Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

US rightsholders have been seriously abusing copyright outside of US borders. I personally am not okay with it.

If Germany's laws must be applied to a US business, then the US is prima facie not sovereign.

> But did they do the right thing by participating in a court that has no jurisdiction?

Good question - I was wondering myself. What's stopping them from simply ignoring the ruling and walking away? It's certainly not Project Gutenberg's obligation to carry out a block ordered by a country they don't do any business in. And if anyone thinks it is, does that still apply if the court isn't a german one, but instead one from...let's say...the faroer islands? Nobody would care and I don't see why Project Gutenberg should in this case.

I would second the motion that copyright laws are a f*ing joke. But given that laws are the way they are, there isn't clearly a good guy and a bad guy in this story. I really don't think it's wrong for German courts to intervene when German laws are broken in the way that a U.S.-based party facilitates a German-based party (who reads copyrighted material without paying for it) infringing on the rights of another German-based party (who authored or otherwise acquired rights in the material).

I think it's wrong for the U.S. to be a "safe haven" for people whose attitude towards the rest of the world is "screw you and your laws." That's exactly Google's legal strategy with privacy laws: They make sure everything they do when they violate E.U. privacy laws somehow comes under U.S. jurisdiction, which says something to the effect of "...well U.S.-based persons have a right to privacy, but, as for the rest of the world, dear Google, you hereby have permission to do whatever you want". (At least that's my non-expert understanding of U.S. privacy laws. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm a huge fan of PGLAF and the work it's doing, but I'm sorry to say that, in blocking all of Germany for everything, I do see a little bit of a reflection of this "screw the rest of the world" notion. Of course I do recognize that it's probably not borne out of pure bad attitude, but rather limited resources. When they clear works to be published, their clearance process is probably based only on U.S.-laws, and then they put it up globally. The solution would have to be to clear the rights on a matrix where every work needs to be looked at from the point of view of every jurisdiction, and access-controlled accordingly. Obviously that's a resource-intensive task, and I totally respect that PGLAF says they don't have the resources for that.

So really, what this is probably driving towards, is that every jurisdiction needs its own Project Gutenberg, with access restricted to that jurisdiction, and clearing rights according to its own laws. If a German legal expert reading this is interested in taking on such a task, please do get in touch. I'm up for the role of being the techie in this operation.

Ignoring the order could result in personal liability of people involved in the project (as this is now a willful violation). Those people can then strike off Germany (and likely the EU and other countries) from the list of places to ever visit.

They can seize all assets within their reach (e.g. donations from Germans) but this would be a larger problem if the site would be a for-profit company with European customers. So the risk for the site to have the ruling actually enforced is lower than usual.

The rule is: you can't, in any way, compel citizens of other countries living outside your country to do anything. You really shouldn't even try, unless it's with the cooperation with the other country (just fill a lawsuit there!).

If you do try, it's a straight path to extraordinary renditions, drone strikes, assassinations and other such joyous things. I'm not saying that it has to lead to this, but it could, it did in the past, and we've instituted a rule to prevent that. Please, honor the rules we've all agreed upon!

Now, back to the issue in question. If you put a site on the Internet, you're by default giving access to it to everyone - you need to put some effort into it to make filtering traffic possible. It doesn't matter how much effort is needed - just that you have to do something.

This court order tries to compel PG to do that "something". It doesn't matter, at all, how many books are involved. It doesn't matter that it's "just for German IPs". It doesn't matter how easy it is to implement. What's important is that the court tries to compel citizens of another country to do something. No matter how small it is, it's simply wrong. It shouldn't happen!

The court could force ISPs in its country to filter traffic so that you can't access those books. It could make filtering these books to be hardcoded in home routers and public access points. It could, for all I care, ban the Internet in its entirety - inside your country. It cannot, and should not even try, to force PG to do anything.

Now, there are exceptions to everything, established precedents, international agreements - I'm not a lawyer, I don't know if there's a legal argument which would allow the interference in other country affairs in this case. What I'm saying is that such interference, as a rule, is not allowed, supporting it should be viewed with suspicion and every argument presented should be very carefully scrutinized and verified.

Again, as a rule, you don't force foreigners who never set foot on your soil to do anything. Infringing on another country sovereignty is simply a no-go (unless you have a lot of nukes, apparently, but I digress). Why is it hard to understand?