taz.die tageszeitung receives Document Freedom Germany Award

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) have awarded this year’s Document Freedom Germany Award to German newspaper taz.die tageszeitung (TAZ) in recognition of TAZ’s exemplary use of open standards.

TAZ is receiving the Document Freedom award because it delivers its electronic paper to its subscribers in a choice of open formats and without digital restrictions (DRM). TAZ subscribers can receive their paper in HTML, PDF and ePub formats, as well as plain text. HTML files form the basis of the World Wide Web. PDF was published as a standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 2008. Adobe has granted anyone the right to make and distribute PDF files without restrictions. ePub is an Open Standard for electronic books. Rather than being bound to a
particular vendor, users can open files with the .epub extension with a wide range of programs and devices. Plain text files (.txt) can easily be read or opened by any thousands of applications, independent of any platform, product or vendor.

“We are awarding the TAZ with the Document Freedom Award for their long-standing commitment to open standards and continuous efforts in offering their newspaper without restrictions,” says Erik Albers, the FSFE’s Co-ordinator Berlin.

“We use free and open formats because we don’t like to put our readers in a cage – even it it’s made of gold. Only by using open standards without DRM we are able to spread TAZ news media as widely as possible,” says Ralf Klever, TAZ’s Head of IT.