I see it as a violation of copyright case, not some obscure Kraut conspiracy.
Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
61–70 of 82 posts
Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
The law references the standard(s), but only as optional. See the link to the English translation of the Product Safety Act that I posted in another comment. Article 4 is relevant.
Thanks, but the more I read about this, the more I start to dislike it. Just because its optional doesn't make it less of an secret law. It simply mean that the secret law can be ignored, and where those with privileged access can gain an market advantage. Either the law makers is in fault here for making part of the law secret, or DIN should loose their copyright to the standard. You can not have laws with open and…
Actually, the fee to get access to the standard is fairly reasonable. We're talking roundabout 100 euros here - this is in no way an unfair advantage or worthy of an antitrust case. The money that standard will cost you is not the fee, but reading and understanding piles of papers and then getting certified that you're in compliance.
Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps, but it does make it moral to publish the work. And law ought to follow morality rather than the other way around.
If your point is that these standards are in fact de-facto laws and should be treated accordingly (free access and all), then make that point directly. It is unclear to me how copyright violation helps here, apart from publicity.
If the law requires implementation of {STANDARD} then {STANDARD} is part of the law, and should not be subject to copyright... the end.. no copyright violation for standards that are part of the law.
Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
#64Additional fines of €250,000 are being requested and, if I can't pay, a maximum total period of detention of two years is possible
Good to know that you can buy your way out of prison.
Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your point is that these standards are in fact de-facto laws and should be treated accordingly (free access and all), then make that point directly. It is unclear to me how copyright violation helps here, apart from publicity.
If the law requires implementation of {STANDARD} then {STANDARD} is part of the law, and should not be subject to copyright... the end.. no copyright violation for standards that are part of the law.
Note that not all countries hold the idea that the U.S. does where something published by the government is not copyrighted.
Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree the situation is not ideal, and I applaud any effort to try to show that the way the law and the standard are intertwined make for a de facto incorporation of the standard into law (which would mean the standard would have to be accessible for free). It is not clear from the article that that's going on, and it's also not made clear why starting with a copyright violation is a good way to bring about this cha…
Well, how do you bring about change in a democratic republic without publicity? Bribery?
The problem is that the article has its facts all mixed up and glosses over the central point, which is the difference between a law and a standard. Without getting that point across, this is just publicity for its own sake.
Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look, I know, EU "law" is difficult. I happen to have a little bit of knowledge about that, because I work on safety-related systems in industrial automation, where the same legal mechanisms apply (although "my" directive is 2006/42/EG, not Directive 2001/95/EC). Legally it works like this: 1. The EU issues a directive. Directives are not directly binding (some gray areas have developed over the years) and must be im…
Thank you for the explanation. Let me offer a tl;dr: Standards bodies found a bureaucratic loophole allowing them to make their standards into de facto -law while avoiding that those standards then become part of the public domain as they ought to be. Sounds like a classic case where the law has not caught up with morality.
> Standards bodies found a bureaucratic loophole allowing them to make their standards into de facto-law while avoiding that those standards then become part of the public domain
I encounter this kind of wiggling a lot in Germany. What surprises me most is how readily these kinds of explanations are accepted by people, no matter how absurdly complicated they are.
Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
#68If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck.
Once a 'safety standard' is incorporated into a law, it becomes the law. At this point, it should be made freely available just like any other law. If it is important that some standards body get paid for their effort, then the gov't should pay at the time of transaction (when the standard is incorporated).
It's a bit rich to levy a tax on people (fee to see the law), when the people have no representation or input into the creation of the law. This goes against long established norms.
The US Constitutions forbids the federal government from copyrighting laws, the principle being that free people should be able to freely see the laws that govern them.
Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your point is that these standards are in fact de-facto laws and should be treated accordingly (free access and all), then make that point directly. It is unclear to me how copyright violation helps here, apart from publicity.
If the law requires implementation of {STANDARD} then {STANDARD} is part of the law, and should not be subject to copyright... the end.. no copyright violation for standards that are part of the law.
Which is totally not the case here. The law mandates certain actions. If you're certified to comply with the standard, then you're in compliance with the law, however you can be in compliance with the law without implementing the standard - you just carry the burden of proof.
Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
So let me see if I understand this right. The EU has created several safety laws that each countries must follow. The laws then in turn reference proprietary written standards by DIN, which people need to buy in order to actually follow and understand the law. Is that correct?
Yes, and no. DIN basically takes European and international norms and translates them so that they conform to the German law and can thus be used in Germany. This is not just a matter of simple translation but of adaptation since all documents issued by the European Union are published in all languages of the member states anyway. Companies could of course just take the European norms and implement them by themselves…
from that link: "Throughout Germany there are standards "repositories", or libraries, where the public can view standards for free. For more information go to
http://www.beuth.de/de/rubrik/auslegestellen (German only)"
Anyone can go into one of those libraries listed here and have a look into the Standard Documents, most commonly with a desktop computer connected over the internet to access the online database.
It's still free, just not free as in free on the internet.
Beuth is the DIN owned publisher.