Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany • Hacker News Board

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#211

Post by trothamel » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:44 AM UTC

I am not a lawyer, but...

I hope and suspect that the US courts would refuse to enforce the judgement against Project Gutenberg. A little bit of research shows that for a foreign judgement to be enforced, a country would need to have personal jurisdiction over the defendant.

That doesn't seem to be the case here, at least under the US law that would apply if the judgement was being enforced.

Given all the overreach of European governments over the past few years (VATMOSS, GDPR, and now this), I suspect the time is ripe for something like the SPEECH act, a law clarifies that when a US citizen makes something available on the US, that does does not subject them to the law of a non-US country - and that allows the US citizen to claim court costs if someone tries to register a judgement against them.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#212

Post by jhasse » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:46 AM UTC

rphlx wrote: post #197

jhasse wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. No. If you read the court order, they are arguing, that gutenberg.org is targeted at Germans. There are a few reason: 1. there's a link on the front page to view the site in German 2. there's a similar German project: htt…

Without commenting on the other arguments-#3 seems ludicrous. Claiming that a country's local law applies to an institution in another country "because it's named after someone who lived in our territory" seems a pretty ethically and legally impotent argument. Especially when you consider that "Germany" in its current sense did not exist until many hundreds of years after Gutenberg died. Should modern French courts g…

It was just a small point which might make German think "this is a website that is legal in Germany" or even "this is a website from an entity in Germany". But it isn't, it's a US website, legal in the US and illegal in Germany.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#213

Post by k__ » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

dsacco wrote: post #5

Can 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…

I get ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#214

Post by rphlx » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #183

gambiting wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 argume…

There is the idea of universal jurisdiction for certain crimes, but it's usually stuff like genocide and really nasty stuff, not copyright infringement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_jurisdiction

Yes - Israel used this rather famously on ex-Nazis that they "extralegally imported" from around the world, even though a) the accused was not an Israeli citizen, b) none of the victims were Israeli citizens at the time of the crime, c) the crimes did not occur on Israeli territory. In most other cases those would be major jurisdictional issues.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#215

Post by andrewprock » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:49 AM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #194

LoSboccacc wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because all German speaking people reside in Germany right?

No, but most do. So translating to German and offering German books (pretty well known ones btw) should get you thinking about German laws for a moment.

Most speakers of German don't live in Germany.

There are roughly 200 million German speakers in the world, but only 82 million residents of Germany.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#216

Post by trothamel » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:53 AM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #184

gambiting wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But....why? In a certain way, it's just some random court from a country you've never been to ordering you to do something. Why would you comply. There are ways foreign entities and governments can pursue an American company through the American legal system - the plaintiff decided not to do that here and decided to go through the German system instead. Which is all fine and dandy, but I still don't understand why an…

> But....why? In a certain way, it's just some random court from a country you've never been to ordering you to do something. Why would you comply. In the beginning (like it was in this case with gutenberg.org), it isn't a court order, but just an email, asking me if I could respect their local laws. Books becoming public domain example: In Germany it's 75 years after the author's death, in the US some amount of year…

> Don't you consider a website in German, accessible from Germany, which looks totally legal for most Germans as some kind of legal presence in Germany?

No.

The site is created in some set of locations, and is hosted on servers in some set of locations. If none of those locations is in Germany, Germany has no personal jurisdiction.

(At least under US law, which is what counts when it comes to enforcing judgement against someone in the US.)

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#217

Post by Zak » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:53 AM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #171

simonh wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it that distinguishes a web site from an international web site? Do you feel that laws on web site content passed in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Vietnam should apply to web sites created or operated by you or posts made by you on line? Would you expect yourself and other global posters and journalists to be bound, for example, by Thailand’s Lese Majeste laws on criticism or comment related to their k…

gutenberg.org has a link to view it in German on the front page. I guess if you provide several translations and use a top level domain like .org, you are more likely an international web site than an English-only .us web site.

All websites that are not intentionally blocked from specific regions by the website operator, a government or internet service providers are available everywhere in the world. English is the world's most spoken language. In effect, most websites are international websites.

That doesn't make them subject to the laws of every country. Most legal systems do not accept the standard the German court used and require a more significant physical, legal or economic connection to a country before a website may be subject to its laws.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#218

Post by rphlx » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:54 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #204

roywiggins wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the idea of universal jurisdiction for certain crimes, but it's usually stuff like genocide and really nasty stuff, not copyright infringement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_jurisdiction

Universal jurisdiction only applies if you lose a war. Winning makes you immune, like Kissinger, Bush, Obama, Reagan, the Clinton’s, Putin.

Nit: Kissinger was actually tried as a war criminal in Spain under the principal of universal jurisdiction. Assuming he did not visit Spain he was immune to actual punishment, of course, but "winning" did not make him immune to being tried under that legal principal.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#219

Post by jrs95 » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:54 AM UTC

curiousfab wrote: post #40

PG did exactly the right thing here. By only blocking these 18 books, nobody would have taken much notice of this. By blocking all German users from the site, they will get a lot of media attention, and S. Fischer Verlag will get a lot of bad press. Whether or not they will move from their position is questionable, but it will hurt them. Just sent a small donation to PG. Making an effort not to buy books from that pu…

For a second I thought you were talking about Paul Graham

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#220

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:55 AM UTC

MarkMc wrote: post #195

obastani wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was pretty clear. They specifically say "certain items" were to be blocked, not the entire website.

I disagree - it's not at all clear. Most people reading the statement would assume that the book they were trying to access was among the 'certain items' blocked by the court.

[deleted]