(1) Service providers are obliged to undertake their best efforts to acquire the contractual rights of use for the communication to the public of copyright-protected works. Service providers fulfil this obligation insofar as they acquire rights of use which are
1. offered to them,
2. are available through representative rightholders which are known to the service providers, or
3. can be acquired through collecting societies or dependent rights management entities established in Germany.
(2) Rights of use under subsection (1) sentence 2 must
1. apply to content which, by its nature, is manifestly communicated to the public by the service provider in more than minor quantities,
2. cover a considerable repertoire of works and rightholders,
3. cover the territorial scope of this Act, and
4. allow for use under reasonable terms and conditions.
(3) If the author has granted a third party the right of communication to the public of a work, the service provider must nevertheless pay the author appropriate remuneration for the contractually authorised communication to the public of the work. Sentence 1 does not apply if the third party is a collecting society or the author engages the third party as a digital distributor.
(4) The author may not waive the entitlement to direct remuneration under subsection (3) and may only assign it in advance to a collecting society. The entitlement may only be asserted by a collecting society.