The singer of the band “Rammstein”, Till Lindemann, has obtained an injunction from the Hamburg Regional Court against the second episode of the NDR podcast “Rammstein – Row Zero” (case number (AZ) 324 O 307/24). According to this, Norddeutscher Rundfunk is prohibited from raising the suspicion that Lindemann performed sexual acts on an unconscious woman without her consent.
Suspicion spread illegally
This suspicion was spread illegally and the “required minimum amount of evidence” was lacking, a court spokeswoman told the Evangelical Press Service. In addition, the podcast episode should not continue to give the false impression that Lindemann had announced that he would take legal action against every accusation made against him.
After the podcast had already been unavailable for some time due to copyright infringement, “we have now enforced a court ban on Till Lindemann due to the violation of his personal rights,” said his lawyers from the law firm Schertz Bergmann.
The NDR had already been banned from “significant parts of its reporting” and now “unacceptable suspicion reporting” had occurred again. The NDR would have to “make significant changes to the content if it wanted to publish the affected podcast episode again”. Further proceedings against episodes 1, 3 and 4 of the four-part podcast are pending at the Hamburg Regional Court.
NDR wants to examine legal remedies
In response to a request from the Evangelical Press Service, the NDR said that the interim injunction had not yet been effectively served. If that happens, legal remedies would be considered.
Before the current order, Lindemann and the band Rammstein had achieved a success in court against the podcast “Row Zero”, produced by NDR in cooperation with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, for copyright infringement.
All six members of the band had demanded that NDR cease and desist because the original version of the podcast included excerpts from nine of the band’s songs, including as “background music”. NDR was then forced to take the podcast offline, and it only went back online after the broadcaster had issued a comprehensive cease and desist declaration.
