Claim for damages for online city map copyright infringement

In fact, I could have swear that the subject of warnings and injunctions for the illegal use of city maps has been a thing of the past for many years, at the latest since Google Maps. Well, that is how one is mistaken, and it was up to the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt to decide on such a matter.

After the warning, the applicant claims that it traditionally licences the city map section for EUR 1,620 net. To prove the fact, this presented more than 200 blackened contracts with clients as well as a certificate of its own tax advisor.

That circumstance was sufficient for both the Landgericht and the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main to prove that the applicant had a corresponding contractual practice.

Since the court did not see any problem in the fact that some of the contracts were concluded only after the warning, the OLG Frankfurt a.M. ordered the defendant to pay the full damage to the licence. This was an expensive pleasure of including a map section without first thinking about one’s own authorization, because the license damage is now also due to the legal costs for two instances.

You can read the full judgment here.