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Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

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Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#51

Post by IanSanders »

heisig wrote: post #4

This is great news! This is a wonderful project, and the fact that it wasn't accessible from Germany made me profoundly sad and angry. I hope the responsible copyright lawyers have a hard time sleeping because of this and consider changing their line of work. If you are blocking people from reading books in the public domain, it is a good indication that you are one of the bad guys. Even worse, they only blocked peop…

>I hope the responsible copyright lawyers have a hard time sleeping because of this and consider changing their line of work.

Risking going off tangent, I highly doubt that would happen. When you work in a domain, your entire life becomes it, you slowly lose wider context and alternative perspective. I doubt there are many people who purposefully want to be the bad guys, it seems more like "learned indifference". Just like many people who eat meat on a daily basis but would be uncomfortable with a thought of a chicken being killed in a process (and some freak out from a sight of a live lobster in a restaurant tank). Maybe it's a negative side of the "flow" - losing some degree of empathy.

Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#52

Post by mdp2021 »

mistrial9 wrote: post #45

Project Gutenburg was blocked in Germany ? news to me, weird.. especialy considering the torrents and spy action that has happened in the same 25 years, while this token effort protects companies formed in the 1950s.

Not only in Germany. Also in Italy, as of May 2020 (those hardly definable beasts that carved their way into the state made a bunch of targets associating Project Gutenberg with pirate sites).

Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#53

Post by germanier »

ma2rten wrote: post #48
germanier wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which international treaties were ignored by German courts in these cases?

The OP writes: "International treaties explicitly and unambiguously support PGLAF's legal guidance as described above: that the copyright status in one country is not impacted or enforceable or otherwise relevant in other countries. Plaintiff managed to find a German Court, and some precedents from Germany (and, after the lawsuit was filed, from the EU), which were willing to flaunt international treaties by developi…

That's the biased interpretation of the PGLAF. Framing the whole thing as "unambiguous", "managed to find a German Court" and "some precedents" is disingenuous. There is a reason they don't refer to any precedent supporting their position: there is none. How can you say with a straight face that the issue is unambiguous when in fact there is precedence pointing in the other direction?

Note that the courts didn't ignore those treaties and or somehow ruled they weren't enforceable. They just have a different interpretation of the legal contents of those treaties than the PGLAF does. Law is often not black or white and anyone who claims there is just one true position doesn't tell you the whole truth. The issue is actually pretty interesting legally and there is a lot more subtlety to it than the claim that courts are somehow bending the law.

Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#54

Post by ghaff »

pgeorgi wrote: post #44
orra wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Germany doesn't do legal precedent, but is there actually any case law demonstrating works can't be put into the public domain? The idea it can't be done is a trope at this point, but I am frankly skeptical. Moral rights to recognition aside, copyright can be sold, like any other property. Why do we think it can't be abandoned, again like any other property?

§42 UrhG ( https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__42.html , english translation https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_urhg/englisch_ur... ) is probably core to what an author can do about their personality rights in relation to their works: --- Section 42 Right of revocation for changed conviction (1) The author may revoke a right of use vis-à-vis the rightholder if the work no longer reflects his conviction…

>Just use CC0, it's cleaner.

Which is probably fine for most text. Although note that CC0 was withdrawn from consideration by the OSI as a software license primarily because of issues around the patent language. (Basically the license does not grant patent rights which, depending on one's position about implicit grants, may or may not be an issue.) MIT-0 may be a better choice for software as a result.

Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#55

Post by ghaff »

heisig wrote: post #4

This is great news! This is a wonderful project, and the fact that it wasn't accessible from Germany made me profoundly sad and angry. I hope the responsible copyright lawyers have a hard time sleeping because of this and consider changing their line of work. If you are blocking people from reading books in the public domain, it is a good indication that you are one of the bad guys. Even worse, they only blocked peop…

>Even worse, they only blocked people from Germany that didn't know how to use a VPN. German courts really don't get how the internet works.

I wouldn't make that assumption at all. As with many other examples, such as GDPR-related geofencing, a good faith attempt to restrict access usually goes a long way even if it's possible for a savvy user to get around the blocks.

Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#56

Post by wutbrodo »

zmix wrote: post #16
heisig wrote: post #4

This is great news! This is a wonderful project, and the fact that it wasn't accessible from Germany made me profoundly sad and angry. I hope the responsible copyright lawyers have a hard time sleeping because of this and consider changing their line of work. If you are blocking people from reading books in the public domain, it is a good indication that you are one of the bad guys. Even worse, they only blocked peop…

In Germany, the concept of "Public Domain" does not exist. (EDIT: It may exist 70 years after the authors death). IANAL. Besides that, even if it would, the books would not have been in the Public Domain. From the announcement: > In Germany, they are copyrighted based on "life +70 years" of copyright protection (so, copyright will expire after 2020, 2025 and 2027, respectively). From a legal and business perspective,…

> From a legal and business perspective, neither German legislation nor the Fischer Verlag are at fault here. It's just the way it is (in Germany): Creators hold their intellectual property for life and can make sure, their heir profits from the work of the (grand)parents, as well (+70 years after death of copyright holder).

I don't follow. Aren't you describing German legislation's choice to have extremely long copyright periods? How do you conclude that German legislation not at fault here?

Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#57

Post by pbininda »

pgeorgi wrote: post #44
orra wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Germany doesn't do legal precedent, but is there actually any case law demonstrating works can't be put into the public domain? The idea it can't be done is a trope at this point, but I am frankly skeptical. Moral rights to recognition aside, copyright can be sold, like any other property. Why do we think it can't be abandoned, again like any other property?

§42 UrhG ( https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__42.html , english translation https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_urhg/englisch_ur... ) is probably core to what an author can do about their personality rights in relation to their works: --- Section 42 Right of revocation for changed conviction (1) The author may revoke a right of use vis-à-vis the rightholder if the work no longer reflects his conviction…

Small addition: the UrhG mentioned is the Urheberrechtsgesetz. Translated to English you would call it the "Law of rights of the originator". It is not just about "the right to make copies".

Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#58

Post by kps »

pbininda wrote: post #57
pgeorgi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

§42 UrhG ( https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__42.html , english translation https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_urhg/englisch_ur... ) is probably core to what an author can do about their personality rights in relation to their works: --- Section 42 Right of revocation for changed conviction (1) The author may revoke a right of use vis-à-vis the rightholder if the work no longer reflects his conviction…

Small addition: the UrhG mentioned is the Urheberrechtsgesetz . Translated to English you would call it the "Law of rights of the originator". It is not just about "the right to make copies".

The English term is ‘moral rights’.

Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#59

Post by [deleted] »

zmix wrote: post #16
heisig wrote: post #4

This is great news! This is a wonderful project, and the fact that it wasn't accessible from Germany made me profoundly sad and angry. I hope the responsible copyright lawyers have a hard time sleeping because of this and consider changing their line of work. If you are blocking people from reading books in the public domain, it is a good indication that you are one of the bad guys. Even worse, they only blocked peop…

In Germany, the concept of "Public Domain" does not exist. (EDIT: It may exist 70 years after the authors death). IANAL. Besides that, even if it would, the books would not have been in the Public Domain. From the announcement: > In Germany, they are copyrighted based on "life +70 years" of copyright protection (so, copyright will expire after 2020, 2025 and 2027, respectively). From a legal and business perspective,…

[deleted]

Re: Project Gutenberg is no longer fully blocked in Germany

#60

Post by kmeisthax »

heisig wrote: post #4

This is great news! This is a wonderful project, and the fact that it wasn't accessible from Germany made me profoundly sad and angry. I hope the responsible copyright lawyers have a hard time sleeping because of this and consider changing their line of work. If you are blocking people from reading books in the public domain, it is a good indication that you are one of the bad guys. Even worse, they only blocked peop…

Sssh! If you tell foreign courts and litigants about VPNs, they'll stop accepting "we'll block it in your country if you get off our backs" and start demanding international jurisdiction.

At that point "it's legal in my country" will no longer suffice for anything online (which is basically everything). Everyone will need to be in compliance with the most restrictive subset of the law. Just in the realm of copyright, the public domain would be dramatically curtailed. All you would need is one rich country with strong legal ties to other nations and an appetite for perpetual copyright, and you would have a judgment mill by which you can make using any public domain content extremely risky.

The current status quo of country-by-country blocking may seem silly to people who know how to evade those blocks, but it makes courts happy and walls off the worst effects of copyright maximalism.

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