Information privacy speech restrictions, and a recent German case

[Volokh, Eugene]

	According to
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/03/03/cannibal.film.ap/index.ht
ml, "A court on Friday banned the screening of a film inspired by the
case of a self-confessed cannibal .... A state court in Kassel upheld a
complaint against the film, 'Rohtenburg,' by the man at the center of
the case. It found that Armin Meiwes' personal rights were infringed by
the movie, and that outweighed the value of artistic freedom."  "The
film's makers have argued that the case, which has fascinated and
appalled Germans, did no more than provide inspiration for the movie."

	Does German law indeed generally prohibit the making of
unauthorized biographies, or of movies "inspir[ed]" by important
criminal cases?  Or does it generally allow it, but for some reason
forbid it in this instance?  I ask this in part because European
attitudes towards information privacy are sometimes urged by privacy
maximalists as a model for American attitudes; I've been troubled by the
tendency of many information privacy speech restrictions to restrict
speech -- and to risk restricting not just the raw transfer of data, but
also things like political commentary, unauthorized biography,
discussions about one's circle of acquaintances, and the like -- and I
wonder whether this might be one such case.

	Eugene