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Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

cand.pglaf.org

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Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#341

Post by mirimir »

tscs37 wrote: post #338
mirimir wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could arguably have ignored the decision. If a German court rules that something should not be available in Germany, they should order German ISPs to block it. That's what the UK does about "illegal" torrenting and streaming. And that's what China does about the Dali Lama, Falun Gong, Uighur resistance, and so on. Edit: OK, so some argue that Project Gutenberg, which does business from the US, and which has no p…

An ISP block would also only block the entire site. This was not the intention of the court otherwise they would have done that instead. The court only wanted some books blocked, not the entire site, because under german copyright those books are not yet public domain.

I'm sure that ISPs could block particular URLs.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#342

Post by number6 »

foepys wrote: post #330
discordianfish wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, unlike some frankly sometimes a bit ignorant view of especially Americans, Germany isn't the paradise of individual/customers rights paradise it's often portraied as. It fights companies like Google not because privacy and security concerns but protectionism and the public accepts that due to some reasonble concerns about privacy spiked with deeply entrenched anti-americanism. (For context: I'm German)

I'm also German and strongly disagree with your opinion. Privacy is a very delicate topic in Germany since the Nazis and the Stasi used to arrest people for even talking bad about them.

While this is true for the people, the officials seem to have other goals and opinions about privacy. E.g. using video surveillance at the Südkreuz in Berlin.

Also from Germany ;)

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#343

Post by redmorphium »

gsich wrote: post #266
gowld wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG decided they don't have time to deal with Germany's BS, so they implemented the simplest solution guaranteed to work.

The simplest solution would have been to do nothing.

They still have to comply with the court ruling, i.e. at least block those 18 books in Germany, as they aren't The Pirate Bay. The website's move is smart because it avoids future complications coming from the Urheberrechtsgesetz, the German copyright law, and draws much-needed public attention to how easy it is for bully firms to abuse it.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#344

Post by tscs37 »

mirimir wrote: post #341
tscs37 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ISP block would also only block the entire site. This was not the intention of the court otherwise they would have done that instead. The court only wanted some books blocked, not the entire site, because under german copyright those books are not yet public domain.

I'm sure that ISPs could block particular URLs.

Only for HTTP requests, any HTTPS or non-HTTP request is not as easy to block.

Most site blocks are on the DNS level as they aren't particularly complicated.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#346

Post by merb »

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 am not blocked. I could've even download "Der Vater" one of the eBooks from the case.

And yes german copyright laws are a fucking joke.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#347

Post by quickthrower2 »

mcguire wrote: post #298
quickthrower2 wrote: post #201

I have a contrary opinion to most others here. PG should take steps to honour the copyright laws of other countries. My reasoning is this: Say hypothetically I started "Project Open" in a country with zero copyright protections. Then by that country's laws, I can list Amazons entire kindle catalog, buy all their books and scan them, and make it open access. And by the PG argument, ignore the laws of other countries t…

PG is honoring the laws of the US and, by extension, any country that had an appropriate treaty with the US. Which includes Germany.

That's OK if PG is only accessible in the US.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#348

Post by josteink »

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…

Stuff like this makes me want to run a mirror too.

If I may ask, how much disk capacity does running a Gutenberg mirror currently take?

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#349

Post by gnulinux »

teamhappy wrote: post #99
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…

> Making an effort not to buy books from that publishing house ever again, and telling all my friends about it. Good luck with that. S. Fischer is owned by Holtzbrinck. They own Macmillan, Springer Nature and a bunch of other publishing houses. Here's a list of their subsidiaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holtzbrinck_Publishing_Group#S...

That makes it easier to make an impact. Now that they own a considerable portion of the market, next time you're gonna buy some Macmillan book, just don't buy it, and instead find pdf through genlib or pirate bay.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#350

Post by neya »

> 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. There are thousands of eBooks in the Project Gutenberg collection that could be subject to similar over-reaching and illigitimate actions.

> PGLAF's legal advisors disagree with all claims that there must be any blocking, or removal, or anything associated - censorship, fines/fees, disclaimers, etc. - for items that are in the public domain in the US. Period.

I find this situation very similar to GDPR. I'd probably be down-voted for saying this (probably the demographic), but I will do the same thing to all of my online services and websites - I will block access to anyone based in EU leaving them a simple note to sort out their GDPR rules with their governments. My company is based in the states, I DO NOT have an obligation to follow your bullshit compliance requirements because you feel like it and over-step your jurisdiction. I will continue to follow the laws of where my company is incorporated under, but not every government in the world. So, fuck you and your tiny little data collection notice, I already have terms and conditions in place specifically for this purpose on my website and if you don't take an effort to read them, I am not simply going to modify my site code to make it easy for your lazy ass to display a notice on my data collection policies.

/end rant

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