Digital Course Reserves

Would you like to make copyright protected materials available to the participants of your course?

Since the coming into force of the Act to Align Copyright Law with the Current Demands of the Knowledge-based Society (Urheberrechts-Wissensgesellschafts-Gesetz – UrhWissG) in 2018, the former provision on digital course reserves in section 52a of the German Act on Copyright and Related Rights (UrhG) is replaced by section 60a UrhG.

The Main Conditions

For the purpose of illustrating for teaching, you may make available in electronic form on a non-commercial basis:

up to 15 percent of a published work
illustrations, individual articles from the same professional or scientific journal, other small-scale works and out-of-print works in full

Articles from newspapers or popular magazines may not be made available in full. “Small-scale works” means printed works up to 25 pages and videos and music up to 5 minutes.

The materials may only be made available

to teachers and participants at the respective event – e.g. password-protected on Teams
tp teachers and examiners at the same educational establishment, and
tp third persons insofar as this serves to present lessons or lectures or the results of tuition or training or the learning outcomes at the educational establishment.