Not a lawyer, but my impression is that a lot of time such cases are decided on what a reasonable person might take away from the text rather than what the text literally says.

And not all things in a TV ad are non fiction. Is the basis that a real orange tiger is supposed to be licking mystery red dust off his finger

Is that odd? The regulator (the Advertising Standards Authority) is and has 'always' been pretty hot on misleading/etc. advertising in print, radio, television (pre and post digital) media. If anything I think they came quite late to non-traditional online advertising.

> they're reviewing a product that was provided to them, for example. Anyone outside of Germany probably wouldn't see that as a sponsorship

Depends. For example in Norway, a few years ago Norwegian tax authorities said that “influencers” need to declare items they received as income.

From the official website of Norwegian tax authorities:

> Må jeg skatte og av hva?

> […]

> Gratis eller rabatterte produkter/gaver med økonomisk verdi, som for eksempel sminke, hår- og hudpleieprodukter, bøker, klær, reiser, spill, teknologisk utstyr, barneutstyr m.m. Dette skal inntektsføres til omsetningsverdi (eventuelt omsetningsverdi fratrukket det beløp du har betalt for varen).

https://www.skatteetaten.no/bedrift-og-organisasjon/rapporte....

Translated to English with Google Translate:

> Do I have to pay tax and from what?

> […]

> Free or discounted products/gifts with financial value, such as make-up, hair and skin care products, books, clothes, travel, games, technological equipment, children's equipment, etc. This must be recognized as income at the turnover value (if any, the turnover value minus the amount you have paid for the item).

And likewise we have guidelines about marketing done by influencers

> Veiledningen er i hovedsak ment for annonsører som benytter påvirkere i markedsføringen sin. Den retter seg også mot påvirkere som får betaling eller andre fordeler for å omtale eller legge ut noe om produkter, tjenester eller næringsdrivende på sine profiler i sosiale medier.

https://www.forbrukertilsynet.no/lov-og-rett/veiledninger-og...

Translated with Google Translate:

> The guide is mainly intended for advertisers who use influencers in their marketing. It also targets influencers who receive payment or other benefits to mention or post something about products, services or businesses on their social media profiles.

I work for a streaming service and we deliver to Germany, we have pre-rolls before any ad-break which say "Werbung" to mark the entry to an ad break (and I think another marker on the exit of an ad).

Interestingly, we do sports and we don't have to have any labels during the game to cover the extensive in-game advertising/branding, just the specific ad media we insert.

I wish more YouTubers would cleanly delineate their adverts. Crowbarring sponsor messaging into every opportunity or writing the script so that it smoothly transitions into an ad seems very deceptive to me. I understand "sponsored video" is a grey area, but it doesn't have to be so messy.

They play it very German because German authorities have fined German content creators for trying to play it loose and American. For a while German advertising agencies loved using influencers because they were ignorant of advertising regulations and would let them get away with things that were blatantly illegal to do in any other medium (but also, as it turned out, the media used by those influencers). Once legal precedents were set, that stopped.

It's similar to how a lot of "disruptions" in the startup space work (gig economy, "sharing" economy, crypto, AI, etc): find a niche that lacks established legal precedents, do obviously illegal things in that niche, make a profit to cash out the investors, get fined as laws and court rulings catch up, rinse and repeat.

Can't operate a taxi without a license? They're not cabbies, they're independent contractors.

Renting residential homes out as vacation homes would violate zoning laws? They're not vacation home rentals, they're "spare guest rooms" rented out by private individuals.

Can't afford to pay delivery drivers? They're not entitled to a minimum wage because they're now independent contractors of a delivery startup with a catchy name.

Scalping tickets, parking spaces and restaurant seats is illegal? It's not scalping, it's a universal digital assistant.

Can't sell meme stocks directly to clueless retail investors? They're not stocks, they're coins and NFTs.

Can't discriminate against marginalized people? It's not discrimination when the machine learning algorithm made the decision based on prejudices in the training data.

Have to pay royalties to use a picture you like? It's no longer the same picture if you launder it through an AI image generation model that used it as training data.

The stipulations are in regards to endorsement of securities, not regular goods and services.