Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany • Hacker News Board

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#481

Post by mirimir » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 8:49 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #357

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…

> 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 Tw…

Sure, many companies comply "in certain countries lest they’re blocked completely". But Alexandra Elbakyan has ignored judgments in US courts against her. Under Russian law, I believe that her site is legal under fair use. She has managed to piss off the Putin administration, but that's a separate issue (as I understand it, her communist purity vs his vanity). And Google basically left China over censorship demands.

In the Mega case, the US basically leveraged their Five Eyes relationship with New Zealand to have Kim Dotcom's estate semi-illegally raided in January 2012. I say semi-illegally because it was done under agreements that are normally used against terrorists. I doubt that China could get away with rendition from US soil. No more than the US could get away with rendition of Snowden from Russian soil.

So basically, which countries get to enforce their law in other countries depends on relationships and dependencies, relative military power, and support from powerful allies. Under those standards, Germany might have a chance of prevailing against Project Gutenberg in the US. Except that the US doesn't like to be pushed around.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#482

Post by piotrkaminski » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

robjwells wrote: post #386

piotrkaminski wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is distinct from, say, a company explicitly providing a service to customers in a particular country (cf GDPR). In what ways do you think the GDPR is distinct from the laws in the present case? Let's say, for argument's sake, that gutenberg.org starts capturing PII about visitors and storing it without conforming to the GDPR. Do you think it would be fair for the EU to sue them and (attempt to) enforce their l…

(Starting with the caveat that I’m not hugely well-versed in the GDPR:) I think that actively soliciting personal data from people (wherever they may be) and collecting or processing it entails a higher level of responsibility. The GDPR in that situation effectively says: if you want to collect or process data on EU citizens you have to follow some rules. I don’t believe that simply publishing a document online, for…

(Thanks for the well-reasoned reply! I'll preface mine by saying that I'm not terribly well-versed in the GDPR either... and that's really part of the problem.)

AFAICT, the GDPR consider an IP address to be PII. So collecting visitor logs or sticking an analytics script on the page -- even without asking people to sign in or otherwise identify themselves -- would fall under the purview of the GDPR. I don't think doing such things should cross the line into "active character".

It's also a terrible idea to infer intent from offering translations in other languages. As another comment pointed out (I presume correctly) there are more German speakers outside Germany than there are within its borders. Why should trying to improve the accessibility of a web site by people around the world make one susceptible to the laws of a language's native country?

As you say, the implied end state is the real problem: do I now need to learn about the relevant laws of every country whose residents (or even citizens?) might visit my web site? That's regulation without representation, and should be resisted on principle IMHO. Or will every site need a standard disclaimer that it's only intended for residents of X?

Perhaps some creative lawyer will figure out how to add a clause to Terms of Use that shifts responsibility for damages incurred by exposure to extraterritorial laws to the offending (offended?) user, and we can have a detente through mutually assured destruction of dueling lawsuits. :)

And just to preempt any criticism from the European peanut gallery, I'm in favor of stronger privacy protections on the Internet but they need to be worked out and agreed on globally, not imposed unilaterally by claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#483

Post by Borealid » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 9:27 PM UTC

GlobalFrog wrote: post #467

d0100 wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come they have to obey the court in Germany?

Copyright laws are to be respected whatever the country. This is a border case, so to see if the principle is sound, let's imagine something. Let's say a country, for whatever reason, decides that its copyright protections are of 1 year only. After that, this country decides that all books, movies, games are freely available from its territory through the internet because their copyrights are expired. Does anyone bel…

Is the country with the one-year copyrights a Berne Convention signatory?

If so, then it is in violation of the treaty, which sets a minimum term for copyrights. The WIPO may adjudicate and other signatories may take action.

If not, then what you have is a national sovereignty issue. Other countries can restrict trade with the one with different laws, but they can't directly stop it from refusing to be similar to them (without a military invasion!).

This is currently the situation with things like online gambling. It's legal in some parts of the world, and in others the citizens accessing the sites may be prosecuted, but the sites themselves are usually beyond the reach of the disapproving countries - often the USA.

I should note that it is totally possible to have two countries with CONTRADICTORY laws that cannot be simultaneously satisfied. How would you deal with that situation, if all must be respected?

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#484

Post by _Microft » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

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…

> However in this instance I think of it as a contribution against publishers (ab)using the justice system

Enforcing that Project Gutenberg actually respects german copyright law when offering service to german users is abusing the justice system? That's a surprising interpretation of these events, in my opinion.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#485

Post by _Microft » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

Mindwipe wrote: post #384

greenyoda wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "International websites have to respect local laws." German companies operating in the US need to respect US law. As the article noted: "Q: Why did this all take place in the German Court system, rather than the US - where Plaintiff does business as Macmillan, and PGLAF is based? A: The legal guidance PGLAF received is that US law requires that such proceedings would have taken place in the US, and in fact any atte…

I have to be blunt here, whomever is giving PGLAF legal advice here almost certainly did not advise that last paragraph, because there is abundant precedent that it's incorrect. In addition, EU copyright harmonisation means that the publisher would succeed in this case in every country in the EU (or just getting the judgement from the German court carried up to the European court). Will PGLAF block the entire EU when…

The reaction of blocking access to all of Project Gutenberg only for german users and not for european user strongly suggests rather a kneejerk reaction/retaliation than an abundance of caution on their part.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#486

Post by Haydos585x2 » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 10:29 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #444

wolco wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't buy but pirate and share. Let's not block information only payment.

So the authors should work for free? That’s theft.

The author probably got paid an amount for writing the book and then hands all rights over to the publisher. The publisher then prints it forever and takes the income from that. This is a guess based on working with other publishers though. Individual companies may differ.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#487

Post by Hop_Gracer » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

Here in Germany I can access the home page but not any actual books.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#488

Post by mcguire » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 10:59 PM UTC

tom_mellior wrote: post #459

mcguire wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an established treaty for handling this particular issue. The court in question has decided not to follow that treaty.

Could you be more specific?

The Berne Convention specifies minimum copyright provisions (equivalent to current US and German practice, IIUC), requires other countries to protect works as strongly as their own, and describes how to resolve conflicts (WIPA).

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#489

Post by detuur » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 11:18 PM UTC

djur wrote: post #247

detuur wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this logic the US has no jurisdiction to act against a child pornography website aimed at Americans, used by Americans, with pictures of American children, as long as the website is hosted in Russia, where child pornography remains legal (or any of the other countries where it's legal and/or authorities don't care). Remember, this means that the FBI has no right to even investigate the persons involved in it. No j…

Your example goes too far -- the FBI would absolutely have jurisdiction to investigate the appearance of American children on such a site, as well as to go after Americans who used the site, because that involves the commission of crimes on American soil.

Oh sure they could investigate, I didn't express myself well enough. But they're not going to get much without internal server data. They wouldn't be able to undertake any action against the site, much like American officers can't come to Russia to arrest suspects. They would be wholly dependent on cooperation with local authorities, who wouldn't care at all because it's not illegal in Russia.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#490

Post by detuur » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 11:23 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #274

detuur wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could we for once and for all stop entertaining the ridiculous notion that GMOs are somehow harmful or a thing that should be avoided? Every single argument I've heard against GMOs, so far, has been a form of wilfully ignorant neo-luddism. While yes, the contracts that companies selling GMOs utilise are socially unfair, it's not like we consider databases to be a horrific thing because Oracle licensing terms are bull…

> the ridiculous notion that GMOs are somehow harmful I did not express any judgement on this topic, I just pointed out that the current state of play at EU level on the subject is the result of extensive lobbying from the relevant industry.

Ah I see. Still, your statement that extensive lobbying has won is pretty much a blanket statement for any contentious legislation. Both sides will extensively lobby and whichever side wins will be able to attribute it to lobbying.

In GMOs case, it appears that the traditional lobbyists (the corporate lobbyists) have actually lost in the EU. GMOs are subject to dumb shit like mandatory labelling which only reinforces people's ill-founded fears and will inevitably poison debate going forward. After all, "why would they force labelling if it were harmless?"