The German Games Archive of the Stiftung Spielen (Spielen Foundation) in Altenburg has recently made the ludographic (bibliographic) data for the analogue games already recorded on its website www.brettspiele.digital publicly available.

As a result, VG WORT has now announced that it will use this database as an additional reference for the distribution of library royalties to rights holders from the circle of game designers. Eligible game designers may therefore submit title notifications to VG WORT as of now, provided the titles are recorded in the Stiftung Spielen database.

The foundations for this archive and its database were laid over the past decades through voluntary work. The development of the database was also supported – for a limited period – by government project funding under the ‘Neustart Kultur’ initiative. However, professional continuation on a voluntary basis is no longer possible, as the merger of several archives and collections has seen the collection grow to over 82,000 games, of which only 33,000 have been digitally catalogued to date.

In our legal view, it is now the responsibility of the German federal government to provide this archive with institutional funding, such as that received by the German National Library (DNB).

• This is the only way to ensure compliance with the legal obligation under Section 27 of the German intellectual property law and to ensure that game designers are treated on an equal footing with other authors in relation to library royalties.
• This is the only way the archive can continue to digitise its current holdings and fully record future new publications and additions to the collection.
• And only in this way can this cultural heritage be appropriately collected, recorded, documented and archived as a teaching and research collection for the long term, as well as being scientifically managed and preserved.

VG WORT’s use of the database of the Stiftung Spielen archive to calculate library royalties demonstrates its practical functionality and underscores the archive’s eligibility for funding.