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Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

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Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#111

Post by robjwells »

Findus23 wrote: post #97

I’m really for open access to old books, but for playing devils advocate I can see the courts point: International websites have to respect local laws. After all those are the only ones I can directly influence (by voting, etc.) If we’d start to ignore this (even if it is in my advantage in this case), this means I have no influence any more on how companies are allowed to interact with me (which shouldn’t be the cas…

> for playing devils advocate I can see the courts point: International websites have to respect local laws

I think this is an untenable position as it would mean that any website, published from any country, hosted on servers in any country, would have to abide by the laws of the world’s 193 countries.

Project Gutenberg’s argument is that they are only a US concern — everyone involved officially is in the US, and the site is hosted in the US.

This is distinct from, say, a company explicitly providing a service to customers in a particular country (cf GDPR).

And, to counter your point with an extreme example, it would mean that no-one is ever able to criticise the Thai monarch on any website in the world lest they be jailed under Thailand’s lèse majesté laws.

It’s one thing to say that an in-country website respect that country’s laws, it’s another entirely to say that any website hosted anywhere in the world must respect that country’s laws.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#112

Post by freeflight »

raverbashing wrote: post #83
freeflight wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's either them being sued or ISPs being ordered to block the website. Sued by whom? Afaik gutenberg.org is registered in California, no German jurisdiction, the cease&desist orders usually used to shut something like this down don't apply here. Same deal with ISPs: Afaik there's no legal framework to support anything like that, it's for exactly that reason why law firms like Waldorf and Frommer uses cease&des…

Rights owners in Germany would request the blocking to the Justice system, due to theirs rights being violated If someone hosts a website in another country, hosting US copyrighted material, I assume something similar would happen if the site refused to take the material down

The legalities behind this are mostly based on civil law and not as straight as some people here seem to think because German ISPs to have a certain level of protection, I can't remember the exact name of said legality (just imagine yet another very long German word, people familiar with Freifunker-Netz probably know this better), but it's pretty much a constant back and forth struggle.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#114

Post by smsm42 »

weinzierl wrote: post #60
ballenf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The whole paragraph reads: > 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. Ultimately, PGLAF seeks to establish that any complaints about copyright must be brought either to the US Cou…

PGLAF thinks that the German court is wrong. However, they would prefer to not have German court decision - even if they believe it is wrong - against them to be in power, since international treaties mean it can have consequences beyond Germany. Thus, they are fighting it in German court. In order to raise chances of winning, they choose not to openly flaunt German court decision - which they can always do later if it turns out resolving it within German justice system is a no go. It is a common thing to do - you can disagree with some decision being legal and still temporary abide by it in order to work within the judicial system and not put yourself outside it.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#115

Post by thenaturalist »

s3nnyy wrote: post #66

> "Because the German Court has overstepped its jurisdiction, and allowed the world's largest publishing group to bully Project Gutenberg for these 18 books, there is every reason to think that this will keep happening" Why do German courts think they can overstep jurisdictions?

See, they think they don't.

From the court document:

> The action is admissible. In particular, the District Court of Frankfurt am Main has international and local jurisdiction pursuant to § 32 ZPO (German Rules of Civil Procedure). According to § 32 ZPO, the court of the district where an unlawful act was committed has jurisdiction for suits brought against such acts. Unlawful acts within the meaning of § 32 ZPO also include copyright infringements. Along with local jurisdiction, this provision also governs the international jurisdiction of German courts. An unlawful act within the meaning of § 32 ZPO is deemed to have been committed both at the place where the offense was committed and at the place where the offense had its effect, so jurisdiction optionally applies to the place where the infringement was committed or where the legally protected interest was affected. A conclusive claim of facts substantiating an unlawful act committed within the judicial district is enough to establish jurisdiction. § 32 ZPO also covers claims for injunctive relief. According to § 32 ZPO, if a copyright or related property right is allegedly infringed by making the protected property publicly accessible via a website, the place where the unlawful act was committed is Germany if the asserted rights are protected in Germany and if the website is (also) publicly accessible in Germany. However, intended availability of the web presence in Germany (among other countries) is not a requirement (...).

This - to me - is quite a funny piece of jurisdiction and probably one of the reasons why international mediation processes do exist.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#116

Post by gambiting »

Findus23 wrote: post #97

I’m really for open access to old books, but for playing devils advocate I can see the courts point: International websites have to respect local laws. After all those are the only ones I can directly influence (by voting, etc.) If we’d start to ignore this (even if it is in my advantage in this case), this means I have no influence any more on how companies are allowed to interact with me (which shouldn’t be the cas…

If your website breaks moral decency laws in Saudi Arabia, and a court there orders you to close your website, would you comply?

Look at it from another perspective - if a German court has a problem with German citizens breaking German law in Germany, it should perhaps pursue those citizens and judge them. A US website can't(and shouldn't) be breaking any German laws by existing in US - maybe you could make an argument that German people accessing the website from Germany are breaking German law, but that's not what the court is saying. The court is saying that because project Gutenberg hosts books in German, then Germany has the right to judge them - which is obviously bollocks, you can speak German or write in German without having anything to do with Germany, a country cannot own a language.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#117

Post by freeflight »

Xylakant wrote: post #109
freeflight wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I missed that, somewhat recent, development thank you for pointing this out. Still, as you said, this is legally murky and I wouldn't be too surprised if this turns out to be overturned again by a higher court. Some German courts have a reputation for quickly and easily siding with copyright claimants, just to have it overturned later by a higher instance. It's still really shitty that stuff like this keeps on happen…

The EUGH decision is fairly recent and it’s about as far up as possible. So I wouldn’t hold my breath unless the EU doubles down on net neutrality.

The EUGH link does not work, but the Vodafone case was a decision by a Munich court, which could still be overturned if somebody bothered going all the way up to the BVerfG.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#118

Post by cerebellum »

The plaintiff is S. Fischer Verlag, GmbH.

S. Fischer Verlag, GmbH is part of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group since 1963 [0].

Macmillan Publishers Ltd is wholly owned by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group since 1999 [1]

Basically a sister company of Macmillan which may (or may not) be hit with the negative publicity fallout in the more than 70 countries it operates in...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._Fischer_Verlag [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macmillan_Publishers

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#119

Post by crx087 »

Findus23 wrote: post #97

I’m really for open access to old books, but for playing devils advocate I can see the courts point: International websites have to respect local laws. After all those are the only ones I can directly influence (by voting, etc.) If we’d start to ignore this (even if it is in my advantage in this case), this means I have no influence any more on how companies are allowed to interact with me (which shouldn’t be the cas…

> I can see the courts point: International websites have to respect local laws

No, they don’t, and shouldn’t.

I’m free to offend the sensibilities of China, disgrace the Ayatollah, and violate a wide variety of other “local laws” from the comfort of my home or workplace.

If those places don’t like it, they’re also free to censor content until such time that their populace won’t tolerate it any longer.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#120

Post by Findus23 »

robjwells wrote: post #111
Findus23 wrote: post #97

I’m really for open access to old books, but for playing devils advocate I can see the courts point: International websites have to respect local laws. After all those are the only ones I can directly influence (by voting, etc.) If we’d start to ignore this (even if it is in my advantage in this case), this means I have no influence any more on how companies are allowed to interact with me (which shouldn’t be the cas…

> for playing devils advocate I can see the courts point: International websites have to respect local laws I think this is an untenable position as it would mean that any website, published from any country, hosted on servers in any country, would have to abide by the laws of the world’s 193 countries. Project Gutenberg’s argument is that they are only a US concern — everyone involved officially is in the US, and th…

I agree with you. Following every law is neither practical and in the case of censorship even counterproductive. I just wanted to point out that the reaction of the court isn’t as entirely pointless as it may seem on first thought.
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