If a work is used in good faith that there is no copyright protection, the liability of the user is in question. E.g. If there any reference to an existing copyright or to an alleged claim from an alleged copyright holder, that is not sufficient to establish that a work is protected (which depends on the conditions laid down by law in Art. 2 CopA in particular). But such hints or claims may serve to rule out any good faith the user might have had. In fact, these hints or claims give the user cause for doubt and they should therefore research the work in question to make sure they are authorised to use it. This is required by the necessary diligence. If they still act without authorisation or outside the scope of an exception to copyright, they run the risk of being taken to court. In this case, the person namely fails to fulfil the necessary diligence in this situation and acts negligently or even with “Dolus eventualis”, which means the person knows about their unlawful behaviour but continues with it regardless.
