Hi everyone. 

Some might remember the 2019 recast of the EU PSI Directive (which is now also called Open Data Directive) which has a nice round number EU/2019/1024 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1024/oj). As a directive, it has been transposed in EU member states and is also transposed/about to be transposed into the EFTA states.

I was involved in the 2019 recast as a member of the staff of MEP Felix Reda who wrote the opinion in the IMCO committee of the European Parliament (the leading committee was ITRE: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-8-2018-0438_EN.html#_section8)

The Directive has both a general principle on the reuse of content but also paragraph about how to process requests for re-use.

Germany transposed the PSI-OD-Directive into the "Datennutzungsgesetz" in 2021 but left out the processing part for requests for re-use. I spoke to a civil servant in the responsible ministry who was involved in the drafting process and she stated that this was by design. Since the "general principle" on re-use applies, there would be no use for requests any more. This idea has been rejected by academic literature which still claims that the possibility for requests remain embedded in the law

Long story short: After reading the literature, the directive and the law, I believe that Germany has introduced a law that would allow liberating content for re-use under license terms compatible with Wikimedia projects.

For a few weeks now, I have put this theory to the test and I have applied for usage rights for various government documents, pictures etc. This has been largely successful, but not without hickups. People in the administration are usually confused by these requests and it takes them a while to process them.

I would be interested to learn if anyone else in any other EU/EFTA state has ever used the PSI-OD-Directive (and the transposed law) to force government entities to release content under a free license.

This was the most concise way of describing this for me. I left out many details in order to not turn this into a long paper. I am happy to elaborate on details if requested.

Mathias

(there are some exceptions in the directive. GLAM institutions are not fully within the scope of all parts of the directive and it is not as simple to simply go to a museum or a library and tell them to give you a license for stuff they own. Public broadcasting it also out of scope)

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