Legal Issues in Digital Teaching

§ Section 60a UrhG “Teaching and Learning”

Section 60a of the Copyright Act is a limitation provision of copyright law in favour of education and research. It has been in existence since 01.03.2018 and has replaced the previously existing Section 52a of the Copyright Act ("Making available to the public for teaching and research") with some adjustments.

Find out more about Copyright (UrhG)

The most important new provisions from Section 60a UrhG are:

  • Up to 15% of a previously published work may be made available online or reproduced to participants in a course (for non-commercial purposes) to illustrate teaching.
  • Illustrations, individual articles1 from professional or scientific journals, other works of small size2 and out-of-print works may be used in their entirety.

The new regulations also apply to old materials.

1 only one single contribution may be taken from a professional or scientific journal at a time
2 According to the BGH, “works of small size” are: text 25 pages, sheet music 6 pages, films 5 minutes, music 5 minutes

To the legal text "§ 60a Teaching and Learning"

Further Sources of Information on § 60a UrhG

Legal Questions on Digitalisation in Teaching

Guide by lawyer Dr. Till Kreutzer and Tom Hirche, in which you can read further details on the provisions of Section 60a UrhG. (pages 53-59) The guide is in German language.

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Explanatory Video on § 60a UrhG by ELAN e.V.

In the explanatory video on § 60a UrhG, research assistant Maria shows how copyrighted content may be made available to students in a legally compliant manner. (5:30 min)

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