Legal Questions

Digital preservation of online dissertations

The report entitled "Legal issues on digital preservation and on the provision of digital documents by archiving libraries with particular regard to online university publications" by the DissOnline coordination office examines topical questions regarding the practical indexing and archiving of online dissertations.

This report examines legal issues regarding the archiving of electronic documents and making them accessible, based on the experiences of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and other libraries involved in the DissOnline process in handling online dissertations and doctoral theses. In most cases the statements contained in it also apply for other archiving libraries, especially the regional mandatory copy libraries. Also, most of the statements regarding online dissertations apply equally to other university publications and other categories of digital documents.

The contents include:

  1. Is an archiving library allowed to make copies of the online university publication for preservation purposes?
  2. Is reproduction of a digital dissertation permitted by an archiving library if it is also to be accessible to users?
  3. Is migration an "altering action" as defined in § 23 of the Copyright Act?
  4. Is emulation permissible without the consent of the rights owner?
  5. When can §39 Paragraph 2 of the Copyright Act be applied?
  6. Are there digital preservation security measures which a submitter of an online dissertation can demand?
  7. If access to the (original) document is to be blocked on the source server, is there an active and/or passive information obligation for an archiving library to understand the reason behind the block?
  8. To what extent is "internal use" in the archiving library possible without the agreement of the author?
  9. Are library staff permitted full-text access to the documents which users may not access?
  10. Who is liable if the material presented is "defective"?

Author of the report
Prof. Dr. Thomas Hoeren
Institut für Informations-, Telekommunikations- und Medienrecht
Zivilrechtliche Abteilung
Bispinghof 24/25
D- 48143 Muenster


To the report  (urn:nbn:de:0008-20050305016, PDF-Version) (available only in German)
Institute for Information-, Telecommunication- and Media Law (ITM), Münster

 
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