Copyright Law

The Act on Copyright and Related Rights (UrhG) regulates in Germany the rights and obligations of authors and the protection of the intellectual property created by the author.

Author

As an author is determined a person who creates an own elaboration. This may be in kind of images, inventions, compositions, art objects, computer software, photographies etc.

Intellectual Property

As soon as an author publishes an idea in any way and kind (as physical manifestation or as electronic file), the copyright law applies to this elaboration. It is not required to „apply“ for copyright law protection like it is the case for industrial property law protection (e.g. in the case of patents).

The Act on Copyright

The Act on Copyright and Related Rights is very comprehensive. It regulates author’s rights regarding reproduction, processing and presentation. Of particular importance are the limitations of the copyright law protection permitting a limited usage of elaborations by law. In this respect, especially the regulations of §§ 60a to 60h UrhG, amended in 2018, regulating the usage in education and teaching, are to be mentioned.

The act in its exact wording may be read by accessing the Act on Copyright and Related Rights.

In summary: Nearly all is protected by copyright law – please be careful when reproducing contents of other persons of all kinds!

In the case that an elaboration is protected by copyright law, it is mandatory to get the consent of the author for usage of the elaboration (e.g. photo). This consent may be given by an individual licensing contract or generally in kind of an open license (e.g. CC-license).

AI-tools and copyright law

Exclusively individual intellectual creations of humans may be protected by copyright law. Thus, AI-generated content is not eligible for copyright protection. However, copyright law is also crucial within the application of AI-tools. Particularly prior to the entry of contents of “existing elaborations”, it is recommendable to check whether they may be used without consent of the holder of the copyrights (see BMJ 2024)