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Figure 20. Publication platforms used in Germany



 2,360,368 assets

In contrast to the US, most instances in Germany claim new rights and publish data using open licences (115 or 73.2% of Germany instances), which was lawful and supported by case law until very recently.

Germany’s highest court ruled in 2019 that related rights could arise in photographic reproductions of public domain works. The court viewed these photographs as requiring technical skill, rather than creative skill, in finding copyright did not arise because the photographs did not meet the requisite ‘author’s own intellectual creation’ standard. Instead, German law at the time recognised a lesser form of protection for non-creative photographs, which the court found applied to the reproductions. However, now that Germany has implemented Article 14, GLAMs can no longer claim such rights in reproductions of works of visual art in the public domain.

As demonstrated by the data, Coding da Vinci has significantly impacted instances of open GLAM in Germany, accounting for 61.1%. Coding da Vinci operates as both a hackathon and platform that enables GLAMs to prepare and publish open cultural data for public reuse. This dual format was initiated by the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, the Berlin Research and Competence Centre for Digitalisation (digiS) and Wikimedia Germany.

The German Digital Library accounts for a significant volume of public domain compliant assets, contributed by Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, and Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung.

A Culture of Copyright