Information about the draft bill on copyright law amendment

On March 22nd, 2006 the Federal Cabinet adopted the Federal Government’s draft bill for the „second basket“ of the amendment of copyright law in the information society. There has been no essential change in the serious restrictions imposed by this law on the libraries serving the scientific community. Therefore it remains imperative to advert to the disadvantages this draft bill will bring to Germany’s international standing in research.

The EU Directive offers many more opportunities than the draft bill so far allows the German research community.

The draft bill in Section 53a, Clause 1 of UrhG (draft) prohibits the delivery of electronic copies in all cases where publishers themselves offer download facilities for single electronic articles on the internet. The wording of the bill currently reads as follows (relevant text is underlined):

"Section 53a Copy delivery on order
(1) The reproduction and transmission via mail or fax of single articles published in newspapers or journals, as well as small excerpts of published works, by public libraries is permitted if utilisation by the orderer is permitted according to section 53. The reproduction and transmission in any electronic format is permitted solely as graphic file and only if access to the articles or excerpts of a work is not granted to members of the public at a time and place of their choice by way of a contractual arrangement.”

This means that in such cases we would no longer be allowed to deliver a desired article to you by e-mail or FTP passive mode. We would be restricted to delivery by mail or fax. Electronic delivery would be less and less available acording to this law, since most publishers now maintain download facilities for purchasing single articles on the internet. All we could do then is to deliver licensed materials at prices set by publishers. This would constitute a significant restriction for the supply of scientific literature.

During the last years, we, in accord with the federal and state ministries of science and the position of the Alliance of Science Organisations (German Research Foundation, Fraunhofer Society, Helmholtz Association, German Rectors’ Conference, Leibniz Association, Max Planck Society, German Science Council) have made demands to strike this restriction for copy delivery by scientific libraries from the draft bill. Regrettably, these well founded demands have not been taken into consideration in the draft bill.

The argumentation of legal politicians so far makes insufficient allowance for the enormous impairment of education and research resulting from this regulation. Neither does it make allowance for the fact that graphic files contain far fewer features than those currently offered by publishers for their electronic journals. Graphic files generated for copy delivery do not provide full-text search, partial text transfer or links to other sources. Therefore copy delivery does not essentially damage the publishers’ exploitation rights, especially since fair and reasonable remuneration is paid to the VG Wort.

You have known the efficient document delivery services of the ZBW for years. We want to remain able to fulfil your requirements as fully as possible. Therefore we campaign in politics and business associations that we may be enabled to continue our well proven, fast and comprehensive information supply in accordance with the current law. It is not easy to raise awareness of the consequences for Germany as a science and business location among those in charge. We count on you, and your institution, to engage actively to convince your members of parliament, the party whips in the Federal Parliament, the reporter for copyright law in the Legal Committee of the Federal Parliament and the chairpersons of the political parties of the necessity of redrafting Section 53a of UrhG in a manner that will allow transmission in electronic format (e-mail or FTP passive mode).

Such a redrafting of Section 53a Clause 1 of UrhG could be worded as:
"Section 53a Copy delivery on order
(1) The reproduction and transmission via mail or fax of single articles published in newspapers or journals, as well as small excerpts of published works, by public libraries is permitted if utilisation by the orderer is permitted according to section 53. The reproduction and transmission in any electronic format is permitted solely as graphic file.”

Since the parliamentary legislative procedure is well under way it is important that you act now to exert an influence.