
German 'porn pirates' to be publicly named - stfu
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19354993
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Argorak
"Under German law, solicitors are allowed to publish the names of those
accused by their clients."

....ahem... no. What he is referring to: There was a court decision that
solicitors are "generally" allowed to name their clients and those accused by
the clients
([http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rk20071212_1bvr162506.ht...](http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rk20071212_1bvr162506.html),
german, sorry), but this was in a professional context. The application on a
private level is unclear. The court ruled that it would be a restriction of
the solicitors right of free profession if he were not to. But this is not
absolute, the court only ruled that its generally possible, but other reasons
might weight heavier. There is still the possibility that naming the accused
in a process involving porn is an illegal invasion of privacy and - quite
frankly - extortion and the right of the accused weights higher. The general
consensus in germany is that this case is pretty clear and will fail in court
if it wasn't some kind of advertisement joke.

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jeltz
I have no idea about German law. But does this not risk qualifying as
extortion? Pay or we go publish your name. I do not think it matters much that
there is a crime involved, it can still be extortion.

~~~
jlgreco
I think you are probably right about that.

I wonder though what it would be if they were naming people _instead_ of
attempting to sue/fine them. If they named everybody and made no attempt to
actually extort something. Maybe libel/slander laws would kick in at that
point.

~~~
cremnob
There isn't any defamation when the thing being said is a fact.

~~~
jlgreco
This is true in the US, but not necessarily in other countries.

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tsotha
In the US you could probably get away with this until you made a mistake and
published the name of someone who could show they'd never downloaded your
porn. And by the time their legal team was done with you your net profit would
end up being, like, minus twenty million dollars.

I've always heard German law is more strict when it comes to privacy. Wouldn't
something similar occur?

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chrislloyd
Porn has become so culturally acceptable I doubt many people will pay up.

~~~
tomjen3
Not if it is BDSM (it is abuse claims those who don't like it), rape porn
(rape is bad, but murder is worse, yet action movies routinely kill a lot of
people but somehow that is not a problem but fake filmed rape is), goat porn,
midget porn, etc.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
Because there's actually such a thing as legitimate murder (soldiers, etc) and
no such thing as legitimate rape.

~~~
noahc
The gentleman from missori would would disagree with you.

~~~
anamax
> The gentleman from missori would would disagree with you.

Actually, he doesn't. What he said is that women who are raped are capable of
reducing their odds of conception by some sort of physiological/emotional
response.

While wacky, that's not the same as denying that rape exists.

And, that wacky is basically the flip side of a very common belief among "the
right people", namely that one can affect conception odds through various new
age techniques, including meditation.

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vasco
I guess they can only keep this up if they do it in small batches. Once you
get like 5 million people listed the extortion party ends since
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVNjnyD38UA>

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pav3l
Sounds familiar? <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/08/mugshots/>

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zerostar07
_"identified as having downloaded pornography"_

I assume illegally?

~~~
fosap
Yes, of course.

