According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the recently amended German Copyright Law (pdf – in German) now exempts universities from fees associated with providing students and scholars with copyrighted materials in a digital environment. For additional information, please see this April 10 posting from amiga-news.de, New Copyright as Good as Succeeded, which provides some additional background about the law, as well as a link to an article from the German IT news publication, Golem (no translation available), and one from Der Spiegel (also in German). Anyone who can provide translation assistance for the law and these articles for beSpacific readers, please contact me. My thanks in advance. See also this brief article, Germany trying to copy DMCA (in English).
See also my recent postings on U.S. copyright and distance learning issues here and here.