The Gesellschaft zur Verfolgung von Urheberrechtsverletzungen e.V. (GVU, Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringement) is a registered association under German law. According to its own description it works for the video game industry and film industry and helps to protect intellectual property and to counter the illegal distribution of copied materials. For this purpose, the association cooperates with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
The GVU was founded in the spring of 1984 and entered the register of associations in February 1985 for the first time. The headquarters were located first in Hamburg, since 2008 they have been in Berlin-Mitte. The GVU became known to a wider public by participating in campaigns such as "pirates are criminals“ and investigations in the Kino.to case.
History
Early Years
Against the backdrop of a rapidly increasing demand for movies on VHS and an increase in "piracy" at the same time, film industry representatives agreed in early 1984 to set up a separate company to combat illegal distribution of copyrighted material. The decision was primarily driven by the motivation of the industry, to detach from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The longtime chairman of the Bundesverband Audiovisuelle Medien (BVV, Federal Association of Audiovisual Media) and Managing Director of the German subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Bodo Schwartz, was key in the establishment of GVU.
The establishment of the GVU as a legally registered association was formally announced in the autumn of 1984 at the HiFi trade fair in Düsseldorf. The first constitution was adopted on December 17, 1984. It first entered the register of the city of Hamburg on February 27, 1985, finalising the establishment of the association on that day. Next to Bodo Schwartz, Paul Miller of the Cinema International Corporation (CIC) and Manfred Goller of the Verband der Filmverleiher (VDF, Association of Film Distributors) were members of the founding board.
Software Era
After exclusive funding of the GVU by the movie industry in its initial years, the organisations range of tasks expanded in 1997 to include computer games. On the one hand this was due to the parallels between illegal copies of films and games - both in the production and distribution - and on the other hand, the simpler distribution of unauthorized material over the emerging Internet. Sony Computer Entertainment’s membership of the GVU in 1997 initiated the membership of the entire Entertainment Software Association in the GVU in the following year.
In 2000, Microsoft entered the GVU as the first member of the software industry, which represented a significant milestone for the work of the GVU and directed the attention of the general public to the association. Simultaneously, this resulted in an expansion of the range of GVU’s tasks. As early as in 2001, the GVU took over the administration of the organization SAFE, which is responsible for the fight against copyright infringement in Switzerland. At the same time, cooperation intensified with the Austrian Verein für Anti-Piraterie (VAP, Association for Anti-Piracy) in the film and video industry, so the entire German-speaking area was fully covered.
Management
The statutes of the GVU provides that the board consists of a chairman and at least three others. The GVU is represented jointly by at least two board members. Currently (as of November 2012) the committee includes Vincent de La Tour (Chairman), Dr. Holger Ensslin, Violetta Psofiou, Ralph Tübben, Alexander Skipis and Dr. Bernd Fakesch. According to the Commercial Register there are committees for finance, legal and technology. Next to the executive board the association has a full-time executive director who is responsible for the daily operations and reports to the Board. Dr. Matthias Leonardy currently holds this position, who previously worked as a general counsel for the German eBay Group.
Work and structure of the GVU was mainly characterized by Bodo Schwartz, who was on the executive board for over 20 years and led it as Chairman for a long time. He also represented the GVU to media and shaped the image of the association in the public, including through various interviews. Schwartz retired from his position of CEO of Twentieth Century Fox in 2002, and retired from the GVU in October 2006. His retirement speech in late January 2007 was held by Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.