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The Creative Commons Germany license suite is available in the following version. License your work under these licenses, or choose the international licenses. More info.

Many thanks to all who contributed to the localization of the license suite.

Creative Commons is working with European Academy of Law and Computing and the Institute of Law and Informatics at Saarland University to create Germany jurisdiction-specific licenses from the generic Creative Commons licenses.

CC Germany List

Legal Project Lead: John H. Weitzmann

Public Project Lead: Markus Beckedahl

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More about the European Academy of Law and Computing (EEAR), Merzig and Saarbrücken

The European Academy of Law and Computing was established in the year 2005 as a non-profit corporation situated in Merzig and Saarbrücken, near the borders to France and Luxemburg in south-western Germany. The Academy wants to build bridges between the IT sector and the world of legal professionals. Its mission therefore is threefold, combining research activities, educational courses and development of software and services.

In the area of research the Academy offers various workshops, conducts EU funded studies and hosts the Merzig Legal Database Forum (Merziger Datenbankenforum Recht), to name a few. In regard to education and additional qualification for lawyers a fully equipped test environment is on offer as well as a wide range of courses, covering topics like XML, Digital Data Management and Legal Web Services. The development activities include the German Database of Higher Education Law (KMK Hochschulrecht), the Caveat Registry Service, applications for implementing the XJustiz standard, and other projects.

More about Institute of Law and Informatics (Institut für Rechtsinformatik) at Saarland University, Saarbrücken

The ‘Saarbrücker Rechtsinformatik’ (Law and Informatics in Saarbrücken) was founded in 1988 along with the establishment of the department of law and informatics, which was originally funded by the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Donors’ Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities in Germany) and headed by Prof. Dr. Herberger. Today the Institute of Law and Informatics at Saarland University (Universität des Saarlandes in Saarbrücken, Germany) is maintained by the Chair for Civil Law, Legal Theory and Legal Informatics Prof. Dr. Maximilian Herberger and the Chair for Civil Law, Civil Procedure and Philosophy of Law Prof. Dr. Helmut Rüßmann.

The Institute of Law and Informatics concerns itself with the question of how legal professionals can improve their ways of working with the aid of new technology. Law and informatics is part of applied information technology just like business information systems and medical informatics are. In this context the Institute of Law and Informatics feels that it is its duty to make legal information electronically available, therefore deviating from the traditional printed format, and to support the electronic exchange of legal documents. Examples include online legal databases as well as the technical maintenance of the decision databases of the Courts, for example the websites of the Federal Constitutional Court, the Social, Labour and Fiscal Courts of the Saarland as well as the Administrative Court in Frankfurt am Main.

Furthermore, the Institute of Law and Informatics deals with Information Law and legal problems of new media, especially Internet Law. The Internet poses many legal questions, which concern current and future legislation of almost all areas of law and numerous regulations. In relation to the named issues the Institute concentrates mainly on questions of civil law.

Acknowledgements

Creative Commons would like to thank the former project leads, Professor Dr. Thomas Dreier, Ellen Euler, and Oliver Meyer , and Dr. Till Jaeger, who in a shared effort adapted the CC licenses to German copyright law; the

Institute for Information Law at the University of Karlsruhe and the

Institut für Rechtsfragen der Freien und Open Source Software, for the extensive work done so far and their continuing support.

Jurisdiction: Creative Commons Germany

Date submitted: October 2013

Roadmap

Description

The German CC Jurisdiction Project aims at helping everyone interested in a better way of sharing online. It does so by making the CCPL work under German law and by providing information and support. This is also a way to bridge some gaps that exist sometimes between CC theory and everyday use of works and licenses on the net. These frictions inter alia are caused by European history of law but also by varying discourses of creativity in different communities.

The project has two Leads, both located mainly in Berlin. John Weitzmann as Legal Project Lead is supported by the European Academy of Law and Computing (EEAR), Markus Beckedahl as Public Project Lead is supported by newthinking communications.

Priorities for 2014

- Coordinate with GEMA on a possible CC pilot for their members.

- Run a t-shirt contests online to let fans do new designs for schwag (both graphics only and with text).

- Initiate a new batch of flyers, brochures and other CC info material to be translated into German.

- Act as cooperation partner for re:publica 2014 and establish re:publica as a background for regular CC Europe meetings.

- Strengthen the cooperation with partners such as Wikimedia Germany and Humboldt University Berlin (Humboldt Law Clinic) to get important work done more quickly.

- Build the basic structure and introductory texts for the CC Commentary and build a group of volunteers to work on the first set of content.

- Re-design the CC DE website with a new theme and better social media integration and donation functions.

Project Composition

Legal Lead

John H. Weitzmann supported by EEAR

Public Lead

Markus Beckedahl supported by newthinking communications

Affiliate Team (all part-time only)

Michael Weller, Lawyer, EEAR

Ralph Hecksteden, Jurmatix GbR (Sysadmin)

Sabine Micka, EEAR (Accounting/Donations)

Klaas Schmidt, Lawyer

Dr. Paul Klimpel, Lawyer (Team Speaker GLAM)

Dr. Till Kreutzer, Lawyer

Prof. Dr. Maximilian Herberger, Law Professor, Saarland University

N. N. (Team Speaker Design)

N. N. (Team Speaker Film/Video)

N. N. (Team Speaker Open Data)

Helpers and Interns

From time to time we have additional volunteers (and regular interns at newthinking communications) helping with everyday work or special projects.

Former Team Members

Tim Baumann, Filmmaker

Ulrike Elteste, Lawyer

Hans-Martin Schmidt, Lawyer

Wolfgang Senges, Media Consultant

Sarah Leiendecker, Institute for Law and Informatics, Saarland University

Ronen Kadushin, Designer

Web resources

Jurisdiction website

Our website runs on Wordpress, with a theme modified from one of the previous themes of creativecommons.org. Next items on the agenda for the site are a better integration of our social media channels (twitter and facebook), an easy web-based donation scheme (using either PayPal or Sofortüberweisung.de), a remodeling of our FAQ section and integration of a module to aggregate CC news.

CC Category within netzpolitik.org Weblog

Markus Beckedahl is a very sought-after evangelist for freedom of the internet, open government and – as CC Germany Public Lead – also for CC licensing. He runs one of the top ten weblogs in Germany, netzpolitik.org, which contains a separate category for CC-related topics with hundreds of articles.

Internal ATeam Wiki

For internal coordination of the Affiliate Team and for material collection and other purposes the EEAR maintains a moinmoin wiki that all team members can access.

Metrics

We see the numbers of CC licenses or CC licensed content as a rather arbitrary factor, because the sheer numbers themselves do in no way reflect quality and relevance of the so lincensed content. They also tend to distort debates about the benefits and downsides of alternative licensing away from the aspect of individual creators making licensing decisions. We see more value in highlighting certain projects, groups or individuals that in our opinion are possible role models for CC licensing.

Competitions

CC DE Schwag Competition

In cooperation with Wikimedia Germany we want to run an online competition to make new designs for CC schwag and merchandising material. This is meant to raise awareness of how diverse the group of CC licensors and re-users is and to also benefit the project in terms of material to promote CC's cause. The winners will be announced at one of the larger gatherings of net-minded people in Berlin (30C3, re:pubica, Linuxtag, …).

Workshops, Presentations and Strategic Talks

People from the CC DE Affiliate Team (ATeam) and the two project leads are frequently invited to talk about CC and alternative licensing and write articles and papers on the topic. There have also been individual consultations and strategic talks on the CCPL and their application with several stake holder institutions, one of the most prominent being the CC-GEMA dialogue, an exchange with the leading German collecting society for musical works. Other such consultantions have been held with public broadcasters, political and philathropic foundations and media.

Institutional and Project Cooperations

CC Germany is always open to cooperate with other groups and institutions if this apprears to be beneficial to our common(s) cause. In the past, such cooperations have existed f. e. with the German Film Museum Deutsche Kinemathek, the Board of Open Youth Education of the State of Baden-Württemberg and others. We will continue to cooperate with the Berlin-based intervention platform Internet & Society Co://aboratory by being represented on their advisory board and also with Wikimedia Germany, the Berlin-Brandenburg Media Authority (mabb) and the Berlin Technology Foundation (TSB) who have been working with us on Open Educational Resources (OER).

Regional Collaboration

Since 2009 there has been a regional collaboration on European CC Project Leads under the name CC Europe. It developed out of the Communia Project, a EU-funded Thematic Network on the digital public domain to which many European CC Projects are members. This structure has evolved since then and is now granted support by CC HQ in the form of 2 part-time Regional Coordinators, and the same support is in place now for other regions around the world.