This is answered in the FAQ at the bottom of the article. Essentially because this sets a precedent that Germany believes it can sue over anything in the german language and other items in the library might potentially cause the same kind of lawsuit it's better to just block everything instead.
> Germany believes it can sue over anything in the german language
You did not read the ruling (carefully). The language of the books was not discussed at all. It was discussed whether the offer (to download books) is directed to people in Germany.
Project Gutenberg said "NO", because they use a .org domain. (Obviously trying to claim that Germans only visit .de domains and neglecting the fact that .org is really trying to stress international coverage)
The court ruled "YES" because
- Project Gutenberg explicitly mentions to be available worldwide (before the geo blocking resulting from this very case)
- Project Gutenberg has some of its Web site translated into German. (In court they argued they did that to address US users, because German is the 3rd biggest foreign language in the US. The court did not accept that argument.)
Furthermore it was counted against them that project Gutenberg advises on its web site that users must check local copyright laws before downloading, because downloading might be illegal according to local laws.
Taking these points into account I must say the court ruling was logical from a legal viewpoint. Project Gutenberg had only lame excuses and in fact denied their own mission in court.
The real issue is that incompatible country laws don't fit at all with Internet (unless you propose a Chinese big (fire)wall). But I don't see any improvements any time soon, a certain president just declared last week that trade wars are the way to go.
Why doesn't Austria have jurisdiction for German content, do they not speak German in Austria? Do UK courts have jurisdiction over companies which produce content in English? It's absurd to think that an element to establishing jurisdiction is the language content is produced in.
They said they have jurisdiction because the contents is directed (also) to users in Germany. They said nothing about exclusive jurisdiction or exclusively directed to Germany. They also ruled that access to the average user in Germany must not be easy (acknowledging that the user decided to download can circumvent it.) There was not a word about making the contents available to users in any other country.
In the context of existing copyright laws the ruling is understandable. It's just plain nonsense to have contradicting copyright laws in the age of a global internet. And if you say that copyright should only be enforced according to the country of the distributor then you just move all contents to a country that does not enforce at all. But isn't it just the US that complains a lot about (their) IP not enforced in China or Vietnam?
As you surmise, I have not read the ruling. I was basing my understanding from the following in the article:
> Q: Why didn't Project Gutenberg block access until the Court made its judgement?
> A: PGLAF's legal advisors disagree that any foreign Court or entity has jurisdiction over its actions regarding copyright. The Court in Germany has promoted a theory that it has jurisdiction, mainly because the www.gutenberg.org site has some content in the German language. ...
> 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.
