What is the 'Taverne legal amendment'?

Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, commonly known as the Taverne Amendment, grants the author of any short scientific work that is fully or partly financed by Dutch public funds the right to make this work freely available to the public, following ‘a reasonable term’ after its publication. The amendment is supposed to supersede any agreement made between the author and the publisher.

The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) and the National Platform Open Science launched a pilot project titled You share, we take care to implement this law. Under the Taverne Amendment, short scientific works (articles or book chapters) can be made available six months after publication via institutional repositories, at the request of the author(s).