RuZ - Recht und Zugang

Access to court decisions is a fundamental pillar of a constitutional state. This article examines the legal framework for access to court decisions from a copyright perspective. As official works under Section 5 para. 1 of the German Copyright Act,...

State archives have the task of preserving documents of lasting value in perpetuity in order to enable the public to look back into their past. The appraisal process, in which the lasting value is determined, requires an examination of the contents...

Are criminal judgements or criminal case files a suitable source for research and, if so, how can researchers gain access to them? First, this article highlights the value of judgements for empirical research, even though they have specific...

The Bundesverfassungsgericht recently ruled that court statements by victims about sexual abuse they have experienced are part of their intimate sphere, but not part of the core area of private life, which is absolutely inviolably protected from the...

This article discusses the problem of data tracking in academic libraries in the context of the DEAL negotiations with the academic publishers Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley. The authors call for libraries and academic institutions to be made more...

Artificial intelligence is currently the subject of intense debate in connection with copyright issues. This article provides an overview of the conference on “Generative AI as reflected in copyright law” held at Free University Berlin in...

With the so-called “Kohlakten-Urteil” of March 2023, the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) has put a provisional end to years of dispute over access to state information and files. However, the reasons for the decision...