German Constitutional Court Blocks Napster Suit

djmutex writes "In an urgent ruling, the German Constitutional Court has temporarily blocked the Napster copyright violations class action of several American recording companies and artists against Bertelsmann. The court decided that the German court in Düsseldorf, which was, according to international conventions, required to serve the writ, may not do so until the Constitutional Court has checked that the suit does not violate Bertelsmann's rights granted by the German constitution. Since, according to those agreements, the service is a precondition for both the suit to proceed in the U.S. as well as the later acceptance of the U.S. ruling in Germany, the lawsuit is for now halted. It is unclear when the Constitutional Court will definitely decide, but it is not generally famed for its tempo on final rulings, and it also stated in the press release (in German) that constitutional rights could possibly be violated if "proceedings before state courts are obviously abused to discipline competitors through public media pressure and the risk of a conviction"." Reuters has a summary.

Comments

my impression of German law

[bersl2]

GPL May Not Work In German Legal System, but also this news.

The German legal system is refreshingly weird, unlike the American legal system.

From this side of the pond the US slooks weird

[aepervius]

Like the miranda stuff, gun possession amendement, weird law about punishing hacker/copyright infringer with more prison than a raper/thief and in some case murderer, the fact you can sue if you are in the wrong mood, 12 people which know nothing of the law , and can swallow any good discourse by defense/offense especially on "expert" debat, have to swear on the bible in court (?!) and I pass many of them.


it can all be resumed in : "different history , different culture, different law system". Do not try to understand. Accept it.

Re:Insightful?

[VertigoAce]

I would think a search engine at RPI could be a very legitimate tool. The school requires that every student use a laptop. As a result, professors incorporate the laptops into the teaching (in its simplest form this would be a way to distribute presentations, notes, sample programs, etc). Given that this framework is in place, it makes sense to have a way to find things on other people's computers. I could offer my notes for various lectures on my computer, and someone else on campus could get a copy. Granted, this could lead to cheating, but it's my understanding that RPI encourages group work.

I haven't met this student yet (it's a few weeks before I start at RPI), so I don't know what his intentions were. But there are legitimate uses for the technology. And from what I heard at orientation, the tech admins share that opinion. File sharing isn't inherently illegal, so they won't restrict it on campus.