GermanyPresseverleger-Leistungsschutzrecht (Press Publisher Neighbouring Right)
Urheberrechtsgesetz (UrhG), §§ 87f, 87g, 87h, 87i, 87j, 87k
In force since .
A press publishers' right rule binding private bodies.
- Criminal exposure
- No
- Private right of action
- Yes
What it requires
- Applies to you if, as a provider of information society services, you make a press publisher's press publication publicly available, in whole or in part, or reproduce it, for online use.
- A press publication is a collection mainly of journalistic writings, published under a single title on a periodic or regularly updated basis to inform the public, under the publisher's own editorial responsibility; scientific or academic periodicals are excluded.
- Obtain the press publisher's permission before, as a provider of information society services, making its press publication publicly available or reproducing it, in whole or in part, for online use.
- You need no permission to use facts contained in a press publication, for private or non-commercial use by individual users, for hyperlinking, or for single words or very short extracts.
- The right lasts two years from a press publication's first appearance and does not apply to publications first published before .
- The publisher cannot invoke the right against an author or related-right holder whose work is in the publication, or to stop use of works validly licensed to it under a simple licence or already in the public domain.
- The general limitations of German copyright law, including the text-and-data-mining exception and the quotation right, apply correspondingly to the press publisher's right.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 4.1Approaches for mapping AI technology and legal risks of its components – including the use of third-party data or software – are in place, followed, and documented, as are risks of infringement of a third party’s intellectual property or other rights.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-10Intellectual Property
- MIT mitigations Draft
- 3.2Data Governance
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-007Legal and Contractual Frameworks for AI Systems
- AIR-DET-013Providing Citations and Source Traceability for AI-Generated Information
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Press publishers as rightholders, who claim removal, injunction and damages by civil action (UrhG § 97).
Settledness
The Schiedsstelle at the Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt proposed interim terms in proceeding Sch-Urh 5/22 that allow use of the right against payment of a remuneration until a decision on the merits.
- As of
- Open questions
- Does a headline with a snippet of a given length fall within 'einzelner Wörter oder sehr kurzer Auszüge' in § 87g Absatz 2 Nummer 4 UrhG, when the statute sets no length?
- Does the training of an LLM-based chatbot on press publications, or the display of their content in its responses, count as 'Online-Nutzung durch Anbieter von Diensten der Informationsgesellschaft' in § 87g Absatz 1 UrhG, the questions referred to the Court of Justice in Case C-250/25?
What it reaches
Instrument type
an act of a legislature
Obligation class
Attribution
Applicability criteria
- As of
- Combinator
- All of
- Criteria
- Online-Nutzung durch Anbieter von Diensten der Informationsgesellschaft (online use by providers of information society services)
What this law does
A press publisher is whoever produces a press publication, meaning a collection consisting mainly of journalistic writings, published under a single title on a periodic or regularly updated basis, to inform the public about news or other topics, under the publisher's own editorial responsibility, excluding scientific or academic periodicals.
A press publisher holds the exclusive right to make its press publication, in whole or in part, publicly available and to reproduce it for online use by providers of information society services. The right does not reach the use of facts contained in a press publication, private or non-commercial use by individual users, hyperlinking to a press publication, or the use of single words or very short extracts from one.
The right may not be invoked to the detriment of an author or holder of a related right whose work is contained in the publication, nor to stop a third party's use of works validly licensed to the publication under a simple licence or of works that are already in the public domain. It lasts two years from a press publication's first appearance. The currently consolidated text does not apply to publications first published before .
Authors and holders of related rights are entitled to an appropriate share, at least one third, of the publisher's revenue from exercising this right, an entitlement that can be reduced against their interest only by an agreement resting on a common remuneration rule or a collective bargaining agreement. That entitlement can be asserted only through a collecting society.
The general limitations of German copyright law, including the text-and-data-mining exception and the quotation right, apply correspondingly to the press-publisher right.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app reuses other publishers' content.
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