Surely you have noticed the excitement on the net about the copyright reform lately. This affects not only the entire Internet community, but also us students. With its controversial copyright reform, the European Union is making a cut in the freedom of the Internet. For example, Article 13 will lead to the use of error-prone and costly upload filters (see
The EU copyright reform threatens to massively restrict the free exchange of opinions and culture via the Internet. In Osnabrück, too, a broad alliance is organizing the protest on Saturday , March 23 at 2:30 p.m. at the Trade Union House (near the main train station).
You can also find more information about the event on our Facebook page.
Reference to students
For us students, the reform also affects us in the area of studying and teaching. Article 4 of the draft directive reintroduces a mandatory examination for copyright infringements of scanned materials, which was taken ad absurdum in the discussion about the German copyright reform in 2018.
In addition, Article 11 stipulates that publishers, etc. may charge licence fees for links, even if the content of the link has only been reproduced in small text excerpts.
The upload filters required by Art. 13 will also affect the university’s publication servers. Here, too, as with upload filters on all other platforms, it is not clear how this is to be technically implemented. “This is problematic because the use of third-party copyright works, e.g. within the framework of the right to quote, is absolutely common and necessary in scientific publications. What’s more, there are no scientific publications without citations. The filters are not able to distinguish between an unlawful quotation and a lawful quotation according to § 51 UrhG, especially since the case law on this is diverse and is constantly being developed.” (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)