Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
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Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
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Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
#2> PGLAF complied with the Court's order on February 28, 2018 by blocking all access to www.gutenberg.org and sub-pages to all of Germany.
I can access www.gutenberg.org and sub-pages just fine from Germany. So the block doesn't seem to be active at the moment.
> Q: Why didn't Project Gutenberg simply remove the items?
> A: The is no reason to remove them. The 18 eBooks are all in the public domain in the US, and have been for many years. Copyright status in another country is not relevant to the legitimate ability of Project Gutenberg -- or anyone/anything in the US -- to make any use of these books.
But why then even block access from Germany? If the stance is that "Copyright status in another country is not relevant to the legitimate ability of Project Gutenberg -- or anyone/anything in the US -- to make any use of these books.", what is the rationale for the blocking.
There is also the German Projekt Gutenberg (http://projekt.gutenberg.de/) which is promoted by Spiegel Online (one of the most widely read German-language news websites [1]) even under their own domain as http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/. I don't know what kind of relationship the German Projekt Gutenberg has with PGLAF. The German Projekt Gutenberg is accessible for me from Germany right now, but apparently has blocked the controversial books. For example the page that lists Heinrich Mann's works says about the book "Der Untertan": "Exists in Projekt Gutenberg-DE, but is blocked until 31.12.2020" {"Im Projekt Gutenberg-DE vorhanden (gesperrt bis 31.12.2020)"} [2].
Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
#3Seems punitive to me, rather than 'fair'. US copyright law has no jurisdiction the same as German copyright law, other than by coincidence of geography/volunteer base. I think Project Gutenberg is doing the best thing it can for itself. I associate the project with doing the best thing it can for people.
In general, we're going to run into increasing numbers of cases like this.
Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
#4I made a tiny donation just now.
Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
#5Can someone in Germany confirm this block is actually in place?
In any case, if anyone in Germany would like to access Project Gutenberg, I maintain a full, daily updated mirror here: https://mirrors.sorengard.com/gutenberg. I also support FTP and Rsync if you’d like to download that way.
No donations are asked for, but it would be helpful if more people hosted mirrors for precisely this reason :). Unfortunately this mirror doesn’t have the search capabilities of the Project Gutenberg homepage, but it at least has all the files.
Now I’m actually curious about what is going to happen with Project Gutenberg mirrors. In general, many mirror admins (such as myself) join a project’s mirror mailing list and don’t necessarily pay attention to the right announcements to learn about this kind of legal minutia. That presents something of a logistics problem all around.
Putting aside ethics, it’s likely that many/most downstream mirrors simply won’t block German traffic. Project Gutenberg can stop redirecting German traffic to those mirrors on the fly, but they can’t stop the mirrors from being available unless they start banning mirrors (and mirror syncing traffic) that don’t enforce similar blocks...this seems logistically untenable.
It would be cool if we could get a lawyer to chime in about Project Gutenberg’s liability with respect to forcing other mirrors to comply. For example, I’m making my own mirror available to Germany. Is Project Gutenberg complicit in a meaningful sense, if they allow me to continue mirroring?
Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
#6Can someone in Germany confirm this block is actually in place? In any case, if anyone in Germany would like to access Project Gutenberg, I maintain a full, daily updated mirror here: https://mirrors.sorengard.com/gutenberg . I also support FTP and Rsync if you’d like to download that way. No donations are asked for, but it would be helpful if more people hosted mirrors for precisely this reason :). Unfortunately thi…
Can anything be made using ipfs?
Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
#7Can someone in Germany confirm this block is actually in place? In any case, if anyone in Germany would like to access Project Gutenberg, I maintain a full, daily updated mirror here: https://mirrors.sorengard.com/gutenberg . I also support FTP and Rsync if you’d like to download that way. No donations are asked for, but it would be helpful if more people hosted mirrors for precisely this reason :). Unfortunately thi…
>Can someone who is in Germany actually confirm this block is in place?
Cannot confirm it, Gutenberg.org works fine for me.
Edit: tried 3 different ISPs, no issues.
Edit 2: Tried accessing books, this was blocked for 1/3.
Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
#8> PGLAF complied with the Court's order on February 28, 2018 by blocking all access to www.gutenberg.org and sub-pages to all of Germany. I can access www.gutenberg.org and sub-pages just fine from Germany. So the block doesn't seem to be active at the moment. > Q: Why didn't Project Gutenberg simply remove the items? > A: The is no reason to remove them. The 18 eBooks are all in the public domain in the US, and have…
[deleted]
Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
#9> PGLAF complied with the Court's order on February 28, 2018 by blocking all access to www.gutenberg.org and sub-pages to all of Germany. I can access www.gutenberg.org and sub-pages just fine from Germany. So the block doesn't seem to be active at the moment. > Q: Why didn't Project Gutenberg simply remove the items? > A: The is no reason to remove them. The 18 eBooks are all in the public domain in the US, and have…
The link addresses just that:
> The decision to acceed to the German Court's order to make items inaccessible from Germany is intended to be a temporary appeasement, while the appeal occurs - this is because the German appeal Court will likely look disfavorably on PGLAF if it shows contempt for the German Court.
Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany
#10Can someone in Germany confirm this block is actually in place? In any case, if anyone in Germany would like to access Project Gutenberg, I maintain a full, daily updated mirror here: https://mirrors.sorengard.com/gutenberg . I also support FTP and Rsync if you’d like to download that way. No donations are asked for, but it would be helpful if more people hosted mirrors for precisely this reason :). Unfortunately thi…
Can confirm it. All books are blocked even though the front page is accessible.