Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, May 11, 2007

The copyright problem in the German Parliament

Yesterday, Germany's Urheberrecht für Bildung und Wissenschaft (Coalition for Action for Copyright for Education and Research) issued a press release explaining to the German Parliament why OA doesn't conflict with copyright.  Read it in German or Google's English.

However its action was unavailing.  Today the upper house of Parliament seemed to accept the publishing lobby's argument that the evolving OA policy from the EU would violate copyright.  For details, see Stefan Krempl's story in Heise Online (in German or Google's English). 

My German and Google's English are not good enough for me to grasp the details of the publisher objections or the Parliamentary action.  If bilingual readers could help with summaries or insights on our forum (SOAF), I'd be very grateful.

Update. Donat Agosti has generously posted an English translation of four key paragraphs from Krempl's article.

Update. Also see Chris Armbruster's comments and clarifications on SOAF.

Update. Also see Bundesrat: Open-access-Modell soll wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen nur ergänzen, Institut für Urheber- und Medienrecht, May 11, 2007, and Google's English.