Official postage stamp (Germany)

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Image of a German postage stamp valid for post but canceled (2003)

An official postage stamp in Germany is usually a rectangular, often perforated postage stamp that is printed on paper . It is used to pay for the transport of mail (or other postal services) and is produced by Bundesdruckerei or other securities printing companies such as Giesecke & Devrient or Bagel Security-Print .

The issuer of German postage stamps has been the Federal Ministry of Finance , Postage Stamp Unit , since January 1st, 1998 . These postage stamps are then sold individually or in units to postal services or to post office outlets. In a narrower sense, official stamps are referred to as "official stamps".

The first German postage stamp was the Black One , which was issued by the Kingdom of Bavaria on November 1, 1849 .

Type of postage

  • Service stamps are postage stamps that are used exclusively by authorities , offices or offices for franking postal items of service mail. They are therefore not sold at the normal post office counter and are not approved for normal postal traffic.
  • Postage stamps for offsetting the postage for insufficiently franked letters were never issued by post offices in Germany. Only the states of Baden and Bavaria, which at that time still had their own postal authority, issued their own postage stamps from 1862 to 1870.

Protective measures and validity

In order to prevent the stamp from being used again, it will be canceled by the post office . The most common type of cancellation nowadays is the postmark .

Post administrations took various protective measures early on to protect their stamps from counterfeiting. The oldest protective measure against counterfeit mail is the watermark .

Since 2002 it has been possible in Germany to print postage stamps from the Internet using the STAMPIT franking software . As a result of the postal reform and the accompanying weakening of the letter monopoly , it has recently become possible for private companies to issue “unofficial” “postage stamps”. Unofficial postage stamps are non-sovereign stamps created by the private postal services themselves, which are therefore not labeled with "Germany". This is a purely private matter for these services. Accordingly, the brands are protected by copyright.

Depicting postage stamps

Five Hundred Years of Michelstadt Town Hall (1984)

The information in this section applies primarily to displaying complete postage stamps.

handling

The individual postal administrations of the world tolerate the depiction of postage stamps in books or on websites to varying degrees. For example, the Faroe Islands postal administration has declared all images, including postage stamps, in the public domain. Whether German postage stamps are in the public domain as official works has long been a matter of dispute between literature and the LG Munich I (see below ). Postage stamps from private providers are not official works and are therefore subject to the property rights of their authors.

Jurisprudence

A relevant legally binding judgment on the copyright of postage stamps by the Munich Regional Court (AZ 21 S 20861/86) dealt with the depiction of the “Five Hundred Years Michelstadt Town Hall” stamp. In the second instance, the judgment denied the claims for license fees against Schwaneberger Verlag Munich ( Michel catalog ), which had published a stamp calendar in 1985 and which showed an enlarged imprint of the postage stamp designed by the plaintiff on the cover of the calendar.

The reasoning for the judgment stated: “The postage stamp designed by the plaintiff has the copyright protection that it initially had as a mere draft (Section 2 Paragraph 1 No. 4, Paragraph 2 of the Copyright Act ), through its inclusion in the Official Gazette of the Federal Minister for the Post and telecommunications systems lost in accordance with Section 5 (1) UrhG. ” According to this judgment, German postage stamps were considered official works in the public domain , i.e. without copyright protection, and could be used by anyone at will, unless the relevant provisions of criminal law (Sections 148, 149 StGB ) opposed (also from Comment Ungern-Sternberg, GRUR 1977, 768). The commentary literature of the time saw this differently. The Munich Regional Court took note of their opinion, but rejected it.

In Austria, the right holder of a postage stamp attempted to claim from the Republic of Austria (postal and telegraph administration) the profit made from the reproduction and distribution of the special postage stamp “200 years of the Diocese of Linz”. In a revision hearing in 1991, the Supreme Court rejected any private claims to the sovereign act of publishing stamps.

On December 31, 1997, the "Federal Ministry for Post and Telecommunications" was dissolved and the issue of postage stamps was transferred to the "Federal Ministry of Finance". Official postage stamps of the "Deutsche Bundespost" were always announced in the "Official Gazette of the Federal Minister for Post and Telecommunications" until the end of 1995 and were therefore valid according to § 5 Abs. 1 UrhG as public domain "official works". Postage stamps have been issued by "Deutsche Post AG" since 1996.

On March 27, 2012, the Berlin Regional Court ruled against Wikipedia on the occasion of the illustration of German Loriot stamps that stamps were not official works. The press release of the Federal Ministry of Finance of December 1, 2010 contained the decisive reference to these charity stamps: "Motive: © Loriot". The court also justified its decision by stating that Section 5 (1) UrhG only covered language works . The court also rejected the application of Section 5 (2) UrhG on the grounds that official postage stamps are not published for general information, but rather for use. In this respect, the court followed the popular commentary literature opinion.

Exchange of stamps with DM values

The Federal Court of Justice decided that “Deutsche Post AG” stamps with DM values ​​could only have been exchanged for stamps with Euro values ​​until June 30, 2003. (BGH, judgment of October 11, 2005, Az. XI ZR 395/04). In the justification it was stated that "Deutsche Post AG" stamps are small bearer papers within the meaning of § 807 BGB .

See also

Postage stamp years from Germany that are considered official stamps:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Postage stamps are ministerial matters (PDF; 19 kB), link replaced
  2. ↑ See Wikipedia: Stamps # Official Statements with the statement by Deutsche Post: "In cases where the motif is more important than the complete stamp, the rights lie with the graphic designer."
  3. ↑ cf. Fromm / Nordemann, Copyright, 9th edition, § 5 marginal no. 4; Schricker GRUR 1991, 645, 652 f .; Schack, Copyright and Copyright Contract Law, 4th edition, marginal no. 517; Wandtke / Bullinger, Copyright, 3rd edition, § 5, Rndr. 20; Möhring / Nicolini / Gass, Copyright Act, 2nd edition, § 5 marginal no. 14; Schmid / Wirth, Copyright Law Handkommentar, § 5 Rn. 4; Loewenheim, Handbook of Copyright, Section 31, No. 10 mwN; a. A. Rehbinder, Copyright and Publishing Law, 9th edition, p. 207, which, however, is also against it for special stamps.
  4. ↑ Supreme Court Austria GZ 1Ob11 / 91 of June 26, 1991
  5. ↑ Temporary injunction as PDF
  6. ↑ Judgment as PDF
  7. ↑ Loriot heiress lets Wikipedia bleed Focus online, November 17, 2011, accessed January 24, 2013