Copyright Protection for Applied Art and Joint Authorship: Higher Regional Court of Munich (29 U 3581/23)

A recent judgment of the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht, OLG) of Munich (judgment of 18 December 2025 – 29 U 3581/23) illustrates that "applied art" (Gebrauchskunst), too, is often covered by copyright protection. In doing so, the court clarifies some basic principles of this protection as well as the criteria for joint authorship, where applicable, and defines them precisely:

For copyright protection of works of fine art, it is necessary and sufficient that there is a "personal intellectual creation" within the meaning of § 2(1) no. 4 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG).

A personal intellectual creation presupposes the author's own creative contribution, which is not determined solely by technical requirements.

The work is protectable if it reflects the individual imprint of the author and unfolds an aesthetic content that goes beyond purely technical design constraints (cf. OLG Munich, 29 U 3581/23 e, paras. 208 et seq.).

In the case of utilitarian objects, the possibilities for artistic and aesthetic design are regularly limited because they must meet certain technical requirements and have technically determined design features. For them, it must therefore additionally be set out precisely and clearly, for personal intellectual creations, to what extent they are artistically designed beyond their form dictated by function (cf. Federal Court of Justice, BGH GRUR 2024, 132 para. 36 – USM Haller, with further references).

Several participants can be joint authors (Miturheber) of a work. This presupposes that they made their respective contributions in subordination to a common overall idea and with a common creative intent.

To distinguish this from acts that do not establish the status of joint author, the court ties in with the case law of the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH). The BGH has held that as long as assistants merely adhere to the non-creative, mechanical execution or elaboration of the author's specifications and no room remains for their own individual creative design, they are not authors (cf. BGH GRUR 2014, 772 para. 9 – Online-Stadtplan, with further references).

Communication between the participants is not strictly necessary for joint authorship. Instead, the common goal and the consolidated overall design (§ 8(1) UrhG) are decisive.

Joint authorship does not merely presuppose a staggering of contributions over time. It additionally requires subordination to a common conceptual design. Without this subordination, joint authorship may be denied.