Entitled "Protest against the discrimination of university-based science in copyright law", the petition is directed against a provision in Section 8 (4) of the German Copyright Act. This provision, which entered into force at the beginning of 2014, restricts the right to secondary publication to third-party funded research and non-university research organisations, which means that the majority of university-based authors are not assured this right. The signatories are convinced that such a norm, which hinders access to knowledge produced with public funds, should not remain unchanged. Therefore, they call on the Federal Justice Minister to quickly introduce a corresponding amendment to the Copyright Act for passage through Parliament.
See https://www.openpetition.de/petition/kommentare/protest-gegen-die-diskriminierung-der-hochschulwissenschaft-im-urheberrecht for the online petition and http://www.urheberrechtsbuendnis.de/ for further information on the coalition for action