Hi Marc, > As far as I know (but I am, luckily, not a lawyer either), it is the > common legal opinion that Art. 5.(3) Grundgesetz implies that the > "Nutzungsrechte" are not being implicitly assigned from a professor to > the university ([2]). So the university cannot claim that some of my > works are theirs.
Indeed, [2] page 19 is clear. [3] says the same thing. > In any case, I even have a letter from the > university saying basically this. Even better! Then you are free to sign copyright assignment papers with any legal entity, such as the FSF. > Unfortunately, the FSF lawyers don't > accept the German text (I tried to contribute to GCC once) because > they don't have the manpower to verify it; now I have to persuade the > university lawyers to sign the FSF provided text. Why the hassle? Once you know - and you gave a citation from the ministery of education - that the copyright of your works is with you, you don't need confirmation from either the FSF or your university. The copyright assignment only needs _your_ signature, then. Bruno [2] https://www.bmbf.de/upload_filestore/pub/Handreichung_UrhWissG.pdf [3] https://blogs.hrz.tu-freiberg.de/oersax/urheberrecht-des-wissenschaftlichen-personals-an-hochschulen/
