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Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

cand.pglaf.org

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Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#371

Post by cyphunk »

xvilka wrote: post #331
madez wrote: post #313

To put things into perspective, the plaintiffs lawyers, Waldorf Frommer, are known for shady tactics. They have built an industry of putting immense pressure on private people. They don't shy away from lawsuits because they are cheap for them and menacing for the people. They don't always win, but under the line it is a very profitable business for them; they employ about 60 lawyers. The public broadcast made documen…

Publishing the name of the company will not really help to fight them. Every company is a team of people behind, so listing names of those people can have a better effect instead.

Could you expand on why you think the name of the company is not important here?

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#372

Post by FabHK »

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'm somewhat hesitant to post this as I don't condone online bullying, but if you wish to send a polite message explaining your opinion about this, here are some contacts:

Fischer Verlage:

Twitter: @Fischer_Presse

Phone: +49 69 6062-0

Fax: +49 69 6062-214

Fischer Verlage, Sales: https://www.fischerverlage.de/kontakt/verkauf_vertrieb

Fischer Verlage, Legal and Licenses: https://www.fischerverlage.de/kontakt/rechte_lizenzen

Holtzbrinck:

Phone: +49 711 2150-0

Fax: +49 711 2150-269

E-mail: info@holtzbrinck.com

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#373

Post by cyphunk »

dirkt wrote: post #360

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...

this is discussed here in the comments extensively. The best answer is that they block Germany because they expect if they complied by only blocking certain books they would have to deal with many more requests in the future. They also decided to take this chance to make a statement to encourage a public debate.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#374

Post by Mindwipe »

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 EU broadly follows the French legal tradition that copyright isn't a "monopoly granted for the useful arts" as we hear so much on here from Americans. Copyright is considered to be a property right, period. And hence inheritable.

The Hacker News contention that the US exports it's copyright policy flat out isn't true really. The EU has always had very similar beliefs on the value of strong, long term copyright.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#375

Post by xab9 »

Tomte wrote: post #91
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 can still access it. No proxies or VPNs of any kind, just regular Telekom DSL.

geofencing is not perfect.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#376

Post by FeepingCreature »

fs111 wrote: post #370
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..

Same here on 1&1.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#377

Post by Mindwipe »

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…

This is the case, and has always been the case.

It is pretty common for people to sue international publications for libel in the UK under UK libel laws on the basis that the site has British readers.

The US decided to unilaterally breach it's treaty provisions on that front and doesn't enforce British libel judgements (you may think this is a good thing, but that is what actually happened), but notably if you ever visit the UK as an American publisher you're still liable...

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#378

Post by Mindwipe »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #160
Findus23 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

PGLAF is incorporated in the US, their site is hosted in the US and their employees live in the US. Tell me again why they need to worry about the law of any country but the US? It's up to the German courts/government to deny access to sites that break their laws, not try to impose their law on people outside their jurisdiction.

I think you have a big shock coming about how international law works and applies to websites outside of their country.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#379

Post by gambiting »

jhasse wrote: post #369
trothamel wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but Germans having an issue with an American site just cost that American company €50,000 for no reason at all. I agree with the poster saying that if Germany had an issue with content they could have just blocked the website themselves.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#380

Post by Mindwipe »

harshreality wrote: post #223
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…

> illegal where ? On the internet, where project gutenberg is located. The argument put forward, that you repeated, implies just as much that someone could be prosecuted in a Chinese court for publishing a harsh (to the point of being illegal in China) criticism of China named freexinjiang.com, at least if the site included a Chinese version. And that , since it refers specifically to a Chinese province/area, would h…

> On the internet, where project gutenberg is located. The argument put forward, that you repeated, implies just as much that someone could be prosecuted in a Chinese court for publishing a harsh (to the point of being illegal in China) criticism of China named freexinjiang.com, at least if the site included a Chinese version. And that, since it refers specifically to a Chinese province/area, would have at least some nexus to China, whereas Project Gutenberg has zero connection to Germany.

You can be. A US court would be pretty reluctant to enforce it, but you can and always could.

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