooks and scientific content – all types of digital content are streamed, downloaded, consumed and shared all over the world every day. In most cases, use of this content requires consent by and remuneration of the rights holder. Digital platforms that make this content available play a key role in the commercial exploitation of all types of content. Some of these platforms build their business by consistently licensing all content and negotiating revenue participation of rights holders, while others use (unlicensed) content which is provided to them by third parties, or they use crawlers to crawl the internet.

Our legal advice includes supporting rights holders to commercialize their content on these platforms – whether through licensing or by identifying licensing gaps and ultimately also by enforcing their rights against platforms that ignore rights holders’ participation claims. In this regard, we regularly represent our clients in precedence-setting court litigation dealing with the legal interpretation of new technologies and business models. In addition, we provide comprehensive advice on platform compliance in the increasingly complex field of national and international legislation on platforms and digital business models, be it the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the ePrivacy Regulation, the TDDDG, the EU Data Act, the Data Governance Act (DGA), the eIDAS, the NIS2 Directive, the Cybersecurity Act, the Cyber Solidarity Act, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Services Act (DDG), the German Act on the Copyright Liability of Online Content Sharing Service Providers (UrhDaG), the State Media Treaty (MStV) including the treaty on the protection of minors in the media (JMStV), the European Accessibility Act (EEA), the AI Act and many more.

We support national and international companies and collecting societies with in-depth legal expertise and many years of experience – in negotiating and drafting license agreements and setting up business models, in enforcing and defending their rights in court, and in setting up new innovative digital platforms.