The amount of license damages and the value of the dispute to be determined in file-sharing lawsuits has been assessed very differently by courts across Germany since the abolition of the floating forum. The Local Court of Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt has assumed a very low amount of damages in such a file-sharing lawsuit.
The facts of this case are quickly told and correspond to thousands of cases that have been and are being heard before German courts.
The owner of the exclusive rights of use and exploitation to a pornographic film with the descriptive title "Ab Heute Juckt das Fötzchen" (From Today On, the Pussy Itches), which she sells for a retail price of EUR 14.99, sued an internet subscriber for copyright infringement.
The usual legal problems in these cases were first discussed. In any case, the account holder managed to prove that other users besides himself had used his internet connection at the alleged time of infringement, so that the presumption of infringement against the account holder could be rebutted. The account holder was able to credibly demonstrate that he himself had not committed the infringement, thereby fulfilling the secondary burden of proof imposed on an account holder.
Decision of the court
The Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt District Court dismissed the intellectual property holder's claim with a judgment dated August 13, 2015 – Case No. 8 C 1023/15.
After the actual presumption could be refuted to the detriment of the account holder, and the secondary burden of explanation to be borne by the account holder was also fulfilled, the lawsuit by the holder of the rights of use and exploitation to the pornographic film "Ab Heute Juckt das Fötzchen" was to be dismissed.
Despite the dismissive judgment, the District Court did not refrain from making extensive statements on the calculation of damages according to the license analogy, always first determining the extent of the copyright infringement.
The District Court reaches the conclusion through a very detailed calculation of license damages that the rights holder of the pornographic film can claim damages of EUR 2.04 based on the license analogy, and that the value in dispute for a warning letter regarding such a pornographic film is EUR 15.00!
Conclusion
It is doubtful whether many courts will follow this quite interesting calculation method derived from the Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt District Court. In any case, the number of pending file-sharing lawsuits would be drastically reduced.
EN 
DE