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Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

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Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#361

Post by icebraining »

slake wrote: post #308
mcguire wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really asserting that a) anything in the German language falls under the jurisdiction of the German government, and that b) a relationship bearing on legal jurisdiction between two otherwise completely unrelated entities can be created by otherwise unrelated third parties?

Point a is covered under GDPR. If you have German on your website their courts have jurisdiction. The language is so vague that they will have jurisdiction over all the world when it comes to PI privacy laws.

If you have German on your website their courts have jurisdiction.

Nope:

"In order to determine whether such a controller or processor is offering goods or services to data subjects who are in the Union, it should be ascertained whether it is apparent that the controller or processor envisages offering services to data subjects in one or more Member States in the Union. (...) the mere accessibility of the controller’s, processor’s or an intermediary’s website in the Union, of an email address or of other contact details, or the use of a language generally used in the third country where the controller is established, is insufficient to ascertain such intention" (emphasis mine)

As long as German is used in the country where PG is located - and it is - then it's not enough to show that they're targeting German citizens.

https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-23/

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#362

Post by icebraining »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #293
jhasse wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those points can't be picked apart like you did. They add up and make it reasonable to argue that gutenberg.org is very well known in Germany and that lots of Germans have downloaded the books in question. The copyright owners are still selling those here and have probably already lost sales due to this. They tried to contact gutenberg.org, but where ignored. This isn't about free speech amd censorship. > If you thin…

> Those points can't be picked apart like you did. They add up Others are doing a fine job of taking apart the specifics, but it's important to understand why this form of argument is itself a fallacy. Inference works by taking into account new evidence and using it to adjust the probability with which you believe something to be true. So if you see Bob wearing a red shirt, you are more likely to believe that Bob own…

The US does have .us - it was actually the first ccTLD - and a complex hierarchy under it, it's just not commonly used for historical reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.us

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#364

Post by usr1106 »

simcop2387 wrote: post #323
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.

This is answered in the FAQ at the bottom of the article. Essentially because this sets a precedent that Germany believes it can sue over anything in the german language and other items in the library might potentially cause the same kind of lawsuit it's better to just block everything instead.

> Germany believes it can sue over anything in the german language

You did not read the ruling (carefully). The language of the books was not discussed at all. It was discussed whether the offer (to download books) is directed to people in Germany.

Project Gutenberg said "NO", because they use a .org domain. (Obviously trying to claim that Germans only visit .de domains and neglecting the fact that .org is really trying to stress international coverage)

The court ruled "YES" because

- Project Gutenberg explicitly mentions to be available worldwide (before the geo blocking resulting from this very case)

- Project Gutenberg has some of its Web site translated into German. (In court they argued they did that to address US users, because German is the 3rd biggest foreign language in the US. The court did not accept that argument.)

Furthermore it was counted against them that project Gutenberg advises on its web site that users must check local copyright laws before downloading, because downloading might be illegal according to local laws.

Taking these points into account I must say the court ruling was logical from a legal viewpoint. Project Gutenberg had only lame excuses and in fact denied their own mission in court.

The real issue is that incompatible country laws don't fit at all with Internet (unless you propose a Chinese big (fire)wall). But I don't see any improvements any time soon, a certain president just declared last week that trade wars are the way to go.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#365

Post by teamhappy »

scythe wrote: post #205
teamhappy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Is it so uncommon for big companies to evaluate the performance of various divisions independently? If Holtzbrinck recognizes that S. Fischer's activities have caused that subsidiary to start losing money, they will probably modify their opinion. Why would they want to subsidize a losing bet using the profits from other divisions? The fact that two companies are owned by the same holding group does not really mean th…

S. Fischer isn't just a independent subsidiary. The company is run by Monika Schoeller (born Monika von Holtzbrinck). She and her brother own large parts of Holtzbrinck and she's listed as a partner and member of the supervisory board on Holtzbrinck's website. (Her brother, Stefan von Holtzbrinck, is the CEO.)

> Why would they want to subsidize a losing bet using the profits from other divisions?

Because owning S. Fischer, Rowohlt and Droemer Knaur means owning a large chunk of the german book market.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#366

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

CO-VAX wrote: post #41

I just donated $100 to PGLAF because they are fighting the good fight. Their donation page [0] includes "Think of this as a contribution to your grandchildren." However in this instance I think of it as a contribution against publishers (ab)using the justice system much like so-called patent trolls. > Q: The plaintiff is S. Fischer Verlag, GmbH. Is that the international conglomerate? > A: Yes, it is part of a family…

I hope you don't mind that I take this opportunity to tell about he GFF, because it is very much related. If you are European and care about freedom rights, there is now an equivalent to the EFF/ACLU, called the "Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte" (short GFF), which translates to "Society For Freedom Rights".

They are mostly lawyers fighting strategic court battles in one of the cheapest country to do so, which in Europe happens to be Germany. This is a cost-effective way to further the cause of human and freedom rights.

If you are upset about

* excessive surveillance

* anti-whistleblower laws

* laws against freedom of information

then consider joining, they need your support to do what they do: https://freiheitsrechte.org/join/

Disclaimer: I'm not involved with the GFF except as a paying member.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#367

Post by starsinspace »

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,…

> The US has it because its government is coopted by big media like Disney, MPAA, and RIAA and the average American is too ignorant / doesn't care at all about the death and stifling of culture that 100+ year copyright terms bring about.

Germany has many powerful media/publishing companies as well, and most people don't care. It's really a very similar situation.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#368

Post by Freak_NL »

shmerl wrote: post #261

70 years for copyright (no matter from what point) is a ridiculous length to begin with.

It is even more painful when you realize that all of the 18 books mentioned were published in or before 1920.

Most of these books are over a century old.

I would expect that between the extremes of copyright abolishment and the current system of 'life + 70 years', most people would agree that some amount of protection is fair, but I seriously doubt that a majority feels that anything over 30 years since publication is necessary, much less considered fair. I wonder if that was ever researched in recent years.

Not that it matters; global copyright laws are permantently frozen because amending them is a costly matter requiring global coordination, and there is little political will to tackle this (or even consider it a problem). Any attempt to lower the extend of copyright (in any jurisdiction) will be met by a wall of well-paid lawyers and lobbyists pay-rolled by all the major content owners.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#369

Post by jhasse »

trothamel wrote: post #233
jhasse wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then German ISPs will be ordered to block the content in Germany. I don't know what's better, at least now the gutenberg.org frontpage is still accessible and theres an explanation which wouldn't be the case with an DNS block.

The German ISPs blocking the content is far better. In that case, Germans are living by German laws, and Americans are living by US laws. The alternative is to expect everyone to live by any law anywhere in the world, which is probably impossible in cases where things conflict.

> everyone to live by any law anywhere

The site is obly blocked in Germany.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#370

Post by fs111 »

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 just tried and it was not blocked. maybe the block does not work on IPv6..
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