BILD GMBH & CO. KG v. GERMANY JUDGMENT that the publications concerned the State’s monopoly on the use of force, a subject of fundamental importance to public discourse. However, in balancing the competing rights, the court considered that the publications violated P.’s personality rights. Referring to the Court’s case-law, it observed that P. had not sought public attention and had been unknown to the public prior to the police intervention. While he had been aware of the surveillance cameras, the recording had been made without his consent during the performance of his professional duties. The court further referred to P.’s statement regarding the consequences of the publications (see paragraph 10 above). Furthermore, it noted that the public interest primarily concerned the actions of the police as an institution and not P. as an individual. Regarding the editorial presentation, the court found that the voice-over (see paragraph 6 above) further aggravated the infringement of P.’s rights and had the effect of depicting him as a violent thug. In addition, the court placed particular emphasis on the fact that the first video published by the applicant company had only shown the arrest itself, while omitting D.’s prior actions which had led to the police intervention. The court considered that the applicant company had deliberately omitted this part of the CCTV footage, since it did not fit with its preferred interpretation of the event. 12. The applicant company appealed against the Regional Court’s decision. On 27 May 2015 the Oldenburg Court of Appeal stated that it intended to dismiss the appeal without a hearing on the grounds that it lacked any prospect of success. It confirmed the Regional Court’s finding that the footage portrayed an aspect of contemporary society, but similarly found that the use of the unpixelated image of P. had violated his personality rights. In that connection, the court found that the presumption of innocence demanded a cautious or at the very least balanced coverage of the events in question. It further confirmed the first-instance court’s argument that the applicant company had initially released footage that had solely depicted the police intervention and not D.’s prior actions and emphasised that the CCTV footage had to be examined within the context of the accompanying commentary. 13. After affording the parties an opportunity to provide their comments, on 21 July 2015 the Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant company’s appeal. It further expounded its position that publication of the unedited CCTV footage without P.’s consent would violate his rights, stating: “In other words, any unpixelated depiction was unlawful; the accompanying textual coverage might change the context, but was not decisive in the present case. If future reporting were to portray the claimant in a negative light, suggesting criminal responsibility, pixelation would be necessary for the reasons put forward by the Regional Court. Similarly, if the coverage were to be positive from the claimant’s perspective – that is, reflecting the actual circumstances – pixelation would also be necessary, since the footage could no longer be considered to be portraying an aspect of contemporary society but only a routine and everyday police intervention.” 3