LG Frankfurt; 2020-12-23; 2-03 O 418/20
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:DE:LGFFM:2020:1223.2.03O418.20.00
Date: 2020-12-23
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Germany

82020DE1223(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
A private person domiciled in Germany (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) applied for the issuance of a preliminary injunction against the operator of a video platform (hereinafter ‘the defendant’).
A video made by a third party about clan wars regarding the plaintiff had been published on the defendant’s platform. As the video did not correspond to reality, the plaintiff approached the third party as the author of the video first. This person declared it would cease and desist from publishing the video. The plaintiff made the defendant aware of this fact with reference to the respective URLs. The defendant, however, claimed that the videos were not defamatory to the plaintiff.
The Landgericht Frankfurt am Main (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’), which held international jurisdiction under Article 7(2) of the Brussels I Regulation (1), confirmed the plaintiff’s entitlement for the protection of his personality rights and that the publication and proliferation of the video were illegal.
The defendant was liable as a wrongdoer regarding the publication of defamatory content about the plaintiff due to the fact that even an online platform operator or a host provider could be a direct wrongdoer in cases when they positively learn that content uploaded by a third party violated the law or another party’s rights. Even though the defendant had not breached any inspection obligations on its part, it was obliged to remove the respective content after gaining knowledge of the breach of law on the part of third parties and further to make sure that such breach would not continue.
The Court of First Instance issued a preliminary injunction ordering the defendant to cease and desist from the publication and proliferation of the respective video concerning the plaintiff.
(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.