Zur Strafbarkeit des Predatory Publishing

The rise of open access publishing has led to the emergence of predatory journals
which charge publication fees without providing robust peer review. Instead, predatory
journals merely pretend to comply with well-established scientific standards
and to cooperate with distinguished scholars as editors, reviewers and authors. This
business model may trigger criminal liability for offences such as forgery of data
(section 269 Penal Code) and fraud (section 263 Penal Code); in contrast, publishers
are not criminally liable for defamation (section 187 Penal Code).