Legal matters

Authors publishing on the OPUS server of the University Library at European University Viadrina retain full copyright over their work. By submitting a declaration of consent, they grant the University Library a non-exclusive right of distribution, which allows the work to be made publicly accessible online. Authors remain free to publish their work elsewhere. If applicable, a reference to a parallel print version may be included on the electronic version’s landing page (see also → Open Access and your publishing contract).

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Through a handwritten declaration of consent, authors confirm:

a) the right to make the work publicly available on the Internet is granted to the University Library

b) the publication does not infringe on third-party rights

c) the German National Library may, if necessary, archive the work and make it accessible via its servers

d) in the case of dissertations, the submitted version is identical to the approved version and the printed copies provided

Usage Rights and Copyright

All documents offered electronically via data networks are subject to the provisions of the German Copyright Act (UrhG), unless the author has assigned alternative usage rights through a Creative Commons licence.

Under § 53 UrhG, users may create copies or printouts for personal, scholarly, or non-commercial use. Any further use requires the author’s prior written permission. Where a Creative Commons licence is applied, a link to the licence terms will be provided on the document’s landing page. Users are responsible for compliance with legal requirements and may be held liable for any misuse.

Open Access Policy of the University Library

To promote barrier-free and legally secure scientific publishing, the University Library at European University Viadrina sets the following conditions for publication on its document server:

Authors must grant the University Library a permanent, non-exclusive right to make the work publicly accessible online

Authors are free to publish the work—whether in full, modified, or in part—as a preprint or postprint elsewhere, in print or electronic form.

Bibliographic metadata for all documents may be harvested via the OAI interface, stored, and redistributed—potentially in enriched or selected form.

First-time electronic publications must include a persistent link (URL or URN) to the document’s landing page on the server.

Authors are encouraged to use a Creative Commons licence to facilitate the dissemination of research and reduce copyright restrictions. These licences ensure proper attribution and may restrict commercial reuse, as chosen by the author.

Documents published on the server are typically free from digital rights management (DRM) and technical restrictions, supporting their long-term preservation and accessibility as part of the digital scholarly record.

To increase discoverability, the publication server is registered in both the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) and the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).