Zitatrecht (Quotation Right)
Urheberrechtsgesetz (UrhG), § 51
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
In force.
A snippet reproduction rule binding public and private bodies.
As of 6 September 2026.
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Reproducing, distributing, and publicly communicating a published work for the purpose of quotation is permitted, provided the extent of the use is justified by the specific quotation purpose.
The statute names three illustrative cases: individual works incorporated after publication into an independent scientific work to explain its content, passages of a work cited after publication in an independent work of language, and individual passages of a published musical work cited in an independent musical work.
The quotation privilege covers use of an illustration or other reproduction of the quoted work even where that reproduction is itself separately protected by a copyright or related right. No decision applying this provision specifically to a news aggregator's reproduction of headlines or snippets was verified against a primary source.
What it reaches
Instrument type
statute
Categories
Snippet reproduction
When LexLint raises it
aggregates_content
Read the law
official consolidated Urheberrechtsgesetz text, gesetze-im-internet.de