Last Friday I blogged a note on a new bill (Entwurf eines Zweiten Gesetzes zur Regelung des Urheberrechts in der Informationsgesellschaft) before the German Bundesrat that would support OA to German science. I asked for help in translating or summarizing it in English. I just heard from Gerd Hansen, an OA advocate, doctoral candidate at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property Law in Munich, and by good luck the author or at least the inspiration for the new bill. From his email:
The provision that is currently being discussed is based on the wording I have proposed in an article on “Access to scientific information” published in GRUR Int. 2005, 378, p. 17 (until this very moment only in German).
The Bundesrat now asked for a provision (p. 7) that would support OA in particular by giving authors the right to make their articles available online, even if they have granted exclusive rights to the publisher, if the following requirements are met:
only after expiration of 6-months since first publication
research predominantly based on public (tax payer) money
only publications in periodicals
non-commercial purpose of post-print-publication
author is obliged to use his final version of the article
The provision would be mandatory and is not subject to any contrary agreement.
Comment. Congratulations to Gerd for this creative approach to OA and for seeing it through to the Bundesrat --and thanks for the translation help. The bill in effect permits author-initiated OA to publicly-funded research in Germany, though without mandating it. A mandate would be stronger, but this approach is the most direct way I've seen to resolve doubts about permission and make publisher dissent irrelevant. In any case, the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), Germany's primary public funding agency, is already implementing an OA policy in between a request and a requirement. I'd be delighted to see the "Hansen bill" adopted and I hope German friends of OA will do what they can to support it.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/22/2006 10:16:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
