Science thrives on exchange. Progress can only be made by studying the work of other scientists. Anyone interested in using material from others for their own research or teaching, is interested in open access to the results of others. Those who see that others access their own work in order to enrich their work are interested in controlling the use of their own content. Copyright law deals with the regulation of these conflicting interests.

Copyright law plays a particularly important role in the production and usage of digital teaching and learning materials. Copyright law stipulates that protected works may in principle only be used if the author has given his consent. Such consents can be granted through individual (contracts or standard) licences (so-called open content licences). However, such agreements also contain exceptions.
Limitation clauses regulate certain cases in which acts of utilisation may also be carried out without consent. If such special rules are not relevant, rights of use to the teaching materials must be acquired. If the content is not subject to an open content licence, licence agreements may have to be formulated, negotiated and concluded (cf. Kreutzer/Hirche 2017: 7).