The new Copyright Knowledge Society Act is intended to make it easier to use digital media in research and teaching. It comes into force on 1 March. What changes do university members need to be prepared for? An overview.
"The new law contains significant improvements," says the Deputy Head of the University Library, Heike Andermann. "Above all, because it fundamentally restructures the legal barriers for education, research and science and provides more legal certainty. "The so-called barriers basically regulate the circumstances under which third parties may use copyrighted works. What is new is that the statutory provisions now always take precedence - regardless of what is stated in a contract that an author concludes with a publisher.
In future, university lecturers will be permitted to make 15 per cent of a work available for use for non-commercial purposes in digital semester apparatuses. Provided that access is password-protected. They may make entire articles from specialist journals, individual illustrations and out-of-print works fully accessible. The same regulations apply to copyrighted material used by lecturers in examinations. Academics may reproduce 75 per cent of a work for their own research.
No obligation to register individually
What's more, anyone who uses copyrighted material in this way does not need to register it individually - and does not need to worry about remuneration. This is because this will continue to be done on a flat-rate basis or with the help of a representative sample via the collecting societies.
The disadvantage is that articles from newspapers and newsstand magazines may no longer be made available in term papers. "This particularly affects the social sciences and humanities," criticises Andermann. It is also not permitted to record lectures, performances or screenings of copyrighted works and make them publicly accessible at a later date.
For the first time, the new law also regulates text and data mining, which is so important for research: in future, scientists will be able to automatically read, save and evaluate databases, journals or other works to which they have legal access - usually through a licence. But only for non-commercial purposes.
Electronic interlibrary loan
Last but not least, libraries benefit: they can copy, make accessible, index, catalogue and restore works from their holdings. They can now also digitise analogue holdings and reproduce digital holdings - including licensed products such as databases and journals. Andermann is pleased that documents can now finally be sent electronically and no longer just by post or fax. However, this does not apply to newspapers and newsstand magazines.
It is still unclear whether the new regulations will last in the long term: they are to be evaluated after four years. If the legislator does not take action after that, the law will automatically expire in 2023. A disadvantage - as the Alliance of Science Organisations writes in a statement: The law is future-orientated and should be made permanent as soon as possible.
