Am 27.6. hatte ich die Freude (und die Ehre) zu meinem - über das FNMA (https://www.fnm-austria.at/home.html) - eingereichte Paper auf der EdMedia (https://www.aace.org/conf/edmedia/) in Amsterdam vorzutragen. Besonders gefreut hat mich, dass ich für mein Paper auch gleich einen Award erhalten habe. Die Folien selbst, wie das Paper, beschäftigen sich mit dem österreichischen Urheberrecht und insbesondere auch mit Open Educational Ressourcen sowie Creative Commons

1. THE AUSTRIA VIEW
OF COPYRIGHT
LAW
Amsterdam 2018
Michael Lanzinger, Attorny-at-law

2. The (Austrian) Copyright law
Copyright, Copyleft ... or Copywrong?

3. The (Austrian) Copyright law
Urheberrechtsgesetz (UrhG)
‚Bundesgesetz über das Urheberrecht an Werken der
Literatur und der Kunst und über verwandte Schutzrechte‘
• Part of the Austrian private law/intellectual property
• Last amendment via the Urheberrechtsnovelle 2015
• News/new regulations from the EU yet to come ...

4. The (Austrian) Copyright law
How to become a copyright-owner
• Unlike eg. the US becoming the owner of a copyright is
‚automated‘
• If a work of intellectual property with a certain amount of
creativity ‚is born‘, that work is therefore regarded as
protected under the Austrian copyright law
• There is no need to register the copyright
• If the work can be considered protected has to be
decided on an individual basis

5. The (Austrian) Copyright law
What to do with a copyright
• Being the owner of a work protected by the Austrian
copyright law means that a person gets to decide what
can happen to the work
• The owner has the possibility to license her/his work or
to give it away for free (among other things)
• Only the corresponding rights can be transferred via eg.
contract, not the copyright itself. The latter can be
transferred by means of inheritance

6. The (Austrian) Copyright law
What to do with a copyright
• The corresponding rights and the copyright itself are not
to be used without the consent of the owner of these
right
• The only exception is the free use of work as stated in
the Austrian Copyright law starting with § 42 UrhG

7. The (Austrian) Copyright law
The Amendment of 2015
• The main problem of the (Copyright) law is the rather
slow reaction to technical development
• Therefore it was necessary to ‚add things up‘ with a new
amendment
• Main developments of the amendment concern the area
of science and learning

8. The (Austrian) Copyright law
The Amendment of 2015
• § 37a: the copyright holder of a scientific article is, under
certain conditions, able to a secondary use of his or her
article
• § 42 para 6: the possibility of reproduction of published
works for classroom use on paper has been expanded to
‘any other’ educational institutions
• § 42a para 2: the possibility of reproduction of works of
intellectual property by public facilities for educational
use and research on any data carrier

9. The (Austrian) Copyright law
The Amendment of 2015
• § 42f: the means of citation has been redefined and
summarized
• § 42g: the possibility to distribute works protected
by the Austrian copyright law to a certain audience.
Primarily intended for learning platforms (MOOCs!)

10. The (Austrian) Copyright law
The free use of protected work
• The free to use the work is regulated in §§ 41 ff Austrian
copyright law
• Does not really correspond to the principle of ‘fair use’
• Only work for non-commercial use with the exception of
citation
• The main target of the free use of work is the private
use, scientific means and for (e-)learning

11. The (Austrian) Copyright law
The free use of protected work
• The ‘prototype’ of the free use of protected work is § 42f
UrhG, regulating the possibility of citation
• The Article generally states that the scope of the
quotation must be covered by its purpose
• A person therefore cannot simply copy content from
certain sources and the publish them as a new work of
intellectual property without having written a single word
himself or herself
• Also § 20 UrhG states the necessity to quote the source

12. The (Austrian) Copyright law
And Creative Commons?
• The main problem with the free use of work protected by
the Austrian copyright law is the rather small scope of
usage (eg. only non-commercial and for specific areas)
• Here the CC come in …
• … the CC are regarded as licenses (and therefore
contracts) under the Austrian copyright law
• In a way the broaden the scope of the free use of work
and/or provide additional possibilities

13. The (Austrian) Copyright law
And Creative Commons?
• The six types of CC-licenses are regarded as said
contracts that can exist in addition to the free use of work
as stated in the law
• The ‘seventh’ type – CC0 – has seen as a bit of a
problem, because the ‘complete abandon’ of a right is
(arther) alien to the Austrian law

14. The (Austrian) Copyright law
And OER?
• OER is actually not describing a license itself but content
published under a license like eg. CC or GNU GPL
• Therefore, the same rules as stated apply
• In § 37 UrhG the possibility of OER is even mentioned in
an indirect way

15. Credits
May the Force/Copyright/Law be with
you!
office@kanzlei-lanzinger.at
www.rechtsanwalt-lanzinger.at