Version 3.0 – November 2008

Copyright © 2004-2008 Ministerium für Innovation, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (Ministry of Innovation, Science, Research and Technology, State of North-Rhine Westphalia)

Developed and created by Axel Metzger and Till Jaeger, Institut für Rechtsfragen der Freien und Open Source Software (Institute for Legal Issues on Free and Open Source Software), http://www.ifross.de/

Preamble

The Internet has caused profound changes in the conditions of academic activities. Vast numbers of documents are available via publicly accessible websites. Traditional academic and scientific media such as academic journals and publications in book form are being complemented or even replaced by electronic versions. At the same time, researchers and scientists pass on their sources of all kinds by means of individual communication in data networks. The digitisation enables researches to change documents more easily and thus facilitates interactive scientific collaboration. This process is expressly supported by the leading German research organisations in the Berlin Declaration (http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html).

The new communication possibilities allow academic content in its original or in an altered version to be disseminated in a decentralised manner - in a fast, transparent way, closely related to research. Scientific researchers are regularly interested in making their findings widely available at a high level of quality. The Modular DPPL Licence therefore permits the passing on of copyrighted material. It furthermore grants permission to modify those parts of a work, marked as alterable by the authors and allows the dissemination of altered versions. While this rule intends to facilitate collaboration between scientists, it leaves the decision up the author, to open only certain parts of his work for interactive scientific collaboration. The aim of this Modular DPPL Licence is to ensure that this process takes place in a fair, transparent and secure way for all those involved.

This Modular DPPL Licence provides the contractual basis for publishing documents in e-journals as described above. The licence allows any user to pass the document on in electronic form, e.g. to make it publicly available in networks.

Passing documents on is, however, subject to certain obligations, particularly concerning citing the names of authors and holders of rights and the bibliographical information used, in order to guarantee a standard form of citation.  Anybody using an altered version is obliged to indicate the work of the original authors in an appropriate manner but may not refer to them as being authors of any altered part of the work. Furthermore the modified document may only be published under the conditions of this Modular DPPL Licence.

The rights to Use in physical form, particularly the rights to distribute the work in printed form, on storage media or in print-on-demand services, are retained by the author or other rights holders and are not covered by this licence. This firstly promotes electronic publishing, and secondly allows the rights holder the possibility of granting the rights of physical distribution of issues of the work to an individual party, for example a commercial publishing company. Those who wish to publish their work in parallel under this licence and via a publishing company should ensure that the publishing agreement does not assign the exclusive rights of providing public access to the publishing company, but rather simple, non-exclusive, rights at most.

The terms of this licence are an offer to any party to conclude a license agreement upon the conditions contained therein. The agreement comes into force by the act of the user making use of the rights specified in this license agreement.

Potential licensors are either the authors themselves, if they hold the exclusive usage rights to the articles, or other rightholder of exclusive rights to use, in particular employers, publishing houses, etc. However, it should be noted that the Modular DPPL Licence grants the right to alter any part of a Work marked as alterable. Thus to protect the author’s personal rights it is mandatory to ask for the author’s approval even if he is no longer holder of the exclusive rights.

Clause 1: Definitions

§ 1: Definitions

The following terms shall be used in the license agreement with the following standard meanings:

(a) "Digital Signature": Data in electronic form which are attached or logically linked to the Work and have the purpose of authenticating the author or holder of an exclusive right to Use.

(b) "History": Information on the Work, particularly on the authors, the history of its creation or the version of the Work, which is directly inserted into the Work or attached to it in a separate file for the purpose of informing the user. The History may also contain information concerning where the author makes updated versions of the Work available or listing subsequent corrections to the content.

(c) "Licensor": The holder of the copyright and his or her legal successor, or the holder of an exclusive right to Use for the Work, who offers to conclude this license agreement.

(d) "Metadata": Machine-readable, structured information on the Work, which is contained in the Work for the purpose of simplified machine-locatability of the Work and/or efficient administration of data (e.g. "HTML metatags").

(e) "Metadata Model": A standardised structure for collecting Metadata with defined elements for describing resources (e.g. "Dublin Core Metadata Element Set").

(f) "Use": Any use of the Work for which the permission of the author or holder of an exclusive right to Use is necessary under copyright law, e.g. passing on the Work or making it available for downloading.

(g) "Open File Format": A document format which is written in a standard freely accessible to any party and which may be implemented in a computer program by any party, without limitations and free of licence fees, e.g. Open Document Format (ODP), Portable Document Format (PDF), DocBook XML and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) .

(h) "You": The licensee - any party concluding this license agreement.

(i) “Alterable Parts”: Those explicitly marked parts of the Work (e.g. by color or graphical highlighting or other clear designation as “Alterable Part”) which may be changed by the licensee. A listing of the Alterable Parts may be inserted in the History.

(j)"Altered Version": Any version of the Work in which You or a third party have made changes, regardless of whether the changes themselves reach the level of copyright protectability or not. Cases in which the law permits publication and passing on without consent ("fair use") are excepted.

(k) "Physical Copy": Any physical copy, reproduction or piece of the Work, i.e. the Work in its embodied form (e.g. as a printed book or on CD-ROM).

(l) "Work": The work protected by copyright as well as any other copyrightable subject (in particular databases and photographs), to which the rights to Use are granted by this license agreement.

Clause 2: Rights to Use

§ 2: Granting of Rights to Use

(1) This license agreement shall, unrestricted by time and place, allow You to reproduce the Work in electronic form and to pass the Work on to third parties by electronic means, e.g. by e-mail communication, and - particularly by making it available for download - to make it publicly accessible. The license shall comprise all types of use of the work that encompass non-physical reproduction or conveyance of the Work, whether already known or unknown at the time of conclusion of this license agreement. Use in physical form, particularly the distribution of printed Works, and the Use of Altered Versions of the Work shall not be permitted.

(2) This license agreement shall further entitle You to incorporate the Work in electronic databases or other collections. Should You attain Your own rights to databases or collective works, You may not use these to restrict or prevent further Use of the Work.

(3) Rights to Use the Work shall be granted by this license agreement free of any licence fees.

(4) This license agreement has the intention of strengthening the provision of authentic scientific information in the Internet as well as allowing modifications to all sections of Work marked by the author as Alterable Parts. For this reason, Use of Altered Versions of the Work shall be permitted within the scope of § 3.

§ 3: Alterations

(1) You may freely modify the content of Alterable Parts and Use the altered Work under the restrictions of § 2. When modifying the Work the personal interests of the original authors are to be respected, in particular the original authors may not be named as authors of the altered parts (see § 6.2).

(2) When altering the content of the Work You are obliged to change the Work’s title. An addition, indicating that the content has been altered is sufficient (e.g. version number, etc). You may not modify a Work’s title if the content is otherwise unchanged.

(3) You may combine the Work with other content according to § 10 in a way that each content may still be used separately (e.g. combination of photographs an text).

Clause 3: Terms of Use

§ 4: No Obligation to Use Free of Charge

This license agreement does not oblige You to Use the Work free of charge. You may agree on the payment of a fee with the user as consideration for the access to the Work or for the procurement of a Physical Copy via electronic forwarding in a data network. However, You may not make the further Use by the acquirer contingent upon further payments, since the acquirer does not receive the necessary rights to Use from You but from the Licensor.

§ 5: Open Access

(1) In case You Use the Work, You may not prevent or impede the further Use by third parties by means of technical protective measures, particularly through the Use of copy protection measures of any kind. A password-protected access restriction or Use within an Intranet structure shall not be regarded as a technical protective measure.

(2) In case You have received the document in an Open File Format, You may not Use it in a non-open file format without the prior express consent of the author or holder of an exclusive right to Use. Consent shall be granted in the event that improved access to the Work may be expected due to a high circulation level of the file format, and that the file format is suitable for the presentation of the Work.

§ 6: Citation of Names of Authors and Holders of Rights to Use

(1) In case You Use the Work in unaltered form, You shall cite the names of authors - author or copyright references - in the same form as it has been included in the document. This shall also apply to citing the holder of an exclusive right to Use, in case these are cited in connection with the Work.

(2) If You alter the Work and Use this Altered Version, the original Work’s authors may not be referred to as being authors of any modified parts of the Work. You are rather obliged to indicate the preliminary Work’s authors in an appropiate manner, e.g. by using the annotation “Based on a table of XY”. § 6.1 applies to all unmodified parts of the Work.

(3) If You apply more than just insignificant changes to the Work, You may add a copyright notice with your name or pseudonym. The copyright notice may only be inserted into the Alterable Parts and must refrain from giving the impression of the authorship of unaltered parts of the Work.

(4) In case the Work is integrated into a more extensive collected edition, such as a collective Work or database, You are obliged to ensure the citation of the authors and holders of an exclusive right to Use in a suitable and standard form for the type to Use.

(5) You may not alter or remove any Digital Signatures which the author or holder of an exclusive right to Use has added to the Non-Alterable Parts of the Work and which confirm the authenticity or origin of the Work, except when this is necessary to convert the Work into another file format permitted in accordance with § 5.2.

§ 7: Quotation and Metadata

(1) In order to guarantee a standardised quotation form of the Work and lasting locatability of the document for any party despite the possible decentralised electronic use, You may neither alter nor remove bibliographical information regarding the original location where the document was found, when using the Work. However, You may add additional bibliographical information.

(2) If You alter the Work and Use this Altered Version, you have to reveal the source (in particular the entire URL) of the Work’s version prior to your changes.

(3) You may not remove Metadata that the author or holder of an exclusive right to Use has added to the Work, except when this is necessary to convert the Work into an Open File Format.

(4) Metadata which the author or holder of an exclusive right to Use has added to the Non-Alterable Parts of the Work may be adapted to other Metadata Models, in case this serve the purpose of simplified locatability of the document or the standardisation of Metadata structures.

§ 8: Release of Altered Versions

(1) If You alter the Work and Use this Altered Version, You are obliged to grant the right of Use under this Modular DDPL Licence to anyone exempt from charges.

(2) If You add content to the Work, which qualifies as a new and separate Work itself, that is capable of being used separately, You may Use this new Work under a different licence with the original Work conjointly.

(3) You may Use the Work in combination with content, provided under the Creative Commons Licence or the GNU Free Documentation Licence, under the conditions stated in § 10.

§ 9: Concurrent Provision of Further Information

(1) In case You exercise the rights to Use granted by this license agreement, You shall always include the text of this licence in both languages accompanying the Work, or quote a source under this licence may permanently be retrieved by electronic means in the usual way, preferably by download from the Internet. The licence can be downloaded from http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0009-mdppl-v3-en5.

(2) You may neither alter nor remove references to this licence which the author or holder of an exclusive right to Use has added to the Work.

(3) In case a History is included into the Work, You may only pass the unaltered Work on along with the complete and unaltered History. If You alter the Work and Use this Altered Version, You have to add a short description to the history, stating which changes You conducted to the Work. You may also include a copyright notice.

§ 10: Combination with other content

(1) The Licensor may combine the Work with other content that may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons license "Attribution" and use the combination, as long as the Work and the other content may still be used separately (e.g. combination of text and photography).

(2) If the Licensor has combined the Work with other content according to paragraph 1, You may not remove or alter any notice stating that the Creative Commons license applies to the other content and you may not use the Work without the other content. You have to comply with the terms of the Creative Commons license for Your use of the other content.  

(3) If You combine the Work with other content, which is provided under the Creative Commons Licence “Attribution”, and use the combination in such a way that the Work and the other content may still be used separately (e.g. combination of text and photographs), this Licence only applies to the Work. You may neither alter nor remove the reference to the Creative Commons Licence (“Attribution”) and You have to comply with the terms of licence regarding the other content.

(4) If You combine Alterable Parts of the Work with other content, which may be used under the Creative Commons Licence “Attribution”, in such a way that the Work and the other content cannot be used separately (e.g. insertion of text into other text), You are obliged to grant the right of Use for the entire altered version of the Work under this Modular DDPL Licence to anyone exempt from charges and in addition You have to comply with the terms of the Creative Commons Licence.

Clause 4: Conclusion and Termination of this Agreement; Reservation of Statutory Rights

§ 11: Conclusion

The text of this licence constitutes an offer made to You, intended for the conclusion of a license agreement under the terms and conditions specified in this license agreement. You do accept the offer by exercising the rights listed in §§ 2-10 of the agreement. Notice of acceptance does not need to be sent to the Licensor.

§ 12: Termination of Rights to Use

(1) In case You violate the obligations set forth in §§ 2 thru 8 of this agreement, the rights to Use granted to You by the Licensor under this agreement shall automatically become invalid. You may then no longer Use the Work. If you comply with the terms of this license you may conclude a new licence agreement.

(2) The rights of beneficial Use of third parties who have attained the Work from You shall not be affected by a devolution of the rights to Use.

§ 13: Reservation of Statutory Rights

(1) The subject-matter of this licence shall be exclusively the granting of rights to Use in order to make the original Work or an Altered Version of the Work available to the public or to individuals in electronic form. Such beneficial rights to use the Work resulting from the statutory restrictions of copyright, for example reproduction for private use, quotation rights, etc., shall not fall under the scope of this licence. It is not necessary to conclude this license agreement in order to make legal use of such rights.

(2) Statutory remuneration rights arising from a use of the Work according to paragraph 1 and administered by collecting societies (e.g. royalties on blank recording media) are reserved.

Clause 5: Liability and Warranty

§ 14: Liability and Warranty

The Licensor's liability towards You is limited to fraudulent concealment of defects.

§ 15: Liability in the Event of Third Party Claims

In case claims for damages and/or litigation costs are asserted against the parties of this agreement, either individually or jointly, by third parties on the basis of the content of the Work, each party shall be proportionally liable corresponding to the ratio of its own fault. The licensee shall bear sole liability if the Licensor has included into the Work a source where subsequent corrections are listed, and if the content comprising the subject-matter of the asserted third-party claim has already been corrected or deleted in this source at the time of the infringing act.

Clause 6: The License Agreement

§ 16 Relationship of the Language Versions

This license agreement has been drawn up in German and English. Both versions shall be equally binding. It shall be assumed that the terms used in the license agreement have the same meaning in both versions. Should differences or uncertainties arise, however, such meaning shall prevail which best aligns the versions with each other, under consideration of the objective and purpose of the license agreement.

§ 17: New Versions of the LicenceAgreement

(1) The Ministry of Innovation, Science, Research and Technology, State of North-Rhine Westphalia (or its legal successor) may bring new versions of the license agreement into force with binding effect in case this is necessary and appropriate. New versions of the license agreement shall be made available in the Internet at http://www.dipp.nrw.de/ with an express version number. The new version of the license agreement shall come into binding effect for You at the time when You become aware of its publication. Statutory redress against the alteration of the license agreement shall not restricted by the above stipulations.

(2) You may reproduce and distribute this license agreement and make it publicly available in unaltered form.

§ 18: Applicable Law

This license agreement shall be governed by German law.

Annex

In order to enable any party to conclude this license agreement, it is recommended that You provide the Work with the following reference to the license agreement:

"Any party may modify sections of this work marked as Alterable Parts, pass on this Work by electronic means and make it available for download under the terms and conditions of the Modular Digital Peer Publishing Licence (m-DPPL). The text of the licence may be accessed and retrieved via Internet at http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0009-mdppl-v3-en5."

If the work is combined with other content that may be used under different licence terms (Creative Commons Licence "Attribution" or GNU Free Documentation License) you should amend the licence notice as follows:

"Contents owned by third parties are identified by appropriate notice and may be used under the terms of the indicated license terms."