German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website • Hacker News Board

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#41

Post by gurkendoktor » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 4:47 PM UTC

Oculus wrote: post #31

This isn't the first time the German government is doing something like this. Previously, they've established laws that dictate the way in which buttons must be presented on ecommerce websites[1]. 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxBaDs0sGPw&t=38m18s - Shopify CEO discussing international expansion.

Except this time it wasn't the German government but a single (local) judge - whereas the "Buttongesetz" was indeed promoted by the federal minister of justice, who was trying to address end-user complaints.

A better comparison would be that people with an open WiFi are liable for what their users do in Germany. Which means that small shops rarely offer WiFi, and large chains track people's identities as if they were Google.

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#42

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 4:53 PM UTC

RogerL wrote: post #40

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing wrong with that in principle There kind of is. It's making the assumption that an "illegal operation" is a binary thing deserving of absolute condemnation. It isn't saying that you can't, for example, sell a counterfeiter a money press, but rather that you can't provide him (or any other "criminal") with a loaf of bread, or a tank of gas, or a room for the night in winter, or a phone, etc. It's prac…

No, you've shut down that one domain, not made it impossible for them to own legal domain names, or otherwise be on the internet. Not that I agree with the law, but you seem to be rather overstating the repercussions. If I was renting to you, and found out you were cooking and distributing meth in the house, I would evict you. That would not mean you could never live in a house again, just that you can't do your crim…

> No, you've shut down that one domain, not made it impossible for them to own legal domain names, or otherwise be on the internet.

Haven't you? If you shut down example.com and they go out and buy example.net and point it back to their website, the registrar would be obliged to do the same thing with example.net, would they not?

Moreover, the ability to get another name is kind of the point: Evaluate the two possible alternatives. On one hand, say it's easy to disseminate the new name (or your IP address) to everyone you may want to communicate with. Then taking away the domain name is ineffective to prevent the alleged misconduct, so there is no reason to do it. On the other hand, suppose that it's difficult to let everyone know the new name. That presents the other problem: A million people come to example.com and you have a platform where you can tell them what's going on and why the accusations against you are false; replace example.com with a page of unproven allegations against you and now your audience has no way to hear your side of the story because they don't know where to find you.

> If I was renting to you, and found out you were cooking and distributing meth in the house, I would evict you. That would not mean you could never live in a house again, just that you can't do your crime on my property.

I don't think you're distinguishing between what you're allowed to do and what the law obliges you to do. If you evict someone because you don't want to rent to a meth cook then that's all well and good, they can go live somewhere else and rent from someone else. But if the law prohibits anyone from renting to someone thought to be a meth cook then where is an accused meth cook supposed to live?

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#43

Post by DennisP » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 5:14 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #27

SixSigma wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always wondered why one is able to sell a car that can go over 100mph when the maximum speed allowed on the roads in my country is 70mph and being caught going 100mph will land you in jail. We already know people cannot be trusted to "do the right thing" so high speed incidents will, and do, occur. As Richard Miller wrote in SQUED [1] "Show me a man that has never broken the law and I'll show you a man that ha…

I don't know about your country, but in some countries there are private race tracks where you can speed legally for a few thousand bucks.

And in Germany you can drive as fast as you want on the Autobahn.

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#44

Post by jules » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

cwp wrote: post #39

SixSigma wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always wondered why one is able to sell a car that can go over 100mph when the maximum speed allowed on the roads in my country is 70mph and being caught going 100mph will land you in jail. We already know people cannot be trusted to "do the right thing" so high speed incidents will, and do, occur. As Richard Miller wrote in SQUED [1] "Show me a man that has never broken the law and I'll show you a man that ha…

Because gearing that will let you go 100mph will also let you go 70mph at lower RPMs, leading to better gas milage and lower carbon emissions.

Modern cars are basically computers on wheels. It's not that hard to implement a hard speed limit.

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#45

Post by mtrimpe » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 5:38 PM UTC

pi-err wrote: post #36

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #35

As other people here addressed correctly: That ruling is not final. But it is true, that particularly lower German courts (some names are in the news again and again) have a long record of decisions that just show one thing: Many German judges have completely not understood computers and the internet. While judges might not needed to in general, they at least should take advice -- possibly by their own grandson? -- b…

Judges (continental Europe) apply the law. It's a different tradition than common law. They do interpret it though it leads you so far. My guess is that what those decisions mean is that the law needs a big change, especially on responsibility regime inherited from the Napoleon code.

Laws are also usually changed by a lower judge deliberately deciding to interpret a law literally, which will mean it gets passed on to higher courts with the authority to (initiate) changes to the law.

Not saying that is the case here though, but in law things are often not directly what they seem.

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#46

Post by PythonicAlpha » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 5:43 PM UTC

pi-err wrote: post #36

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #35

As other people here addressed correctly: That ruling is not final. But it is true, that particularly lower German courts (some names are in the news again and again) have a long record of decisions that just show one thing: Many German judges have completely not understood computers and the internet. While judges might not needed to in general, they at least should take advice -- possibly by their own grandson? -- b…

Judges (continental Europe) apply the law. It's a different tradition than common law. They do interpret it though it leads you so far. My guess is that what those decisions mean is that the law needs a big change, especially on responsibility regime inherited from the Napoleon code.

It is right, that in continental Europe, there is less freedom to judges interpreting the law. In theory they are bound to the law and have no own judging freedom as in the US.

BUT: This is theory. When you see the details of many decisions (I did not look into this one), there is still plenty of freedom to "interpret" the law. Also what they have to do is, analyse the situation to interpret the law. When the analysis is wrong, the decision comes out wrong. In many cases, the analysis just showed up plenty of disregard of computer reality.

One example lately happened, when a judge thought, that it would be possible to prohibit the viewing of images without the surrounding html file. Everybody with some knowledge of internet knows, that it is not! Thus the judging came out ridiculous ... it must still be challenged.

I don't want to defend German laws of course -- they are oftentimes ridiculous to! But there are just plenty of cases, where no law regarding computer techniques plainly exist. Then judges have to go by common law and interpret it for computer usage ... and there the situation analysis is crucial.

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#47

Post by tomp » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 5:49 PM UTC

us0r wrote: post #11

tluyben2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is not the EU and this is not final; it'll never pass EU wide nor will it in Germany for that matter.

Germany is the epitome of the EU. Pass or not Germany and the EU has way more regulation then the US. My point was people who like to complain about regulation here should take a peek across the pond.

Why would that be bad? The point of regulation is to prevent market inefficiencies, abuses, scams and similar. Regulation is the reason EU customers know how much they will pay for items (VAT included), know what the final flight prices will be, can have mobile subscriptions costing less than 25€ per month, get vacation, sick days and pregnancy leave, ...

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#48

Post by Zuider » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 10:07 PM UTC

pi-err wrote: post #36

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #35

As other people here addressed correctly: That ruling is not final. But it is true, that particularly lower German courts (some names are in the news again and again) have a long record of decisions that just show one thing: Many German judges have completely not understood computers and the internet. While judges might not needed to in general, they at least should take advice -- possibly by their own grandson? -- b…

Judges (continental Europe) apply the law. It's a different tradition than common law. They do interpret it though it leads you so far. My guess is that what those decisions mean is that the law needs a big change, especially on responsibility regime inherited from the Napoleon code.

Judges in the common law tradition are also obliged to apply the law as written (whether they like it or not). The expression 'interpret the law', when referring to a judge's duties still holds its original legal meaning and intent of simply reading the law as written. This sense of the word 'interpret' came from a time when literacy was rare, and reading was seen as 'interpreting' mysterious symbols on a parchment. Judges do have legitimate leeway to 'interpret' in the modern sense when it is not clear how the written law applies to a given case, but even then they are expected to do this in good faith: they are expected to make the old law apply to the new situation, not to make new laws (i.e. judicial activism), which is outside of their remit.

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#49

Post by vwinsyee » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 10:47 PM UTC

pjump wrote: post #23

us0r wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is the epitome of the EU. Pass or not Germany and the EU has way more regulation then the US. My point was people who like to complain about regulation here should take a peek across the pond.

My impression is that EU countries have annoyingly too much regulation for businesses and tend to afford individuals much more freedom than people have in the US. In the US, it seems to be the other way around.

But in the US, corporations are people too! [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

Re: German Court Says Domain Registrars Are Responsible for Content on a Website

#50

Post by forthiscomment » Sat, Feb 08, 2014, 11:33 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #42

RogerL wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you've shut down that one domain, not made it impossible for them to own legal domain names, or otherwise be on the internet. Not that I agree with the law, but you seem to be rather overstating the repercussions. If I was renting to you, and found out you were cooking and distributing meth in the house, I would evict you. That would not mean you could never live in a house again, just that you can't do your crim…

> No, you've shut down that one domain, not made it impossible for them to own legal domain names, or otherwise be on the internet. Haven't you? If you shut down example.com and they go out and buy example.net and point it back to their website, the registrar would be obliged to do the same thing with example.net, would they not? Moreover, the ability to get another name is kind of the point: Evaluate the two possibl…

That's not what the law says though. It only says that if I'm renting to you and I find out that you're cooking meth I should evict you; not that I should refuse to rent to you because I heard you've cooked meth. I'm responsible for meth being cooked on property I own, whether it's me cooking or not. In the same way, if I find out you're doing something illegal (file sharing for example), I should stop you.