Recently, a German federal court upheld the EU ban when it prohibited the publication of photos of Oliver Kahn, goalkeeper for Bayern Munich, on vacation with his girlfriend.  Two weeks prior, the ban was also applied to similar pictures of German singer Herbert Groenemeyer and his girlfriend.

The European Court of Justice had replaced German laws that previously allowed for the publication of private pictures of celebrities not at public events.  In 2004, after a much publicized series of cases, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that German tabloids were infringing on Princess Caroline of Monaco by printing photographs of her on vacation.

The hotly debated and somewhat ambiguous EU ruling states that celebrities have a right to privacy if they are not figures of historical interest or participating in historical events of interest to the general public.  With the federal court’s tougher stance on paparazzi material, the German yellow press, which sells 20 million magazines each week, could lose a main source of income and must act cautiously when snapping photographs of celebrities.

Source: Guardian Unlimited and Global Journalist