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

#51

Post by waps » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 12:16 AM UTC

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #13

us0r wrote: post #4

People like to complain about laws/regulation/tax/etc. in the US but it is on an entirely different level in the EU.

People like to complain about the EU without understanding what the EU is. Hint: none of this has fuck all to do with the EU. Germany is a sovereign nation. Edit : And at least this is happening in a proper legal process (which is far from over). It doesn't even come close to the FBI barging in and hijacking domain names of foreign sites without any form of legal process.

Not at all. A sovereign nation is a nation that has an organisation that decides what it wants to do that cannot be overridden (like the Bundestag).

In practice the Bundestag has the following demands foisted upon it by the European constitutaion :

1) the European commission can suspend any law, or any number of them, with immediate effect.

2) the European commission can force the Bundestag to enter any text it damn well pleases into law.

3) the European commission can override any legal decision made inside Germany's courts, and can lift any existing case to the European level (where the justices are appointed by the same people who appoint people into the European commission)

4) The European commission can sign treaties in the name of Germany. These treaties have been, in jurisprudence, declared to superseed national law. It has not currently been tested, but in theory they can also superseed the German constitution.

Incidentally, the elected part of the EU, the parliament, does not have any real influence.

Given these, I think it's pretty bloody obvious that Germany is not a sovereign nation. Look at the Germany vs Amazon debacle to see further proof of this.

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

#52

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 3:27 AM UTC

forthiscomment wrote: post #50

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #42

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. 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.

> 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.

How are you distinguishing between those two things, "I find out that you're cooking meth" and "I heard you've cooked meth"? They appear to be the same thing. The tense doesn't get you anywhere because unless you only have to evict the person at the very second you catch them in the act, any such eviction has to be based on historical behavior. And under the silly instantaneous interpretation the eviction would only be necessary for so long as the criminality is ongoing -- you must evict but as soon as the criminal is finished with crime for the day (or claims to be) then he can move right back in? That would be nonsense.

Maybe your point is that "finding out" requires more evidence than "hearing" -- which really gets to the heart of it, doesn't it? Private parties aren't judges. They don't have all the evidence, they don't have a perfect (or for that matter even remotely accurate) knowledge of the law, they're biased and prejudiced and are highly likely to be heavy handed when the alternative is to have to fight somebody else's fight. It's imposing the duty to enforce the law on people with no capacity or inclination to do it properly.

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

#53

Post by SixSigma » Sun, Feb 09, 2014, 1:21 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.

I work in racing, not many people turn up with stock road cars / bikes.

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

#54

Post by sumedh » Tue, Feb 11, 2014, 8:54 AM UTC

RogerL wrote: post #38

sumedh wrote: post #29

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 What if you are rich and you have your own private road where you can drive at any speed you want.

Then you build yourself a not licenced for the road race car - just like so many other people who race. You don't even have to be close to rich to do that.

> Then you build yourself

Or you could just buy any car which you like and not waste time building one.