Laws and regulations are drawn up by governmental bodies and are financed by the tax-payers. However, DIN's work is privately organized and financed. Even where governmental bodies have an interest in standards work and provide political, staffing and even financial support for this work, the results of this work remain in the hands of a private body and are thus protected by copyright; this means that technical rules are generally not free of charge.
When a standard is referred to in legislation it nevertheless does not become a legal document and is thus not provided free of charge. This is expressly stated in Article 5 (3) of the German Copyright Act: The explanatory memorandum of 2002 relating to the Act states that setters of technical rules rely on the sales of their documents to finance their non-profit work. Thus, ensuring the financing of standards work has a higher priority than the wish to have free access to technical rules referenced in legislation.