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Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

cand.pglaf.org

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Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#351

Post by TobiasBales »

neya wrote: post #350

> 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 m…

Does this apply to DMCA notices etc if a company is not based in the US too then?

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#352

Post by klibertp »

jhasse wrote: post #152
antoncohen wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> International websites have to respect local laws. No way. If I, a US citizen, publish a website hosted in the US that is critical of the Turkish president, should a Turkish court be able to compel me to take it down or block access from Turkey? What if I'm Israeli and I publish open source software, source and binary hosted in Israel, that is against US hacking laws. Should a US court be able to order an Israeli t…

Another example: If you're in a country where child pornography is legal, should all other countries just accept it? If you're in a country where doxxing is legal, should the victims not be able to do anything against it?

Yes and yes.

Other countries can ban their citizens from accessing the child porn. They cannot ban a citizen of another country from hosting said porn if it's legal there.

This is obvious. Whether it's about porn, dissident political opinions or my cooking blog makes no difference.

Repeat after me: your country has no right to order citizens of other countries who live outside of your country to do anything. And vice versa, of course.

On a more personal note, here - a bit east from you - there was a time when your government could order people around, and it did. We don't want to repeat that, which is what you're calling for. There's a lot of blood behind some countries becoming independent. Show some respect for that.

That some countries could use their independence to allow child porn is unfortunate. I still won't support invading them over it. You need to realize that you're arguing for just that - infringing their independence - just without the tanks entering the picture (for now). Honestly, stop that. There are still people alive who remember the last time your folks did that. At the very least, let those people die out before doing it again.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#353

Post by TobiasBales »

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 using a VPN or anything and can access http://www.gutenberg.org/ just fine from germany (including access to books). Not sure why though.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#354

Post by klokoman »

neya wrote: post #350

> 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 m…

I am from the EU and I appreciate you

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#355

Post by xtrapolate »

Blocking the whole country is an interesting move, mostly because it has the potential to generate a much greater public outcry than simply masking away the few specific books in question, putting a greater public pressure to reevaluate the entire legal constructs surrounding these issues. It's a display of standing for your principles without compromise.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#356

Post by gpvos »

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.

That would be risky for the people running Project Gutenberg, since Germany and the US have extradition treaties.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#357

Post by Xylakant »

mirimir wrote: post #329
Xylakant wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d question it’s illegal. They have the right to host the books in the US, granted. But do they have the right to distribute them in germany? That’s where the court says no. And given the legal situation in germany, I think the courts decision could be correct. It’s also a bad decision in practical and strategic terms: either they appeal the decision, then they accepted jurisdiction and the legality of the injunctio…

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…

> But consider the implications. Firms hosting content from a particular country would be subject to court orders from every country. That would not end well.

They already are if they target users in a given country. Lack of international enforcement just means that they might escape enforcement. See also GDPR, the US case against Mega, a company run by a NZ resident and incorporated in Hongkong IIRC. See also how Twitter blocks certain tweets in certain countries lest they’re blocked completely. Same holds true for Facebook. Google censors certain autocomplete and searches in some countries. They also adhere to the EU “right to be forgotten” regulations - despite being an US company.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#358

Post by icebraining »

zanny wrote: post #146
2ion wrote: post #137

Fabulous :S The second time in 6 months German courts violated the public interest and ruled in favour of vested corporate intrests with an affect on me: * In late 2017, a useless commercial weather forecast outlet (aggregating its data itself from national institutations!) sued the German National Weather service into having to take down its free weather app from the Apple and Goole app stores (development and opera…

Why does the EU still have the same gross and absurd copyright terms and laws the US does? It fights US companies like Google on privacy and information security grounds, but seems to follow lockstep with the US on completely irrational copyright policy like "75 years after the author dies, only then can anyone else reproduce this work". The US has it because its government is coopted by big media like Disney, MPAA,…

seems to follow lockstep with the US on completely irrational copyright policy like "75 years after the author dies, only then can anyone else reproduce this work".

No, the US followed the EU on that one. The Berne Convention first set that policy¹ in 1886, and amongst the original signatories were multiple European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Others followed soon after, like Luxembourg (1888), Denmark (1903), Austria and Greece (1920), Hungary (1922), Ireland (1927), Finland (1928), etc.

The US was a holdout; they kept the policy based only on date of publication, which led to a much shorter duration, and only joined Berne a century after its creation.

Which is why the books in question in this lawsuit are in the public domain in the US but not in Germany.

¹ Berne only said life + 50, but it was already life + 80 in Germany before the US ever joined. The EU then harmonized at life + 70 in Directive 93/98/EEC.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#359

Post by sqldba »

merb wrote: post #346
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.

> copyright laws are a fucking joke.

Fixed that for you :-)

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#360

Post by dirkt »

Can someone explain to me why project Gutenberg has decided to block the COMPLETE site for German IPs instead of just blocking the books in question?

Is this just a dick move to enrage people and get attention?

And they could have blocked just the pages with the books in question directly after receiving the copyright violation notification...

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