What are telemedia?
The Telemedia Act (TMG) of 2007 regulates, among other things, the information obligations for commercial service providers in their offers. It also contains formulations of what telemedia (includes all electronic information and communication services) and telecarriers are.
The term telemedia is relatively new and legally unprecedented. In this context, the term carrier media should also be explained in more detail.
What are carrier media and telemedia
Typical carrier media are all film rolls, records, pamphlets, film rolls, Video- or audio cassettes and electronic memory (floppy disk, CD-ROM, DVD and memory card).
- Telemedia includes all data offers of texts, images, sounds and other characters that are electronically transmitted or accessible via telecommunications.
- Whether a data offer is only aimed at the general public (such as a homepage on the Internet with editorially designed content) or whether the individual use is primarily the purpose and goal (such as for example e-mail, Online databases), is of no importance for the classification as telemedia. Nor does it matter if electronically transmitted data content is kept ready for use at any time in special data memories (hard disk, storage systems).
Online offerings for third parties as telemedia
Telemedia are, among other things, online offers that can be accessed via the Internet (especially WWW offers). This also includes offers for the use of other networks (known as intranet, closed groups) as well as offers in the area of individual communication (Telebanking, email data exchange).
Terms such as "account" and "user account" are common in German. …
- Telemedia includes offers of goods and services from special on-demand services (teleshopping) or from databases (available as video streaming or video on demand). This also applies to the use of video games (online computer games) and special text and distribution services (television text / teletext, radio text).
- Are originally on a carrier medium (music-CD) stored data content is distributed electronically by using the homepage are made available to others by means of downloadable offers, they qualify as Telemedia. The website owner is responsible for the content in accordance with the German Telemedia Act. This also applies to distribution without age restriction.
Media areas are not always clearly separable
- Content cannot always be assigned to one of the media areas. If these are on multifunctional devices such as notebooks or smartphones, it is not easy in individual cases to assign them to telemedia or carrier media. When data is sent electronically from a hard drive, it is always a telemedia.
- If image files stored on a hard drive are shown and made visible to others on the screen, the case law assumes that carrier media are made accessible.
Conventional broadcasting, live streaming and webcasting are not telemedia services. Even Internet telephony (VoIP) is not included. Rather, it is regulated by the Telecommunications Act.
