Creative Commons Certificate Learning Space

This site is built by Anneliese Eber to support the learning objectives, outcomes, and assignments for the Creative Commons Certificate for Academic Librarians.

Copyright in the Netherlands

Copyright in the Netherlands is governed by the Dutch Copyright Act (DCA) known as Auteurswet.

The Basics

Under the DCA, copyright protection automatically applies to original works of literature, science, and or art that are perceptible to the senses (i.e., in fixed form). Protections last for the creator’s life plus 70 years.

International Treaties

The Netherlands is a signatory of:

Note: As a member of the European Union (EU), all EU copyright regulations and treaties apply to the Netherlands. Notably, the Netherlands is not a signatory of the Marrakesh Treaty, though the EU is a signatory which requires the Netherlands to abide by the treaty, despite not being a signatory themselves.

Summary

Overall, the copyright landscape in the Netherlands is comparable to that of Canada with similar exceptions to copyright (Auteurswet Articles 15–25a) as are seen elsewhere. Interestingly, copyright limitations laid out in Auteurswet seem to be more permissive than copyright elsewhere in the world; however, in a 2014 court case, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that making personal copies made from unlawful sources is illegal, though seemingly permissible per Article 16 which has not been changed since the ruling. Though somewhat unique in its approach to piracy, public norms and approaches to copyright in the Netherlands are largely shaped by the country’s status as an EU member and a signatory of major international treaties.

Creative Commons in the Netherlands

Creative Commons Adoption

The open movement is well-established and adopted throughout the Netherlands with the Dutch government implementing the National Plan for Open Science (NPOS) which has been signed by many organizations including funders (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research), universities (Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU)), and libraries (Association of the University Libraries and National Library of the Netherlands (UKB)). The NPOS supported the goal, led by VSNU and UKB to achieve 100% OA for publicly funded research articles by 2020. Since 2020, all academic publications funded with public money must be published OA and be reusable.

University Policies, cOAlition S, and Academic Norms

Most public funders in the Netherlands are part of cOAlition S, an OA publishing initiative, which requires funded research to be published OA with a CC license. As such, most Dutch university OA policies recommend using a CC BY license to meet cOAlition S guidelines and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. With such a strong mandate for open science from the Dutch government and organizations like Open Netherlands, the academic tradition in the Netherlands firmly supports engagement with and the use of CC licenses.

References

License

“Creative Commons Certificate Learning Space” by Anneliese Eber is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

For any questions about the site content please contact Anneliese Eber aeber@uwaterloo.ca Website theme: Hacker CC0