German copyright law

= General =

German copyright law or "Deutsches Urheberrecht" is codified in the "Gesetz über Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte" (also referred to as "Urhebergesetz" or "Urheberrechtsgesetz" and abbreviated "UrhG").

Protection Requirements

Court decisions have set vastly different standards for the eligibility of works of applied art on the one hand and other types of work on the other, especially fine art. While the barrier is usually very low for fine art and protection is granted even for minimal creativity (dubbed "kleine Münze",literally "small coin" or "small change") [Fromm/Nordemann/Nordemann/Vinck, Urheberrrecht, § 2 Rn. 20; Loewenheim, Handbuch des Urheberrechts, § 9 Rn. 103] , there are extremely high standards for applied art to be reached for it to achieve copyright protection [Rehbinder, Urheberrecht, Rn. 130, 131, 151] . This is so because "Geschmacksmuster" (design patents) and "Schriftzeichengesetz" (typeface patents) are seen as "lex specialis" for applied art such that the threshold of originality must not be assumed low for them. This has been confirmed by courts several times, especially for logos, but also for earrings.

Copyright Transfer

The "Urhebergesetz" is a "droit d'auteur" or "monistic" style copyright law. As such there is a special emphasis on the relation between the work and the its actual author [Cf. sec. 11 UrhG] . The copyright is perceived as an aspect of the author's general personality right and as a general rule is therefore inalienable. This also means that there is no corporate copyright in Germany [Cf. sec. 7 UrhG] and the fundamental rights cannot be transferred except by heritage [Cf. sec. 28 et sqq. UrhG] .

Licenses

While exclusive licenses are almost as powerful as copyright transfer, the author always retains some rights to the work, including the right to prevent defacing and to be identified as the author [Cf. sec. 13 et sqq. UrhG] . Employment agreements are frequently construed as granting the employer an exclusive license to any works created by the employee within the scope of his obligations. For computer software, the copyright act expressly provides that all economic usage rights (as opposed to personality rights) belong to the employer [Sec. 69b UrhG] .

A recent amendment of the "Urhebergesetz" (sec. 31a, included in 2008) has created the possibility to grant licenses for "unknown uses", i.e. permit use of works in media not known at the time the license is granted. This had not previously been possible, so that even "unrestricted" licenses granted before the mid-1990s did not (and could not) include the right to use the work on the internet, which created considerable practical problems.

EU Directive

Germany has implemented the EU Copyright Directive 93/98/EEC. Parts of the Directive were based on German copyright law in the first place, e.g. the duration of copyright term: German copyright law had previously granted protection for 70 years after the death of the author [Sec. 64 UrhG] , which was the longest term of all EU member states; before 1965 it was life plus eighty years.

ee also

*Image copyright (Germany)

References