Film Rights, horak Lawyers/ Attorneys at law, Hannover/ Munich, Germany

There is no particular Film Law; Instead, copyright regulations, as well as some trademark and competition rules are applicable to filming relating issues.

In the development, production, utilization and financing of a film and a television production, many people are involved in various legal starting points, so that the respective legal (national or international) issues can lead to different areas of law and generalizations are not possible.

A legal issue in this field must be examined considering all the different points of view and all the individual legal relationships. In this case, with the word “film”, we intended “cinema movies”.

On the other hand, easier and branch-specific rules are applied to television-films or television-series: this may be due to the large number of stakeholders involved in the production of German films.

Producers and co-producers

Normally, the film producer keeps the connections with all the stakeholders involved. The co-producer often finances the film and has a right of co-determination.

Authors in Germany

As an author in Germany, you should be able to bring an Expose´ and not a complete film script (as it is in the USA). An Expose´ should be examined in order to understand if a legal protection is possible; at this point, the Expose´ shall be send to the film´s productions.

In contrast with an Expose´, a Treatment, which is typically coordinated with the production of a film as a preliminary stage of a script, is already protected by copyright law.

Who is generally entitled to rights?

• Director (own copyright)
• Producer (own neighboring rights)
• Cameraman
• Sound engineer
• Cutter
• Costume designer
• Production designer
• Film actor (Sections 73-83 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG), no co-author participation)

Film Contracts

Following, a list of the most common kind of contracts. They are obviously just samples that can be reuse as a base for a much more specific and individual contract:

• Film Management contract;
• Filming agreement;
• Actor´s contract;
• Film Publishing contract;
• TV License´s agreement;
• Video and DVD License´s agreement;
• Film Format analysis contract;
• Film Production contract;
• Film Distribution Agreement.

More topics and services:

• Film Copyright Law
• Ancillary Copyright
• Direction Law
• Actors ‘rights
• Producers ‘rights
• Film funding law
• TV-films law
• Cinema-films law
• Performing artists copyright

Please see also media law.