The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has issued its judgement in Case C-392/19 VG Bild-Kunst v Stiftung Preu?ischer Kulturbesitz stating that where the copyright holder has adopted or imposed measures to restrict framing, the embedding of a work in a website page of a third party, by means of that technique, constitutes making available that work to a new public. That communication to the public must, consequently, be authorised by the copyright holder.
In this case, parties negotiated a license fee and a provisional agreement which allowed Stiftung Preu?ischer Kulturbesitz (SPK) to display thumbnails of the VG Bild-Kunst individual works on its portal. VG Bild-Kunst insisted on implementation of their standard procedures on copyright licensing agreements. SPK was asked to adopt technical measures preventing third parties from integrating the thumbnails via framing.