Urmann warning affair

The Urmann warning affair came into the focus of German public interest in December 2013 after the Regensburg law firm Urmann + Collegen warned tens of thousands of users of the Redtube video portal because of alleged copyright infringements . In addition to a declaration of cease and desist to be signed by the person being warned, the warnings contained a cost note of € 250.00.

The subject of the legal dispute were six porn films ( Amanda's Secrets , Dream Trip , Glamor Show Girls , Hot Stories , Miriam's Adventures and Silk Kiss ), the exploitation rights of which The Archive AG saw violated by the warned Redtube users. The rights included the reproduction right of the copyright holder ( § 16 of the Copyright Act ) and the intellectual property right of the film manufacturer ( § 94 of the Copyright Act ).

The warning side was of the opinion that so-called progressive downloading was used to play the films . The entire film remains stored in a (temporary) folder on the hard drive even after viewing, which is not covered by Section 44a UrhG .
The warned side essentially claims that streaming is available when viewing the films and that the temporary caching (Section 44a UrhG), which is technically necessary for a smooth display of the films, is permitted.

On December 19, 2013, The Archive AG was prohibited from issuing any new warnings relating to the films offered on Redtube until further notice by a preliminary injunction from the Hamburg Regional Court .

background

In a telephone conversation with the lawyer Solmecke on December 11, 2013, Thomas Urmann, head of the law firm Urmann + Collegen, stated verbatim: “On Wikipedia you can read that after viewing such a stream, the entire file is in the temporary folder on the hard drive . “Christian Solmecke is a partner in the law firm Wilde Beuger Solmecke , which represents some of the warned.

The following table, which is based on the introduction of video-on-demand , streaming media and progressive download , should serve to clarify the terms and to understand the chain of arguments . It shows the differences in the procedures in the video portion necessary for viewing and the storage location.

Procedure	Necessary video portion	Location
Download	full video	hard disk
Progressive download	Video excerpt	hard disk
Streaming	Video excerpt	random access memory

From a technical point of view, the video section is a buffer to absorb fluctuations in the data transmission and to enable fast forward and rewind during this time. With progressive download , the digital file embedded in the web page is downloaded to the user's hard drive. The file is typically either stored in the web browser's temporary folder - its cache - or in a user-specified directory on a media player.

The handling of a film when viewing a film is similar to that of streaming for the normal user with progressive download , so a difference is not immediately recognizable for him, nor whether the file is only downloaded in parts or in full with progressive download, and finally, whether a fully downloaded film is actually deleted from the temporary directory at the end of playback.

The scenes

The six scenes were originally produced with different titles by the Combat Zone film studio based in Chatsworth, California (USA). In addition, they have been discontinued at Redtube with slightly different original names. The warned videos themselves are longer scenes, some of which are marketed on several porn DVDs, and are over 20 minutes in length.

Original title	Admonished title	Redtube title
High Heels and Glasses 2	Amanda's Secrets	Stacy in high heels and glasses fucked
Adult supervision required	Dream trip	Emma Mae Adult Supervision
Sexual Rehab - Dona Bell	Glamor Show Girls	Sexual Rehab - Donna Bell
Teen babysitters 3	Hot stories	Teen babysitters # 3
My Black Stepdad	Miriam's Adventures	Kendra's stepdad takes care of her
Naughty Cheerleaders 2	Silk Kiss	Naughty cheerleader fucks coach

Combat Zone itself markets the footage online under the original title. Three of the warned videos are still available at Redtube and have not yet been raised in a DMCA (copyright) complaint by Combat Zone.

Transfer of film rights

Serrato Consultores SL

On June 20, 2013, the company Serrato Consultores SL , based in Barcelona ( Spain ), transferred all exploitation rights to ten porn films to a Hausner Productions / Oliver Hausner. Evidence of how Serrato Consultores SL obtained the rights from Combat Zone is not included in the license agreement. The exact purpose of Serrato Consultores SL is incomprehensible, as only the dummy text Lorem ipsum can be found on its entire website (as of December 24, 2013) . On the home page only the German keywords real estate fonts (meaning real estate funds), management consulting, legal advice and company formation in Spain are entered. The company's managing director is Jutta Schilling , who also appears in the porn industry under the stage name Julia Reaves . A total of 202 porn films are listed under her own porn DVD label Julia Reaves Productions (as of December 29, 2013).

Hausner Productions

The Hausner Productions , based in Berlin took over on June 20, 2013, the complete, worldwide exploitation rights of Serrato Consultores SL In addition to the six known films were the rights for four more, transferred a total of ten films. Oliver Hausner is the company's managing director . However, a request to the responsible Pankow district office in Berlin revealed that no such company has been listed in the trade register for the past 5 years.

The Archive AG

For its part, The Archive AG took over the online exploitation rights for exactly six of the films from Hausner Productions in a contract dated July 18, 2013, around a month later. The last signature for The Archive AG was made by the Board of Directors, Philipp Wiik, on July 23, 2013 (see section Determination of IP addresses ).

Die Welt writes: "It is therefore unlikely that the US company Combat Zone has actually assigned its entire rights to Serrato Consultores SL and has not yet been proven by The Archive AG."

Transmission route of the film exploitation rights (as of February 2, 2014)

The DVD

The DVDs created by Serrato Consultores SL were delivered with an EAN and the GÜFA seal.

An EAN is a 13-digit, internationally unique product identifier for commercial items and is represented by a barcode on the product. The code can be seen on the incomplete picture of the DVD case 406-00131361?-?. The stands 406as EAN-country number for Germany. The other eight visible digits and one more of the non-copied digits 00131361?represent a combination of company number and article number. They are secured against read errors with the last check digit, which is also not visible on the copy. The check digit is precisely defined for every conceivable last digit in the article number from 0to 9, so that there are a maximum of ten variations. However, none of the ten conceivable possibilities refers to the company Serrato Consultores SL with the article DVD Amanda's Secret's. Instead, the GEPIR database provides BETTY BARCLAY GmbH & Co. KG , a women's clothing company based in Nussloch, for an exemplary request with the completed EAN code 406-0013-13610-9for the company . All other nine options therefore always provide the same company number for this company. Conversely, there is no article on either of the possibilities. 0013

The GüFA is one of the PRO comparable recycling society, but the GüFA connected film producer / rights holders are that deal predominantly those with the production of erotic and pornographic films. The GÜFA model contract provides for the transfer of the right-holders “currently entitled to remuneration entitlements for renting and lending video films and multimedia productions that are still due during the contract period” and the “remuneration entitlements for reproduction for private or other personal use” . The transfer to GÜFA as trustee is limited to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In particular, the rights holder guarantees the existence and effective transfer of the rights transferred and undertakes to refrain from exercising these rights. However, a request from the lawyer regarding this legal representation revealed that all six films were initially registered, but then canceled retrospectively due to an assignment error. The GÜFA therefore never represented the rights for the films. She further explained that her seal on DVD cases generally does not allow any conclusions to be drawn as to whether she was entrusted with the exercise of online rights. Rather, it is mainly used by film producers to exercise their rights in public screenings ( sex cinema ) and rental ( DVD ).

These two inconsistencies led to a criminal complaint against Jutta Schilling, lawyer Daniel Sebastian and The Archive AG (see section Reactions ).

The license agreements presented, the titles used in them and the copies of the DVD cover do not allow any identification of the scenes transmitted for the Redtube videos. The scenes can only be identified and assigned to the Combat Zone porn films using the video number given in the warnings on Redtube.

The Archive AG

The Archive AG, with its former headquarters in Bassersdorf , Canton Zurich , was founded on March 21, 2011 by Philipp Wiik and Peter Matthias as a stock corporation under Swiss law. The commercial purpose stated in the commercial register is the "... acquisition and evaluation of audio media and audiovisual media of any kind as well as the provision of services in this area". According to its website, among other things, it carries out analyzes on the protection of intellectual property. After Peter Matthias left on April 11, 2013, Philipp Wiik has been the company's director and Ralf Reichert as a member of the administrative board with individual signatures since November 8, 2013 . All three people are German citizens.

On December 27, 2013, The Archive AG moved its headquarters within the Canton of Zurich from Bassersdorf to Grabenwiese 10, 8484 Weisslingen . Philipp Wiik resigned as director. The new director was the Beninese citizen Djengue Nounagnon Sedjro Crespin, Weisslingen.

The capital contribution had the legal minimum of 50,000 Swiss francs (around 46,000 euros). According to Swiss tax law, legal entities pay a pure profit tax at the federal level and a profit and a capital tax at the canton or commune level. On the tax statement of the community of Bassersdorf for the 2012 tax year, The Archive AG does not show any net profit (0.00 CHF) or capital above the minimum capital (100,000 CHF) that would have been taxable.

The company operates three websites: one Swiss, one German and one with the top level domain .biz. The domain the-archive.ch was registered on September 12, 2011. Like that of itGuards (see section Determination of IP addresses ), this company's website is hosted by the provider wix.com on a server with the IP address 216.185.152.151 and is maintained by the same web administrator. The domain the-archive.de was registered on March 28, 2013 and redirects to the Swiss domain.

Streaming the films

If the upload of a film to Redtube infringes copyrights, the owner of the rights can contact Redtube by letter, fax or email with reference to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 (DMCA). Redtube guarantees the immediate examination of the film and, if necessary, its deletion.

In an interview with Die Zeit Online, Thomas Urmann stated on the one hand that this would of course be done, and on the other hand stated that an abuse service that finds such links after the films have been re-uploaded is very expensive for The Archive AG and that the warning procedure at least would cover costs.

As you can see from the graph of the visitor statistics for two of the films, the films have been streamed by Redtube since at least January 1, 2013. Up until July 21, 2013, there were an average of 7,000 views of Miriam's Adventures and about 500 views of Dream Trip per month .

Parallel to the transfer of the exploitation rights for the films, the domains movfile.net and retdube.net were registered on July 22, 2013 via a mailbox company in Panama. Within a short period of time, the number of hits on the two films rose to 13,000 views per month for Miriam's Adventures, which equates to about a doubling, and 8,000 views per month for Dream Trip, which means about a 15-fold increase.

Trafficholder.com is a so-called adult traffic broker. He pulls page views against payment to his redirect service and, conversely, is paid to forward these page views to a destination other than the one desired by the user. In this case these were the domains movfile.net and retdube.net . Trafficholder works with geolocation, i.e. H. it is technically possible to redirect only German IP addresses.

If the browser was redirected to trafficholder.com from some other site , a script there took care of the transfer via the movfile.net and retdube.net pages to redtube.com, specifically to one of the warned streams. Some Abgemahnt emerged trafficholder.com right in front retdube.net on in the browser log files.

In addition to the targeted retrieval by people actually interested in the films, such 302 redirects apparently generated further retrievals of these streams under their IP address without any action or even consent of the Internet users.

Warning process

To warn an Internet user about a legal violation, three steps are necessary:

Determine the IP address of the PC involved. So far (January 11, 2014) it is unclear where the warning people got the IP addresses of the alleged copyright infringers.
Use the IP address of the PC involved to determine the connection owner and his address.
Warn the subscriber.

The Archive AG commissioned various companies or law firms to carry out the individual steps.

Participants and processes in the warning process (as of February 2, 2014)

The law firm Daniel Sebastian himself denied in a press release on December 11, 2013 any contractual relationship (including an assignment) with itGuards Inc. or even its own data collection and rejected all allegations of this kind. Daniel Sebastian also denied a collaboration with the law firm U + C. He had "only determined the addresses on behalf of the rights holder" and "rejected a follow-up mandate for the dispatch of pornographic warnings". Attorney Thomas Urmann, however, spoke of a classic division of labor, as Die Welt reported, i.e. not of orders that were issued separately, and is quoted as follows: "A classic division of labor: Sebastian submitted the applications, we organize the individual warnings".

Determination of the IP addresses

According to Daniel Sebastian law firm, The Archive AG has hired itGuards, Inc. to investigate the violation of rights to cinematographic works. For this purpose, itGuards Inc. used the GLADII 1.1.3 software and checked the streaming of porn films by users of the video portal at least between July 22 and August 11, 2013. The monitoring of alleged copyright violations begins after the contract date for the transfer of film rights on July 18, 2013, but one day before the last signature of the contractual partners. The question remains whether The Archive AG was actually authorized to issue a warning at this point.

In his affirmation on oath dated August 11, 2013, Andreas Roschu from Ingolstadt, network administrator of a large grocery chain and technical advisor to itGuards Inc., told the civil chambers of the Cologne Regional Court that he was familiar with the GLADII 1.1.3 software , the reviews of the Having made streamings by comparing them with the original files and evaluating the results.

How the program supposedly found the IP addresses of the computers from which the videos were supposed to work is completely unknown. Experts cannot explain how a program could do this at all; they doubt the existence of this program as a whole, since such investigations would require global interference in telecommunications secrecy, which would require the capacity of the infrastructure of the US secret service NSA, for example. The law firm Daniel Sebastian only explains: "The technically perfect functionality of the investigation software used was confirmed by the expert opinion of the law firm Diehl & Partner dated March 22, 2013". According to the wording of the report - dated March 22, 2013 - the functionality of the software was tested by itGuards on December 11 and 21, 2012, although itGuards itself was only registered on March 21, 2013.

The firm Diehl & Partner is a Patent Attorney and Law Firm based in Munich . In her report dated March 22, 2013 for itGuards inc. the GLADII 1.1.3 program is stated to have been investigated and its functionality and the correctness of the recording are confirmed. However, the quality of this report has been massively questioned by the press.

The Heussen law firm is a larger law firm, also based in Munich, with three further offices in Germany and branches in Brussels and New York. She is said to have also created an expert opinion for the software for Christian Neumeyer. The law firm does not provide any information on the content of the report with reference to its duty of confidentiality. In March 2016, Christian Neumeyer was found shot dead in northern Italy.

It is suspected that the data subjects may have been redirected to the videos in question through websites belonging to The Archive with similar sounding URLs . According to the assumption of experts, advertisements were probably displayed on German-language websites such as B. Internet forums that animated the playback of the videos, which could also explain the skyrocketing number of hits on Redtube after the rights were taken over by the warning people. The IP addresses could have been saved.

itGuards Inc.

The company itGuards Inc. is headquartered in Silicon Valley with the address 97 South Second Street, San Jose ( United States ) in the state of California to. After an inspection, however, it turned out that premises were never rented at this address, but only a post office box for a monthly rent of $ 75, and this only until December 2013. According to the knowledge so far, the company is actually behind The Archive AG.

itGuards is said to have produced the software GLADII 1.1.3, with which the IP addresses of Internet site visitors who stream films are to be provided. According to its website, it offers a wide range of services. The following is only stated: The software services are geared and tailored to the wishes of the customers . The services are intended for commercial companies, government agencies, organizations and law firms.

Several aspects that have become known about the IT company make it appear as a front company.

Premises were never rented at her address, the post office box was terminated in December 2013.

Your itguards.net domain was registered anonymously on March 14, 2013 - before the actual company was founded .

Like that of the Swiss company The Archive AG, your website is hosted by the provider wix.com on their server. Upon request, wix.com confirms that the domains are managed by the same web administrator with the user name the-archive XXXXX (the user name is shortened for data protection reasons). The domains for The Archive AG, however, were not registered until March 28th.

The company itself was only registered on March 21, 2013 by Business Filings Inc , which specializes in the registration of mailbox companies.

Apart from the German technical consultant Roschu, no one is known who works for the company. Even he was working as a network administrator for another company at the time.

Months before it was actually founded, the company acted as a client to Diehl & Partner in order to have the GLADII 1.1.3 software test carried out.

The report by Diehl & Partner for the GLADII 1.1.3 software is dated March 22, 2013 - exactly one day after the company was founded.

In particular, the web administration of the internet presence suggests that the Archive AG is actually behind itGuards.

The company itGuards and its software GLADII (as of January 27, 2014)

Identify the users

According to the law firm Daniel Sebastian, the Archive AG has now commissioned her to determine the user data. In August 2013, the law firm submitted a total of 89 applications under Section 101 (9) UrhG to the Cologne Regional Court for the traffic data of affected Telekom customers to be released . For civil law, a regional court is divided into several civil chambers, each of which is generally staffed by three judges, one of whom is chairman; only in exceptional cases may the chamber decide through one of its members as a single judge. In the Cologne Regional Court, a total of 16 civil chambers decided on the 89 applications; there was obviously no agreement between the chambers, and legal opinions on this type of application differed among the many chambers.

Of the 89 applications, the judges granted at least 62 applications; According to Daniel Sebastian's press release, The Archive AG received the user data from the provider after the permission orders were issued. The remaining 27 applications were either rejected by one of the chambers or the applicant withdrew her application due to clear inquiries from the chamber. In the case of rejections, the judges of the 14th and 28th civil chambers complained that the question of downloading or streaming, and therefore of the whereabouts of the video file on the hard drive, was not proven and that the correct determination of the IP addresses was not made sufficiently credible.

The Regional Court of Cologne announced on January 27, 2014 that one of its civil chambers had overturned four of the decisions after complaints from 110 people affected. The justification given by the judges was that the applications at the time cited download while streaming was actually being used. However, the mere streaming of a video file does not constitute a relevant infringement of copyright law. Lawyer Daniel Sebastian also failed to answer the court's inquiry about how the GLADII software could have penetrated the streaming connection.

The Regional Court of Cologne announced that each of the 62 approved applications had 400 to 1000 IP addresses. This allows you to estimate the number of warnings between a minimum of 24,800 and a maximum of 62,000. If one assumes the mean value of 700 IP addresses per application for further considerations, then 43,400 warnings can be estimated for the wave of warnings. However, some of those affected received several warnings, so their number should be lower.

Lawyer Daniel Sebastian resigned his mandate in some of the proceedings by January 27, 2014 without giving reasons.

Warning of the user

According to the law firm Sebastian, The Archive AG then commissioned the law firm Urmann + Collegen to issue the warnings to the identified users. From December 5, 2013, those affected received this by post. For each violation - i.e. for each film and download - an amount of € 250.00 was asserted, which was made up as follows:

€ 149.50 attorney fees
€ 65.00 investigation costs
15.50 € damages
€ 20.00 postal fee

The compensation should go to The Archive AG, the attorney's fees to the law firm Urmann + Collegen. The obligatory communication fee is used to cover mail and telephone traffic between the law firm issuing the warning and the person being warned or their legal representative.

The limitation to € 250.00 is a consequence of the law against dubious business practices, which came into force on October 9, 2013 and provides for a cap on the amounts in dispute.

The sum had to be transferred to an account at a Munich private bank (and not, as erroneously claimed, directly to a Swiss account). The reason for the misunderstanding was the BIC on the transfer slip, which began with the letters CH, and the fact that The Archive AG is a company based in Switzerland.

With the warning numbers from the previous section, one comes to a warning volume of between € 6.2 million and € 15.5 million, the assumed mean value leads to € 10.9 million. However, not all of the warned people paid or quite a few filed an objection to the court. Up to 30% of those affected are expected to pay immediately out of shame towards their partner or uncertainty due to the threatening backdrop built up in the warning.

In addition to the legality of obtaining the IP addresses of the data subjects, the legality of the amount of the claim was also questioned. It was also suspected that the Cologne Regional Court had erroneously assumed a file sharing case. With the file sharing practiced in peer-to-peer exchanges, a local copy of the video is created for the end user and thus, in fact, duplicated. In fact, however, videos are displayed on Redtube in streaming mode. In contrast to file sharing, the data is loaded into the buffer ( cache ), where it is automatically deleted later. According to the prevailing legal opinion (§ 44a UrhG ), this procedure is legal, since no local copy is created.

Legal resistance

The victims of the warning can on the one hand try - usually with the help of a lawyer - to reduce the effects of the warning. This concerns the amount of the cost note and the exact formulation of the cease and desist declaration.

There is also the possibility of a negative declaratory action before a local court . The aim of such a negative declaratory action is to have a court establish that the connected owner has not committed the alleged copyright infringement . In addition, in the specified case, it should be clarified in principle how the warning letter got the data of the person concerned.

Both options have the disadvantage that they are (at least initially) more expensive than the warning request. There is therefore also the option of not reacting at all at first. However, a reaction is required at the latest after receipt of a dunning notice or a lawsuit.

Irrespective of this, the person concerned can file a complaint against the decision to provide information to the Cologne Regional Court. As of January 27, 2014, 110 such complaints had been received by the Cologne Regional Court. The Cologne regional court initially granted the complaints of subscribers in four resolutions. The judges thereby contradicted earlier decisions of the regional court. According to the court, further decisions are expected shortly.

However, it is controversial whether the determined IP addresses and addresses are worthless and the warnings are ineffective. The civil chamber of the Cologne Regional Court, which revised the validity of the information decisions, indicated that their decision could now also have "significance for a ban on the use of evidence in a main process (e.g. on the justification of warning costs)." Thomas Urmann is involved in the conversation Zeit Online quotes: "But even if the IP addresses had been obtained illegally, we couldn't care less from a legal point of view." This is the conclusion reached by the Hamburg lawyer Jörg Dittrich. Those affected would have to assert their complaints in a later copyright litigation.

The company Redtube has obtained an injunction against The Archive AG . The Hamburg regional court prohibited The Archive AG and the law firm Urmann + Collegen representing them from sending warnings until further notice. According to Redtube, this applies to all videos to which The Archive AG claims copyrights. Since the injunction was only of a temporary nature, a final case law on copyright and streaming was still pending.

In June 2014 the Hanover District Court ruled that The Archive AG's claims were unjustified. The consumption of streamed videos is not a copyright infringement as long as the streamed content does not originate from a template that has been made publicly available or created in violation of copyright law; there was no such obvious violation of law. Users of streaming videos cannot be expected to comprehensively check the copyright admissibility of a stream. As a rule, the user of a video stream has no way of checking whether the film is being made legally available to the public, which is why the illegality must be readily identifiable. It is up to the rights holder to prove that the illegality was obvious to the user. This proof has not been provided, in fact not even given.

Reactions

The parliamentary group Die Linke made a small request to the federal government on December 17, 2013 . With a total of nine questions on the areas of “Copyright assessment of streaming”, “Effects of the law against dubious business practices in general and in the present case”, “Conclusions and consequences on the subject of IP address acquisition and user data release” and “Defense against unauthorized warnings from companies Headquartered Abroad ”she calls on the new federal government to comment.

In its answer, the responsible Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection does not consider the mere viewing of a video stream to be a copyright infringement. However, it leaves the question open of whether the use of streaming offers violates the rights of authors and refers to a necessary decision by the European Court of Justice . The federal government intends to review the effectiveness of the law against dubious business practices two years after its enactment - i.e. in 2015. However, she already sees an improvement in the limitation of claims for damages. The Ministry also does not comment on the decision of the independent Regional Court of Cologne. Regarding the problem of a company issuing a warning with a foreign seat, the ministry points out that everyone who has been warned abusively has a counterclaim for reimbursement of the costs incurred ( § 97a UrhG ) and the possibility of a negative declaratory action before any German court.

Investigations against unknown persons

On December 19, 2013, the Cologne Public Prosecutor's Office started investigations against unknown persons on suspicion that the relevant traffic data could have been obtained on the basis of false affidavits to the court. On the one hand, it examines the affidavits itself and, on the other hand, checks the procedure - including the GLADII 1.1.3 software with which the IP addresses were determined. The investigations in this regard should not be directed against the law firm Urmann + Collegen.

Regardless of this, the law firm Wilde Beuger Solmecke filed a criminal complaint with the Cologne Public Prosecutor on January 16, 2014 , because it considers the acquisition of IP addresses to be a criminal spying of data ( Section 202a of the German Criminal Code ).

Criminal charges against the managing director of itGuards

On January 16, 2014, Wilde Beuger Solmecke also filed a criminal complaint with the Cologne Public Prosecutor's Office against the unknown managing director of iTGuards on suspicion of false affirmation in lieu of an oath ( Section 156 StGB ).

On December 20, 2013, the Brandenburg consumer organization filed a criminal complaint against the investigator of the IP addresses .

Criminal charges against Jutta Schilling

A lawyer from Mönchengladbach filed a criminal complaint against the managing director of Serrato Consultores S.L. with the Cologne public prosecutor's office on January 2, 2014. The packaging of the Amanda's Secrets DVD shows a GÜFA seal that indicates legal representation in trust by the collecting society; Schilling passed these rights on to Hausner Productions worldwide. A request from the lawyer regarding this legal representation revealed that GÜFA did not in fact represent the rights for the films at any time and the seal does not automatically mean that GÜFA has been commissioned to exercise online rights.

Furthermore, there is an invalid EAN on the cover of the DVD , which refers to the outerwear company Betty Barclay . The accusation is therefore of fraud ( Section 263 StGB Paragraphs 1, 3, 5 and 7) and the creation of a forgery ( Section 267 StGB Paragraph 1, alternatively Paragraphs 1 and 2, alternatively Paragraphs 2, 3 and 4).

Criminal charges against Daniel Sebastian

The Brandenburg Consumer Center has also filed charges against the lawyer Daniel Sebastian.

Furthermore, the lawyer was reported to the Cologne Public Prosecutor's Office on January 2, 2014 because of the packaging of the Amanda's Secrets DVD . The lawyer from Mönchengladbach accuses him of using a forged document in court (§ 267), which means fraud (§ 263) in 89 cases.

Criminal charges, investigations, claims for damages and judgment against Thomas Urmann

The lawyers Carl Christian Müller and Sören Rößner filed a criminal complaint against Thomas Urmann with the Hamburg public prosecutor on December 19, 2013 for coercion and particularly serious extortion. Müller and Rößner saw the offense of extortion fulfilled, namely in a particularly serious case ( Section 253 of the Criminal Code, Paragraph 1), because a commercial and / or gang-like act had occurred (Section 253, Paragraph 4 of the Criminal Code) or, alternatively, that of the particularly severe case Fraud (Section 263 Paragraph 1, Paragraph 3 Nos. 1, 2 (Var. 2), Paragraph 5) and coercion ( Section 240 StGB ). This criminal complaint became known through an interview with Müller in the FAZ. In response to the criminal complaint filed against Thomas Urmann, the Hamburg Public Prosecutor's Office initiated investigative proceedings under file number 2408 Js 1450/13 on December 23, 2013 .

On December 20, the Brandenburg consumer advice center and several people concerned also filed criminal charges against the law firm that issued a warning to the Regensburg public prosecutor's office. These criminal charges initially did not give the public prosecutor's office sufficient initial suspicion for an investigation. At the end of 2013, however, the Regensburg public prosecutor also initiated investigations against Thomas Urmann. The public prosecutor's office has now taken over large parts of the proceedings from the Hamburg public prosecutor's office.

The public prosecutor's offices in Regensburg and Hamburg are responsible, as the law firm Urmann + Collegen had its headquarters in Regensburg and a branch in Hamburg. After several death threats, Thomas Urmann's private home and the Urmann + Collegen law firm have been under police protection since December 21, 2013 .

In addition, since January 16, 2014, the Cologne public prosecutor's office has received a criminal complaint from the lawyers Wilde Beuger Solmecke against the managing director of Rechtsanwalts GmbH Urmann + Collegen that Thomas Urmann aid ( Section 27 StGB ) in the particularly serious case of fraud (Section 263 (1) , Paragraph 3 No. 1) and coercion (Section 240 StGB).

In mid-February 2014, the law firm Weiß & Partner filed a claim for damages against U + C on behalf of one of the warned persons concerned: "If the accusation [...] is confirmed, the lawyers behind the warnings are ultimately threatened with claims for damages in the millions."

On April 9, 2014, the Potsdam AG classified Urmann's streaming warnings as illegal. At the end of April 2014, Urmann resigned from The Archive AG.

On August 29, 2014, Focus Online reported that Thomas Urmann had been sentenced to two years' probation in other matters for fraud and bankruptcy delay . As managing director of a sausage factory in Gundelfingen an der Donau, he disguised the bankruptcy of his company in 2010.

On November 3rd, 2014 Urmann announced: "I voluntarily returned my license and that of the law firm on November 3rd". The firm Urmann + Collegen was renamed Z9 Verwaltungs-GmbH and the Hamburg branch was dissolved.

On December 2, 2014, the appeal of the lawyers Urmann & Collegen against the judgment of the Nuremberg Local Court of July 5, 2013 on a similar case of "Immoral damage by mass warnings" was rejected.

The civil law proceedings against Urmann were briefly suspended due to criminal proceedings. However, on January 21, 2015 - following a complaint by a plaintiff against the suspension - the Regensburg District Court resumed the proceedings.

At the end of 2016, the Regensburg public prosecutor closed the investigation against Thomas Urmann. The Regensburg public prosecutor's office investigated 43,000 cases of fraud. "The proceedings were discontinued due to insufficient evidence," said Chief Public Prosecutor Theo Ziegler of "Welt". "Subjective evidence that the lawyer intentionally sent warnings for which there was insufficient authorization cannot be adequately proven from the point of view of the Regensburg public prosecutor," said Ziegler. Media reports described the termination of the criminal proceedings against Urmann as “curious” and “contradicting”, as Urmann had recently been attested to “malicious intent” in the civil law proceedings (see below).

Criminal charges against Philipp Wiik

On December 20, 2013, a criminal complaint was filed against the alleged rights holder The Archive AG by the Brandenburg Consumer Center .

On January 2, 2014, a Mönchengladbach lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Philipp Wiik for Amanda's Secrets DVD case . The lawyer sees in the case presented as evidence because of the invalid EAN code and the GÜFA seal the use of a forged document (§ 267) and thus complete fraud (§ 263) in 89 cases.

On January 16, 2014, it became known that The Archive AG had moved within Switzerland to Weisslingen in the canton of Zurich , that she can no longer be reached by telephone and that Philipp Wiik had been released from his duties as Director of Archive AG on December 27, 2013 .

According to Swiss media reports, there are first investigations by Swiss authorities into gang-like computer fraud against the previous directors. The sudden move and the change of director could be related to the fact that the disclosure of the IP addresses of the warned Redtube users by The Archive AG violated Swiss law.

On January 16, 2014, the law firm Wilde Beuger Solmecke filed a criminal complaint with the Cologne public prosecutor's office against the previous managing director Philipp Wiik of The Archive AG on suspicion of a particularly serious case of fraud (Section 263 StGB) and for coercion (Section 240 StGB) submitted.

Claims for damages against Thomas Urmann

In February 2014, the Esslingen law firm Weiß & Partner brought an action for damages on behalf of a client against the (former) lawyer Thomas Urmann and against the former U + C lawyers Urmann + Collegen Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH (now: Z9 Verwaltungs-GmbH).

After both defendants initially defended themselves against the lawsuit before the Regensburg District Court, no one appeared in the subsequent meeting, so that the proceedings came to an initial conclusion in the form of a default judgment dated March 20, 2015, which is not yet legally binding. Both Thomas Urmann and Z9 Verwaltungs-GmbH have been jointly and severally sentenced to reimburse the legal fees for defense against a warning. At the same time, AG Regensburg determined that the claim for damages is based on an unauthorized act intentionally committed by Thomas Urmann.

After Thomas Urmann lodged an objection against the default judgment both in his own name and in the name of Z9 Verwaltungs-GmbH, the proceedings before the AG Regensburg came to an end after a further oral hearing with a final judgment on December 8, 2015. The court has confirmed the previously issued default judgment in its essential points by considering a claim for damages in favor of the warned plaintiff as given and also found an intentional unlawful act by Thomas Urmann. The law firm Weiß & Partner, leading the legal dispute, published the full text of the judgment of the AG Regensburg dated December 8, 2015, file number 3 C 451/14.

In August 2016, insolvency proceedings were opened against Urmanns Z9 Verwaltungs-GmbH . As managing director of Z9 GmbH, Urmann acted “at least negligently” with a view to the insolvency, according to the expert.

Web links

Johannes Boie: Holey report brings porn warnings into trouble. In: Süddeutsche.de . January 18, 2014.

Regional court Cologne on the question of whether the mere "streaming" of a video file - not obviously illegally produced / made publicly available - constitutes a copyright infringement (the result there denied): LG Cologne, decision of January 24, 2014 - 209 O 188 / 13, MIR 2014, Doc. 010 - Redtube

Individual evidence

↑ Karsten Gulden: Streaming will be warned! Warning of streaming by U + C lawyers. infodocc.info, December 5, 2013, accessed February 29, 2016 .

↑ Porn streaming warnings: Was Redtube just the beginning? N-tv , December 12, 2013, accessed on December 23, 2013 (ino).

↑ ^a ^b Redtube obtains an injunction. Frankfurter Rundschau , December 20, 2013, accessed on December 24, 2013 (zys with dpa).

↑ Christian Solmecke: Thomas Urmann: "This wave of warnings was just the beginning". Wilde Beuger Solmecke law firm, December 11, 2013, accessed December 25, 2013 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Christoph Elzer: Redtube: Were the victims lured into the trap? (No longer available online.) CHIP Online , December 13, 2013, archived from the original on December 13, 2013 ; Retrieved December 23, 2013 .

↑ Marc R. Braun: Warnings for streaming consumption. mobile-grid.de blog, December 9, 2013, accessed December 25, 2013 .

↑ SammyFox: warnings for porn streaming: rights holder comments on the IP address determination. heise online News Forum, December 23, 2013, accessed December 30, 2013 .

↑ Thomas Arend: Wave of warnings (continued). Byggvir Blog, December 30, 2013, accessed March 7, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c Benedikt Fuest: Abmahner may not even have film rights. Die Welt , December 29, 2013, accessed December 29, 2013 .

↑ Serrato Consultores SL website. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 16, 2014 ; accessed on October 31, 2014 .

↑ Adult Rental - Video on Demand. Julia Reaves Productions, December 29, 2013, accessed December 29, 2013 .

↑ Exclusive Content License Agreement. (PDF) License transfer agreement between Serrato Consultores SL and Hausner Productions. June 20, 2013, pp. 2–3 , accessed December 30, 2013 (9 pages, 1,830 kB).

↑ Klemens Kowalski: #redtube # warning attack on the film exploitation chain and the people behind it. (No longer available online.) Kowabit.de blog, January 11, 2014, archived from the original on January 5, 2014 ; Retrieved January 22, 2014 (with update from January 15, 2014).

↑ Exclusive agreement. (PDF) License transfer agreement between Hausner Productions and The Archive AG. July 18, 2013, pp. 4–9 , accessed December 30, 2013 (9 pages, 1,830 kB).

↑ ^a ^b ^c DVD case for "Amanda's Secrets". (PDF) Serrato Consultores SL, January 24, 2014, p. 1 , accessed December 30, 2013 (9 pages, 1830 kB).

↑ GEPIR - The information library for business partners and consumers. (No longer available online.) GEPIR, archived from the original on February 2, 2014 ; accessed on January 24, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b SammieFox: Redtube warnings: gaps in the chain of rights? heise online news forum, December 30, 2013, accessed on January 24, 2014 .

↑ Authorization Agreement. (PDF) GÜFA model contract, company for the takeover and exercise of film performance rights mbH. GÜFA , accessed on January 24, 2014 (3 pages, 1,720 kB).

↑ ^a ^b Klemens Kowalski: #redtube #abmanung GÜFA responded. (No longer available online.) Kowabit.de blog, January 30, 2014, archived from the original on February 1, 2014 ; accessed on January 31, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b excerpt from the commercial register. (No longer available online.) Commercial Register of the Canton of Zurich, formerly the original ; Retrieved July 7, 2014 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / zh.powernet.ch

↑ Christian Bütikofer: Swiss porn warnings did not pay taxes. Handelszeitung , December 18, 2013, accessed on December 28, 2013 .

↑ ^a ^b Klemens Kowalski: You are porn! All are porn! (No longer available online.) Kowabit.de blog, December 8, 2013, archived from the original on December 19, 2013 ; Retrieved December 23, 2013 .

↑ Legal & Section 2257 Compliance Statement, DMCA Notification Page. (No longer available online.) RedTube, May 10, 2013, archived from the original on December 27, 2013 ; Retrieved December 27, 2013 .

↑ Advocate of the RedTube warnings - "We get hundreds of threatening calls". Die Zeit online , December 17, 2013, accessed on December 27, 2013 .

↑ Holger Bleich: Porn warnings: chain of evidence for IP address determination is condensing. heise online , December 13, 2013, accessed on December 22, 2013 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Daniel Sebastian: Press release of December 11, 2013 on the content of the order by The Archive AG. (PDF) Daniel Sebastian law firm, December 11, 2013, accessed on December 25, 2013 (1 page, 27 kB).

↑ Benedikt Fuest: Money back for porn fans? Die Welt , December 22, 2013, accessed January 24, 2014 .

↑ The proof: warning at a point in time without rights ownership. conle§i, January 15, 2014, accessed January 22, 2014 .

↑ sueddeutsche.de: This is how the Redtube warning company works

↑ streamingabmaehn.wikia.com: The backers

^ ^A ^b Christian Solmecke: warning U + C lawyers - Redtube warning mania: Cologne public prosecutor's office is investigating - but not yet deep enough. Law firm Wilde Beuger Solmecke, December 18, 2013, accessed on January 26, 2014 (with an update from December 19, 2013).

↑ Marion Lenke: Affidavit transferred Redtube experts. Focus Online , December 20, 2013, accessed January 3, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b Holger Bleich: Redtube warnings: The court took the mailbox company on the glue. heise online , January 31, 2014, accessed on February 2, 2014 .

↑ Streaming warnings from the law firm U + C in the matter of Redtube: Cologne Regional Court provides initial information on the functionality of the GLADII 1.1.3 software. (No longer available online.) Lawyers Müller - Müller - Rößner, December 12, 2013, archived from the original on January 29, 2014 ; accessed on January 24, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b Frank Schorr: Expert opinion on the functionality of the software "GLADII 1.1.3". (PDF) (No longer available online.) Diehl & Partner law firm, March 22, 2013, archived from the original on January 24, 2014 ; accessed on January 24, 2014 (12 pages, 421 kB).

↑ The wording of the report on the Gladii 1.1.3 software is now available. (No longer available online.) Lawyers Müller - Müller - Rößner, January 17, 2014, archived from the original on February 3, 2014 ; accessed on January 24, 2014 .

↑ Lochiges report. January 18, 2014, accessed February 2, 2014 .

↑ HEUSSEN Home. Heussen Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH, accessed on March 3, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b Johannes Boie: Video streaming - This is how the Redtube warning business works. Süddeutsche.de , February 25, 2014, accessed on March 3, 2014 .

↑ Christian Eckl: title. Retrieved December 20, 2019 .

↑ Christoph Elzer: Redtube: Were the victims lured into the trap? (No longer available online.) CHIP Online , December 13, 2013, archived from the original on December 13, 2013 ; Retrieved December 21, 2013 .

↑ itGuards Inc. Internet presence - contact page. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 29, 2014 ; accessed on February 2, 2014 .

↑ Klemens Kowalski: WIX.COM confirms: itguards.net and the-archive.ch have the same administrator. (No longer available online.) Kowabit.de blog, December 17, 2013, archived from the original on January 5, 2014 ; accessed on January 15, 2014 .

↑ Marion Lenke: Redtube users deliberately tricked: Plot by bogus companies? Focus Online , December 18, 2013, accessed January 24, 2014 .

↑ Benedikt Fuest: Redtube users could get their money back. Die Welt , December 21, 2013, accessed December 21, 2013 .

^ ^A ^b Martin Fischer: Streaming warnings frighten Internet users. heise online , December 9, 2013, accessed December 25, 2013 .

^ Christian Solmecker: warning U + C lawyers - LG Cologne: 14th and 28th civil chambers considered Redtube applications to be too imprecise. Wilde Beuger Solmecke law firm, December 21, 2013, accessed on January 27, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b Martin Gropp and Fridtjof Küchemann: Redtube warnings: The Cologne Regional Court thinks about it again. FAZ.net , December 20, 2013, accessed December 21, 2013 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c Christian Hoppe: First decisions about complaints in terms of “streaming warning”. (PDF) press release. (No longer available online.) Cologne Regional Court , January 27, 2014, archived from the original on February 2, 2014 ; accessed on January 27, 2014 (2 pages, 131 kB).

↑ Wave of warnings about porn streaming continues. Die Welt , December 12, 2013, accessed on December 25, 2013 (dpa-infocom GmbH).

^ Attorney Karsten Gulden, specialist lawyer for copyright and media law: Streaming warning. In: https://ggr-law.com/ . guilder röttger | lawyers, December 6, 2013, accessed February 29, 2016 .

↑ ^a ^b Benedikt Fuest and Lars-Marten Nagel: Not only Redtube users are threatened with porn warnings. Die Welt , December 15, 2013, accessed December 25, 2013 .

↑ Christian Solmecke: Difficult times for mass warnings - new law against dubious business practices comes into force. Wilde Beuger Solmecke law firm, October 9, 2013, accessed December 25, 2013 .

↑ Panagiotis Kolokythas: Warnings threaten further porn service users. PC-Welt , December 12, 2013, accessed December 25, 2013 .

↑ Peter Seiffert and Marion Lenke: Affair with the Redtube porn platform: Are the warning lawyers acting illegally? Focus Online , December 13, 2013, accessed December 21, 2013 .

↑ Alexander Hufendiek: The first warning victim defends himself in court against the mass warning for streaming. Press release. (No longer available online.) ANKA, December 11, 2013, archived from the original on December 27, 2013 ; Retrieved December 27, 2013 .

↑ ^a ^b Dispute over warnings: Porn streaming is not a legal violation. WDR.de , January 27, 2014, archived from the original on January 30, 2014 ; accessed on January 27, 2014 .

↑ Achim Sawall: Redtube - Cologne District Court takes the first streaming warnings "back". golem.de , January 27, 2014, accessed on January 27, 2014 .

^ LG Cologne on Redtube - errors in approval decisions admitted. Legal Tribune Online , December 20, 2013, accessed January 20, 2014 (cvl).

↑ Porn streaming - Cologne Regional Court rowed back in the case of the Redtube warnings. T-Online , December 20, 2013, accessed on January 20, 2014 (t-online.de, dpa).

↑ Sebastian Louven, decision analysis of the decision of the LG Hamburg from December 19, 2013, Az. 310 O 460/13 - Telemedicus http://tlmd.in/a/2725

↑ KlausGraf: Streaming warning: District Court Hamburg issues an injunction against The Archive (partly EXCLUSIVE). archiv.twoday.net, December 21, 2013, accessed January 24, 2014 .

↑ Benedikt Fuest: Porn streaming is not an infringement , Welt online , June 4, 2014

↑ Full text of the judgment of the Hanover District Court , file number 550 C 13749/13

↑ Consequences of the wave of warnings against users of the video stream portal Redtube.com. (No longer available online.) DIE LINKE , December 19, 2013, archived from the original on December 25, 2013 ; Retrieved December 24, 2013 .

↑ Small inquiry: Consequences of the wave of warnings against users of the video stream portal Redtube.com. (PDF) Bundestag printed paper 18/195. DIE LINKE parliamentary group , December 17, 2013, accessed on January 24, 2014 (2 pages, 132 kB).

↑ Answer of the federal government to the small question: Consequences of the wave of warnings against users of the video stream portal Redtube.com. (PDF) Bundestag printed paper 18/246. Federal Government , January 2, 2014, accessed on January 25, 2014 (4 pages, 152 kB).

↑ ^a ^b ^c Holger Bleich: Warnings for porn streaming: Determination of the IP addresses in the sights of the public prosecutor. heise online , December 19, 2013, accessed on December 24, 2013 (raised).

↑ Concerns about the release of user data - Porn streaming - District court rowing back. WDR.de , December 30, 2013, archived from the original on December 20, 2013 ; accessed on January 24, 2014 .

↑ Konrad Lischka: Redtube Streaming: Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating porn warnings. SPIEGEL ONLINE , December 19, 2013, accessed on December 24, 2013 (lis with material from dpa).

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Christian Solmecke : warning U + C lawyers - criminal complaint from the WBS law firm in the Redtube case has been received by the public prosecutor. Wilde Beuger Solmecke law firm, January 16, 2014, accessed on January 17, 2014 .

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Helmut Fleischhauer: Redtube warnings illegal? - Brandenburg Consumer Center reports criminal charges. (No longer available online.) NIEDERLAUSITZ aktuell, December 20, 2013, archived from the original on February 1, 2014 ; accessed on January 20, 2014 (hf).

^ ^A ^b ^c Criminal charges against Jutta Schilling, Daniel Sebastian, Philipp Wiik. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Law firm in Mönchengladbach, January 2, 2014, archived from the original on January 24, 2014 ; accessed on January 24, 2014 (4 pages, 631 kB).

↑ Benedikt Fuest: Wave of warnings against Redtube collides with data protection. Berliner Morgenpost , December 22, 2013, accessed on December 22, 2013 .

^ Carl Christian Müller and Sören Rößner: Criminal charges against Thomas Urmann. (PDF) with a letter to the Hamburg public prosecutor. Rechtsanwälte Müller - Müller - Rößner, December 19, 2013, accessed on January 24, 2014 (7 pages, 93 kB).

↑ Fridtjof Küchemann: Interview on Redtube warnings - why we report the warning lawyer. Frankfurter Allgemeine , January 6, 2014, accessed January 24, 2014 .

↑ Hamburg Public Prosecutor's Office: Preliminary proceedings initiated against Thomas Urmann. (No longer available online.) Lawyers Müller - Müller - Rößner, December 31, 2013, archived from the original on January 26, 2014 ; accessed on January 24, 2014 .

↑ Pascal Durain: Urmann: Now also Regensburg determined. Mittelbayerische , January 18, 2014, accessed January 24, 2014 .

↑ Jonas Fehling: Warning scandal over Redtube - Are the porn lawyers losing their license? Focus Online , January 9, 2014, accessed January 17, 2014 .

↑ Florian Regensburger: The Redtube case - mailbox companies and lawyers who work together. Bayerischer Rundfunk , December 21, 2013, archived from the original on December 21, 2013 ; Retrieved December 25, 2013 (original title: "Porn warnings - police protection for lawyer after death threats", content subsequently changed).