Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany • Hacker News Board

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#441

Post by freeflight » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #128

freeflight wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EUGH link does not work, but the Vodafone case was a decision by a Munich court, which could still be overturned if somebody bothered going all the way up to the BVerfG.

Odd, link works for me. In case you want to search for it, it’s lawsuit C‑314/12, the document identifier seems to be ECLI:EU:C:2014:192 Or you can follow the link in the first article to https://netzpolitik.org/2014/eugh-legt-zensur-grundlagen-net... which has a link to the court decision (grep for “Das Urteil”)

I'm getting a pretty weird CVRIA specific 404 (Page does not exist), in English and French when trying to access the link. Googling for "Telekabel Wien vs. Constantin Film" gives the same top result, but going through there also just gives me the same 404.

Weird stuff going on at CVRIA?

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#442

Post by netsharc » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 3:05 PM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #54

netsharc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on how media companies sue German torrent sharers (it's a cash cow for the law firms, like the one that is involved here, Waldorf Frommer), they sue individuals for making copyrighted content available on the internet -- because when you're torrenting something other people can get the completed parts from your computer, so if you run a mirror which is accessible from Germany, you will probably get a letter fro…

> if you run a mirror which is accessible from Germany Access from Germany isn't the issue, having a German IP is the issue. They don't go after foreign seeders because that would be too much hassle getting the real data behind the IP (just like German law doesn't apply to them), but they hunt down seeders with German IP's with quite a vengeance.

Now we're mixing up 2 issues... torrents of copyrighted content with German seeders, and e-books of copyrighted content (at least copyrighted in Germany) with a website provider.

They only go for German seeders because asking a foreign ISP for the address of someone who used a particular IP address at a particular date and time would probably get them the middle finger as a reply. In the case of PG, they know who is making the copyrighted content available in Germany, because PG has an address on their website.

And a German court said it's within their jurisdiction.

If you run a mirror with your contact information available, presumably they will contact you next.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#443

Post by sitkack » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 3:19 PM UTC

curiousfab wrote: post #40

PG did exactly the right thing here. By only blocking these 18 books, nobody would have taken much notice of this. By blocking all German users from the site, they will get a lot of media attention, and S. Fischer Verlag will get a lot of bad press. Whether or not they will move from their position is questionable, but it will hurt them. Just sent a small donation to PG. Making an effort not to buy books from that pu…

They own Apress, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springer_Nature

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#444

Post by briandear » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

wolco wrote: post #291

teamhappy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Making an effort not to buy books from that publishing house ever again, and telling all my friends about it. Good luck with that. S. Fischer is owned by Holtzbrinck. They own Macmillan, Springer Nature and a bunch of other publishing houses. Here's a list of their subsidiaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holtzbrinck_Publishing_Group#S...

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

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

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#445

Post by briandear » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

foepys wrote: post #330

discordianfish wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, unlike some frankly sometimes a bit ignorant view of especially Americans, Germany isn't the paradise of individual/customers rights paradise it's often portraied as. It fights companies like Google not because privacy and security concerns but protectionism and the public accepts that due to some reasonble concerns about privacy spiked with deeply entrenched anti-americanism. (For context: I'm German)

I'm also German and strongly disagree with your opinion. Privacy is a very delicate topic in Germany since the Nazis and the Stasi used to arrest people for even talking bad about them.

If it’s so delicate, why do Germans permit a law that requires people to register their religion? When I had applied for a German residency permit, I was asked to disclose a religion, ostensibly to determine taxes.

I feel like Germans fall back on the “delicate topic” nonsense as a permanent justification for just about everything, but in reality, they tolerate plenty of big government violations of privacy and individual liberty while becoming hysterical about Google or Facebook. It’s illogical, Facebook isn’t going to lead to Nazism or the Stasi again — but the actual government could, yet Germans tolerate their government tracking people by religion or a government conducting mass surveillance but they lose their minds over an American social media company?

Russians and East Europeans aren’t constantly claiming “sensitivity” because of the past abuses of the KGB or NKVD despite those organizations killing vastly more people than the Nazis.

It’s hypocrisy. You can’t claim to be sensitive about a Nazi past while still tolerating the government to register people by their religion. Facebook privacy issues aren’t going to lead to Nazism; any implication of same is just nonsense.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#446

Post by chippy » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #51

In the US, copyright protection is based on the number of years since publication. PG should be careful about misinforming people. This statement is only true for books created before '78. Since then, in the US, copyright protection is also some years after the death of the author, except works for hire.

It literally says this:

"in the US, copyright protection for works published prior to 1978 is based on the number of years since publication. "

Did they edit the page since you posted your comment 18 hours ago?

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#447

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #425

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those points can't be picked apart like you did. They add up Others are doing a fine job of taking apart the specifics, but it's important to understand why this form of argument is itself a fallacy. Inference works by taking into account new evidence and using it to adjust the probability with which you believe something to be true. So if you see Bob wearing a red shirt, you are more likely to believe that Bob own…

> The problem with allowing plaintiffs or prosecutors to play this game is that they can take the list of everything you've ever done, ignore everything that makes what they're trying to prove less likely and present only the list of things that make it more likely. If you look only at that evidence then each piece of it increases the probability that you believe what they want you to believe, regardless of whether i…

> Isn't there a defence?

There is, but it's a resource battle. Governments and large corporations can spend a hundred times more hours on something than regular individuals and small nonprofits. If they both had the same resources there might be a 90% chance the defendant wins, but create a large enough resource asymmetry and it flips the other way.

This is one of the main reasons for the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard in criminal cases, but that doesn't apply to civil cases even when the plaintiff is 10,000 times the size of the defendant, and isn't enough in criminal cases where the defendant is relying on a criminally over-worked public defender and everything is greased to mass-produce guilty pleas and discourage trials.

> I also don't believe the court would like to find out that the prosecutor lied.

It isn't strictly lying, it's just not pointing out inconvenient facts.

Prosecutors can get into trouble for this when it's really damning, like not disclosing a witness who says it was somebody else, but that's separate from all the banality like the number of man hours they spent investigating you without finding anything before they could come up with what they're presenting.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#448

Post by rapfaria » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

pbalau wrote: post #75

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…

Ot: what are the logistics of running a pg mirror, traffic and space wise?

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Mirroring_How-To

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#449

Post by gsich » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

redmorphium wrote: post #343

gsich wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest solution would have been to do nothing.

They still have to comply with the court ruling, i.e. at least block those 18 books in Germany, as they aren't The Pirate Bay. The website's move is smart because it avoids future complications coming from the Urheberrechtsgesetz, the German copyright law, and draws much-needed public attention to how easy it is for bully firms to abuse it.

The Q and A contradicts this.

>Copyright status in another country is not relevant to the legitimate ability of Project Gutenberg -- or anyone/anything in the US -- to make any use of these books.

Re: Project Gutenberg blocks access from Germany

#450

Post by briandear » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 4:08 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #358

zanny wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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". No, the US followed the EU on that one. The Berne Convention first set that policy¹ in 1886, and amongst the original signatories were multiple European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Others followe…

But those facts don’t fit with the anti-American trope commonly repeated on Hacker News. Why do many Europeans on here seem to resent or blame the US for everything? There doesn’t seem to be nearly the same animosity from Asians or Australians. I am genuinely curious because clearly you stated the facts around the origins of copyright law but clearly others wanted to claim that this whole system was caused by Americans — despite being factually wrong. Do Europeans have an inferiority complex or something when it comes to Americans? It’s strange to me because Germans really seemed to love the US during the Berlin Wall era.. Levi’s, American music, Coca Cola, American military assistance to counter the Soviets.. but as soon as that wall came down, the next German generation seems to be filled with a low-grade hatred or resentment of all things American. But Europeans, rather than attempting to compete with American companies like Facebook, Apple or Google, instead seem to want to use the government to weaken those companies — rather than supporting tax and entrepreneurial policy that would allow places like France to create successful companies. There are more tech billionaires and millionaires in a single city in the United States than in the entirety of Europe. And that money? It gets used to fund more companies — creating a cycle of innovation and entrepreneurship.

But somehow, all of Europe’s problems are because of America?