Following the approval of the Bundesrat on 28 November 2008, it will continue to be permissible to post small parts of a work, works of small size and individual contributions from newspapers or journals on school or university intranets. This regulation, which is anchored in Section 52 a of the Copyright Act (UrhG), was limited until the end of 2008 and is now extended until 31 December 2012.
§ Section 52a UrhG thus allows schools and universities to make teaching, research and learning better and more up-to-date.
§ Section 52a UrhG was inserted into the Copyright Act by the First Act to Regulate Copyright in the Information Society of 10 September 2003 and was limited at the time to 31 December 2006. The new regulation was intended to make it possible for schools and universities to make texts available on screen that were previously distributed as copies, for example. The interests of the exploiters or authors were taken into account by allowing only parts of published works, works of small volume or individual articles from specialist journals to be placed on delimited, closed networks (intranets) in return for appropriate remuneration. Since academic publishers nevertheless feared unacceptable interference with their core business, the regulation was initially limited in time. After an initial evaluation of the practice in 2006, a final assessment of the regulation was not possible. Against this background, the Fifth Act Amending the Copyright Act of 10 November 2006 extended the time limit by two years.
The last evaluation showed that Section 52a UrhG is an important provision for universities, enabling them to conduct research and teaching in a modern and up-to-date way. But the standard is also becoming increasingly important in the area of schools. The schools' experiences with the use of the intranet have been consistently positive. However, the law must also guarantee appropriate remuneration for rights holders in practice. Here, not all the necessary overall contracts between rights holders and users have been concluded yet. The extension of the period of validity of Section 52a of the Copyright Act by four years is therefore appropriate. A third evaluation, which the German Bundestag has asked the Federal Ministry of Justice to conduct, will provide a sufficient basis for a final assessment.
Source: Press release of the Federal Ministry of Justice of 28.11.2008
Goldberg Attorneys at Law
Attorney at Law Michael Ullrich, LL.M. (Information Law)
E-mail: m.ullrich@goldberg.de
