Copyright & Licenses

For all documents which are published in electronic form (e-documents) using data networks such as the University of Hohenheim’s OPUS university document server, German copyright law is fully applicable.

The German Copyright Act (Urheberrechtsgesetz, UrhG) offers authors of intellectual work (works pursuant to Sec. 2 UrhG) protection in two respects. It protects the authors in their intellectual and personal relationship to the work (moral rights). This includes the right to first publication (Right to publication Secs. 6, 12 UrhG), the right to recognition (authorship Sec. 13 UrhG), and the prohibition of modification Sec. 14 UrhG.
It also includes material protection (rights of exploitation). The author has the sole right of commercial exploitation of his/her work. “Sole” means that only the author may commercially exploit his/her work - and may prohibit all others from doing so. It also acts to secure appropriate remuneration for the use of his/her work. The rights of exploitation include among others the right to copy Sec. 16 UrhG, distribution rights Sec. 17 UrhG, and the right to make their works publicly accessible Sec. 19a UrhG (e.g. “put online”). “Uploading” and making one of your works available on the Hohenheim OPUS = “putting online” represents an act of making your work publicly accessible according to Sec. 19a UrhG for which you as the author must give KIM permission (transfer of right of use).

To the publication contract

Transferring rights of use

Copyrights themselves are not transferable according to §29(2) of the German Copyright Act (UrhG). The author can only grant others rights of use (= permission to participate in the exploitation rights to a work). The author’s personal rights remain unaffected and continue to apply without restriction.

Exclusive transferring of rights of use (§31(3) UrhG)

Only the holder of the rights of use is authorized to use the work in the manner permitted; the holder can exclude or prevent all others (including the author) from using the work. The holder of exclusive rights of use (e.g., publisher) may, however, grant others (e.g., author, library) sub-rights of use (§35 UrhG).

Simple transferring of rights of use (§31(2) UrhG)

As the author, you retain the exclusive right of use and can continue to use your work in any way you wish. In order to enable publication on hohPublica, you only transfer to KIM a simple right of use to the work for this purpose within the framework of the Publication Agreement. For example, you may use your publication posted on hohPublica for other purposes at any time. You can put them on your own homepage, send them by email, or print them in a journal or book. As the author, you can also grant a non-exclusive right of use for the same work to several people at the same time (e.g., publication of your essay in parallel on hohPublica, in a journal, as a chapter in a monograph, or completely open access).

The holder of a non-exclusive right of use may only exploit your work in the manner agreed with you and cannot exclude or prohibit others from using it. This right remains exclusively with you.

Secondary publication on hohPublica of a work already published by a publisher

If you have already published your work with a publisher, you must clarify exactly which license conditions you have contractually agreed with the publisher and whether these may conflict with a secondary publication on hohPublica. If you have granted the publisher the exclusive right of use to your work and now wish to make your work available on hohPublica at a later date, you must check whether the transferred rights exclude publication on hohPublica. In principle, this means that further publication on hohPublica is not possible without the publisher’s consent. You can find summarized information on what individual publishers allow within the framework of their “standard publishing agreements” with regard to the self-archiving of scientific publications on the SHERPA/RoMEO list (publisher’s copyright & archiving policies) at the SHERPA initiative (Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access). In particular, it should be noted that different conditions apply to the individual versions of your publication (pre-print, post-print, edited publisher’s version).

Parallel publication on hohPublica and in a publishing house

If you intend to have your publication published in parallel by a publisher in the future (in addition to the first publication on hohPublica), you must ensure that you only transfer a right of use to the publisher that does not hinder the further availability of the document on hohPublica (simple right of use). The right of use granted to KIM (usually a simple right of use) is binding for you when concluding a Publishing Agreement and must be observed.

Journal and newspaper articles and contributions to anthologies since 1995

For contributions to periodical collections (e.g., magazine articles, newspaper articles, yearbooks, almanacs, etc.), you should observe the rules of interpretation of §38 UrhG:

One-year deadline

All rights of use that have been transferred to a publisher or editor (in case of doubt, an exclusive right of use for reproduction and distribution is deemed to have been transferred!) revert to you as the author one year after publication of the contribution (§38(1) UrhG). This means that a parallel publication on hohPublica is generally possible after one year from the publication of your work.

Contribution in an anthology not published regularly

§38(1) UrhG also applies to contributions in non-periodically published collective works (commemorative publications, conference proceedings, etc.) provided that you are not entitled to remuneration for providing the contribution (§38(2) UrhG). Free copies or offprints do not count as remuneration. After the one-year deadline, there is nothing to prevent parallel publication on hohPublica.

Newspaper article

Newspaper articles may be reproduced and distributed elsewhere immediately after publication, irrespective of whether a simple or exclusive right of use has been transferred to a publisher (§38(3) UrhG).

It is crucial to point out that the provisions of §38 UrhG are dispositive provisions. This means that deviating contractual provisions (e.g., exclusion of parallel publication after expiration of the one-year period) can be agreed. However, provisions that deviate from §38 UrhG only apply if they have been expressly stipulated in your publishing contract. If you have not signed a publishing contract, you can publish your article in parallel on hohPublica after the one-year deadline at the latest.

Publication contract

The information on this page is an excerpt from the “Tips on copyright”, to which we would like to refer you here.

In using your work, you must precisely define the scope of the transferred rights. You must reach agreements with the respective contracting party (here: University of Hohenheim Library and/or the hohPublica users) as to which types of use are included in the contract, that is, how your work is to be used (publication of your work, here: online resource), and which rights of exploitation (public accessibility, reproduction, distribution, modification, etc.) are to be included in this type of use (e.g. all or only individual types of use). The publication contract clearly regulates the type and scope of the rights that the University of Hohenheim requires in order to make your publication available on the Internet and to ensure its permanent availability. In the context of a publication on hohPublica, you only transfer simple rights of use.

Selecting an appropriate licence

In addition to the publication contract, you can define the rights in the input mask as to how your publication can also be used by "end users" (persons, institutions, etc.). End users are people who access the content on hohPublica and also want to reuse it. In this case, they can use the standardized Creative Commons license options.

Licenses available on hohPublica

	License
	Creative Commons - Attribution For this license, the contents may be copied, distributed and publicly displayed. Modified versions may be made under the following conditions: The authors’ / right-holders’ names must be given. This content may also be used for commercial purposes. This is a license based on the international Creative Commons Initiative.
	Creative Commons - Attribution, non-commercial With this license, the content may be copied, distributed, and made publicly accessible. Modified versions may be made under the following conditions: The authors’ / right-holders’ names must be given. The content may not be used for commercial purposes. This is a license based on the international Creative Commons Initiative.
	Creative Commons - Attribution, no derivative works This license permits the reproduction, distribution, and public showing of the content under the following conditions: The authors’ / right-holders’ names must be given. The content may also be used for commercial purposes. The content may not be modified or changed in any other way. This is a license based on the international Creative Commons Initiative.
	Creative Commons - Attribution, non-commercial, no derivative works This license permits the reproduction, distribution, and public showing of the content. The following conditions must be met: The authors’ / right-holders’ names must be given. The content may not be used for commercial purposes. The content may not be modified or changed in any other way. This is a license based on the international Creative Commons Initiative.
	Creative Commons - Attribution, share alike For this license, the contents may be copied, distributed and publicly displayed. Modified versions may be made under the following conditions: The authors’ / right-holders’ names must be given. The content may also be used for commercial purposes. If you modify the licensed work or content or use it in any other recognizable way as a basis for your own work, you may only distribute the newly created work or content if using license conditions that are identical or comparable with those of this license agreement. This is a license based on the international Creative Commons Initiative.
	Creative Commons - Attribution, non-commercial, share-alike For this license, the contents may be copied, distributed and publicly displayed. Modified versions may be made under the following conditions: The authors’ / right-holders’ names must be given. The content may not be used for commercial purposes. If you modify the licensed work or content or use it in any other recognizable way as a basis for your own work, you may only distribute the newly created work or content if using license conditions that are identical or comparable with those of this license agreement. This is a license based on the international Creative Commons Initiative.
	Usage according to German copyright law Publishing without a creative commons license. You only transfer a simple right of use to the KIM of the University of Hohenheim in order to be able to publish the work so that it is freely accessible worldwide on the Internet. Users may then re-use the publication in accordance with German copyright law, i.e., they may not independently reproduce or redistribute the work or make any adaptations to it.

Regulations for the metadata

All metadata that you enter when submitting the publication (including the abstract, description, etc.) will be published under a CC0 license for the purpose of further processing: http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0

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