How VG Wort Wants You to Support Your Local Copy Shop!
When education is discussed politically, something that’s always mentioned is digitalization- being technologically up-to-date, making sure the country’s not lagging behind. And in the case of Germany, you would think that it isn’t a problem. You would.
There’s even an IT summit that took place not too long ago, where the Kultusministerkonferenz adopted their strategy for digitization in our educational system. Great. Sounds promising. Fantastic. Let’s all take a moment to be thankful for the people behind these ideas concerning improvements in education, them putting time and effort into planning projects that will most likely end up on a shelf for a few months until someone finds them again, covered in dust and thinking that this doesn’t sound too bad, let’s give it a try some day maybe possibly.
But now it seems like universities are going several steps back into analogous times. Texts that are online available on platforms have previously been charged as a lump sum by VG Wort, who represents copyrights. Of course the Bundesverfassungsgericht was not okay with that and therefore, according to the new agreement starting in January 2017, there will be single accounts, which means 0,008 Euro for each page.
Tzz ain’t no univerisity got money for THAT! What are they gonna do about it now? Since that means lots of technical and organziational work is required, as well as legal technicalities, they’re gonna do nothing, absolutely nothing in what seems to be the majority of universities in Germany. Except for deleting every single online document, but the rest is up to the students.
So, back to the stone age it is, my friends! May be printer’s force be with you!
Of course this sparked a lot of controversy which doesn’t remain neglected. VG Wort and the Kultusminister have now accepted the fact that the agreement is beyond remedy due to the lack of signatures of universities across the country. Therefore, they promised to deliver a new solution concerning the copyright in the context of eduction in our universities. And now hear on this: BEFORE New year! Mark your calendars and enter a memo in your phones to check back on this topic online in 17 days.
Now I’m more a fan of the offensive, straight forward way of showing your opinion, making colorful signs, painting your face, learning phrases by heart that we can shout all together that will hit them right in the feels…but for now, no such thing is planned yet. But there is one way to show your disagreement, which would be by signing THIS PETITION which was set up by some students on change.org. It’s a small first step that’s worth a try!
