German Copyright protects intellectual creations and achievements.
- Personal intellectual creations of the processor
- Intellectual achievement
- Perceptible form
- Degree of originality
In all cases where the German Copyright protection applies, the usage, transfer and processing of the work are allowed exclusively with the permission of the author. Scientific texts, illustrations and abstracts are usually protected by copyright. Mechanically generated and unprocessed research data are usually not protected as "works". In these cases, the German Copyright protection would not apply. However, there may be exceptions and Copyright protection may depend on the single case. Hence, the allowed reuse of published research data is often clarified by licenses (e.g. Creative Commons). Databases are exceptional in terms of German Copyright protection since they are under special protection in the German Copyright law. Creators of databases own exclusive rights to distribute and reproduce (§ 87b UrhG) their work. In general, German Copyright protection ends 70 years after the death of the creator. Thereafter, works are considered to be public domain works.
Metadata of research data is generally not considered to be protected by the German Copyright, as they are usually relatively short and purely descriptive.
In certain cases, and in addition to the German Copyright, research data may also be subjected to patent law, especially if research data describe technical teaching. In such cases, only the patent holder may use the patented data.
Further information can be found here.