As a Specialist Lawyer for Copyright and Media Law and a Specialist Lawyer for Industrial Property Rights, Dr. Kötz successfully represents national and international clients.

 

He specialises in particular in right of personal portrayal, personality and copyright in addition to competition and trademark law. He acts as DMCA-Agent for major Internet sites residing outside the U.S. and is an appointed representative under the General Data Protection Regulation (Art. 27 GDPR).

As a lecturer of media law, he shares his knowledge with students at the University of Magdeburg, and at the School of Audio Engineering (SAE) in Bochum.

Dr. Kötz regularly publishes articles on copyright matters specifically for photographers and contributes specialist articles on the topic of right of personal portrayal and personality to the relevant journals.

In 2001, he established Kanzlei Kötz with the focus being on media and competition law. Prior to this, he worked in a well-known partnership in Hamburg and at a leading law firm for industrial property rights in Düsseldorf.

 

Publications

His book, Fotografie und Recht. Die wichtigsten Rechtsfälle für die Fotopraxis (Photography and the Law), produced in cooperation with the photographer Jens Brüggemann, was published in 2nd edition in April 2015. A further book, Honorare und Recht für Models (Fees and the law for models), was published in 2011 as a co-publication with the media lawyer Eva-Gabriel Jürgens. An updated version is available.

As a competent business partner to the media, Dr. Kötz is regularly interviewed and quoted on specialist topics relating to media and competition laws.

 

Lawyer since 1996

Foreign languages

  • English
  • Norwegian

Memberships

  • The First Amendment Lawyers Association (FALA; only European member)
  • German Association for Industrial Property Protection and Copyrights GRUR)
  • The German Society for Photography (DGPh; 2 year position on the management board in the art, market and law section, now of counsel)
  • Düsseldorf Bar Association
  • Düsseldorf Lawyers Association
  • Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne (Officier)

Lectures

  • Regular lecturer providing advanced training to Specialist Lawyers e.g. of the topic of “Copyright and media law-related problems in the Internet”
  • Lecturer at two universities of applied sciences and the School of Audio Engineering (SAE)