Publisher resistance to legal copying in Germany

Martin Schneider, "We don't want to stand in the way of the digital era", Cafe Babel, October 4, 2006.  An interview with German publisher, Georg Siebeck.  Excerpt:

The government wants the German copyright laws to adapt to the digital era much to the dismay of publishers. It's been 3 years since the controversial article 52a of copyright laws was introduced and the limited digital duplication of works made possible....German academic publishers are against this new law and are worried about its consequences. Georg Siebeck, head of the academic publishers 'Mohr Siebeck' and spokesperson for the 'Publishers and Academics for a Fair Copyright' explains why.

Mr Siebeck, why do academic publishers feel threatened by the new copyright laws?

Article 52a allows university lecturers to digitalize a chapter of a textbook and post it on the intranet, either as a handout for students or for his international research colleges. According to the law, he need not register or declare such usage.

You also criticise the planned 52b article which allows library books to be displayed in a digital format.

Initially we supported this idea, as a way of reinforcing a library's role in society. We are worried however about ownership issues because libraries can only digitalize books they own. In addition, we wanted to limit electronic access to digital copies of book. If a library is only able to make one copy of a book available, only one electronic copy should be made accessible. Both of these aspects seem to have been forgotten by the legislators....

What sort of new model do you foresee for the publishing business?

It's feasible that Universities will apply for on-campus licences for educational literature, where the price of these licences will depend on the number of students studying a given subject. There will still be external readers and we will therefore print sections out. In the meantime we just have to be careful and not cannibalise printed works with our digital versions. This is why the question of ownership is so important.  We don't want to stand in the way of digital era because the advantages of electronic search possibilities are considerable. Our task is ultimately to deliver important information and not to conceal it.