
German Addresses are Blocked: www.gutenberg.org - cydanil
http://block.pglaf.org/germany.shtml
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detaro
previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16511038](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16511038)

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CamTin
Maybe somebody can explain why this US-based project has to respond to German
court rulings in any way. Is there any reason not to just toss any scare
letters in the trash can or say "Jump off a bridge, we're not in Germany"?

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yayr
[https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html](https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html)

Q: So the court thinks that the presence of content in German means that
courts in Germany have jurisdiction, regardless of the fact that PGLAF is
entirely in the US?

A: Yes, that was the original basis of the claim for jurisdiction, which the
Court accepted in their judgement. Since then, there some more recent
decisions in the European Court of Justice, and other German courts, that
support this theory based on a Web site being accessible from a country. I.e.,
if a Web site is accessible from Germany, there are some cases where German
courts claimed jurisdiction over that site, even though it was operated, and
based, outside of Germany. These cases involve companies that actually operate
(for-profit) in Europe, and the cases were between two European countries
(i.e. part of the EU). They are not consistent with prior laws and cases, even
in Europe, and also not consistent with provisions of the Berne Convention and
other international law.

In addition, PGLAF has pointed out that German is widely spoken in the US (the
third-most common second language), and also is widely taught in schools and
colleges. PGLAF has no actual presence or activity in Germany, and never did.

____

Essentially, this is similar to taxation, once you have certain business
related activities in a country / region you become liable for taxes. In this
case German copyright for these books is relevant 70 years after the death of
the author, one may not like it, but it's the local law

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Wowfunhappy
But what businesses does Project Gutenberg have in Germany? _Not_ actively
barring German visitors counts as doing business?

If I spin up a random web server in the United States which so happens to be
connectable from German IP addresses, but I don't do any actual business in
Germany and I've never been to Germany, shouldn't Germany have zero
jurisdiction over me?

What if it was China or North Korea instead of Germany? I _definitely_ don't
want to follow their laws!

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yayr
[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/nz-court-
rules-k...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/nz-court-rules-kim-
dotcom-can-be-extradited-to-us-on-copyright-charges/)

again, one can like it or not, but the US practices similar court orders, even
with magnitudes more impact on the responsible persons claimed to infringe the
copyright

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Dreami
Wow, this is weird. I'm from Switzerland and I'm getting blocked since "I'm
from Germany". They say to check Maxmind's DB and it clearly says Switzerland
too.

This reminds me of services blocking Switzerland because of EU regulations,
even though it's not part of the EU. But country-specific blocking and
misreading Switzerland for Germany, that's a new level.

* it says they update the DB every month, so that could be an issue. It just seems a bit too wrong for me.

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Dreami
Edit: sent a feedback email, didn't see the address before.

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ohiovr
Not gutenough for Germany ironically

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cydanil
More details are available on their operation website:
[https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html](https://cand.pglaf.org/germany/index.html)

It's a bit of a pity, especially when the law firm, Waldorf Frommer, doesn't
seem to respect GDPR on their staff listing page: [https://www.waldorf-
frommer.de/team/](https://www.waldorf-frommer.de/team/)

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occamrazor
In what sense aren’t they respecting GDPR? Most likely the staff authorized
publication of photos and names on the website.

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anotheryou
Only certain publications are blocked, e.g.:
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31218](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31218)

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skrause
No, I can't access any books from my German IP address.

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deivid
I can access from my VPN hosted at hetzner

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anotheryou
via their dutch servers than I guess

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growtofill
(2018)

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weinzierl
This is about just a few publications from just three authors. The irony ist
that it should be easy to get at least some of the books get blocked in the US
as well. Not for copyright reasons, but because of the content. I think it's
getting harder and harder for organizations like Project Gutenberg to do this
kind of work - it's just too easy to get into trouble.

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deogeo
> The irony ist that it should be easy to get at least some of the books get
> blocked in the US as well. Not for copyright reasons, but because of the
> content.

Can you elaborate? Because as far as I'm aware, thanks to the 1st amendment,
not a single book is banned in the US. At most they're removed from public or
school libraries.

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renholder
Correct, it looks like censorship, rather than out-right banning.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_the_United_States)

...but it's not like the United States has _never_ tried to ban books in the
recent past.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchist_Cookbook#Legalit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchist_Cookbook#Legality)

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ameliaquining
That article lists four incidents that took place outside the U.S., plus one
instance of what turns out to be the book's author arguing that its publisher
should voluntarily stop printing it. No U.S. government censorship.

Obviously there've been cases in the U.S. that came closer to government
censorship of literature than this, but in general it remains the case that
it's nearly impossible to get a book banned in the U.S.

