GermanyZitatrecht (Quotation Right)
Urheberrechtsgesetz (UrhG), § 51
In force.
A snippet reproduction rule binding public and private bodies.
- Instrument type
- an act of a legislature
What it requires
- You may reproduce, distribute and publicly communicate a published work for the purpose of quotation, provided the extent of the use is justified by the specific quotation purpose.
- The statute's illustrative cases are individual works incorporated after publication into an independent scientific work to explain its content, passages cited after publication in an independent work of language, and individual passages of a published musical work cited in an independent musical work.
- The quotation privilege also covers using an illustration or other reproduction of the quoted work, even where that reproduction is itself separately protected by a copyright or related right.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text. Also read by: Bundesgerichtshof, judgment of , I ZR 69/08 (Vorschaubilder) (recorded ).
Who enforces it
Settledness
- As of
- Case link
- https://www.bundesgerichtshof.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/DE/Zivilsenate/I_ZS/2008/I_ZR__69-08.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=1
- Case citation
- Bundesgerichtshof, judgment of , I ZR 69/08 (Vorschaubilder)
- Open questions
- Does a news aggregator that shows passages of an article beside its own text meet the 'Zitatzweck' the Bundesgerichtshof requires for § 51 UrhG, a connection between the quoted passage and the aggregator's own thoughts, when the aggregator adds no commentary?
What this law does
Reproducing, distributing, and publicly communicating a published work for the purpose of quotation is permitted, provided the extent of the use is justified by the specific quotation purpose.
The statute names three illustrative cases: individual works incorporated after publication into an independent scientific work to explain its content, passages of a work cited after publication in an independent work of language, and individual passages of a published musical work cited in an independent musical work.
The quotation privilege covers use of an illustration or other reproduction of the quoted work even where that reproduction is itself separately protected by a copyright or related right.
The Federal Court of Justice held in its thumbnail judgment of (case I ZR 69/08) that a search engine's display of preview images in its results list is not covered by this provision, because the display does no more than point to the images found; the ruling concerned images, not headlines or snippets.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app reuses other publishers' content.
Back to the example · Lint your app
Page updated .