German Wikipedia Threatened w/ Injunction

TheEagleCD writes "Wikipedia.de, the German version of the popular Wikipedia Encyclopedia, is currently closed due to a German court order. A detailed account of the current controversy [en.wikipedia.org] is available, the short version is that the family of "Tron" (Boris Floricic) - a German hacker and phreaker - is trying to force Wikipedia.de from removing the family name from his entry." As I write this the site is back up, as is the tron entry that caused the whole mess. However it does appear that the entire domain was briefly shut down over one entry.

Comments

Wikipedia was never "closed"

[imthesponge]

The site ( http://de.wikipedia.org/ ), along with the other language Wikipedias, is located in the US, and it's still up. Only the redirect ( http://wikipedia.de/ ) is affected by the injunction, since it's under German jurisdiction.

I only had to look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(hacker)#Current _controversy to find that..

Well done.

[kunzy]

So instead of having his family name in an obscure wikipedia entry that no one ever reads its on the frontpage of slashdot now. Way better...

OK, I'll bite

[GroeFaZ]

What is a racial opinion? What are races anyway? The concept of "human races" has a long and dark history, it has never done any good to anyone, except that some people can claim themselves superior and others inferior. It only serves to de-humanise whole nations or other groups followed by the inevitable extermination campaign. Pretty much every nation, past or present, that has or ever has had lust for power and domination, has used this strategy. Now if you don't mind, Germany does not want to repeat this horrendous mistake by letting demagogues rise. There is a lot of evil hiding inside every population, and it's called indifference. This evil is going strong in Western nations nowadays, and the more important it is that such people need to be stopped in their tracks. And you, Anonymous Coward, wherever you live, just hope your country never needs to get its own Hitler to realize this.

"Alternate versions" of the Holocaust are to the actual Holocaust what Intelligent Design is to Evolution, only infinitely worse.

Re:OK, I'll bite

[Millenniumman]

Yelling fire would put people in direct danger. Making controversial statements does not. If people choose to become violent over them it is their fault, whereas when you yell fire they can't really be blamed for not knowing you're being an idiot, because the response will be too quick. They should draw the line on it where it causes immediate danger or the perception of such.

And no, complete loss of freedom of speech wouldn't happen quickly, or perhaps at all, but it would be possible for the government to stop the press from saying anything against it. And that would cause much of the populace to be uniformed, for most don't have connections to the high levels of the government.

This is the same reason people complain about unwarranted phone taps (Other than wanting to complain about President Bush). It really doesn't hurt them if they aren't terrorists, but it is an invasion of their rights.

Mod parent down.

[A beautiful mind]

What the heck does this to do with WW2?

It's a bit hypocritical to talk about telling the rest of the world what to do given the current state of the USA's foreign "policy".

Re:What this is (apparently) really about

[Kelson]

I think the point wasn't that they should have sued the publisher, but that Wikipedia was the wrong target for legal action.

WTF?

[harmonica]

What has the "whole WWII thing" to do with this particular Wikipedia problem? Utter lack of freedom of speech? Germany does not discuss its Nazi past and is trying to bury it? Have you ever been to Germany, watched at least some German television or read a German newspaper? We're talking about the same Germany that ranks a lot higher on that world press freedom ranking than almost everyone else, including the US? That constantly discusses its Nazi past? And what do you know about the German legal system and this particular case?

You have no idea what you're talking about. And why is this moderated Insightful? Seriously, moderators, get a clue or refrain from moderating.

Re:Just hot air

[mysidia]

The content belongs to the editors who created it, not the Wikimedia foundation, and has already been licensed under the GFDL anyways by virtue of having been posted.

They may have holdings to lose, like server equipment, but the actual content's already tied up.

Minor Correction

[ilyanep]

Just because Jimbo is a godking over there doesn't mean he makes all the decisions. The Wikimedia Foundation has a board that includes Jimbo.

Re:Just hot air

[idlake]

They do have jurisdiction over German domain addresses, as well as connectivity between the US and Germany. They can and they will do whatever it takes to enforce German law. They could, for example, fine subsidiaries of network providers unless they start filtering.

I think they are wrong in this case, but don't live under any illusion that they can't get their way.

Besides, US courts are much more aggressive in enforcing their rights overseas; in addition to fining or shutting down foreign companies, they will actually send US police to "help" foreign nations enforce US laws.

Re:Actually,

[Hast]

Hurray for US free speech rights

I think you have slightly mis-informed view of the world. Most western countries have the same rights to free speech (you guys did import it from the French after all). The same story could have taken place in the states, although in that case someone would probably have been sued an astronomical amount of money as well. ;-)

If anything I say hurray for the Internet. Jay for putting bureaucracy in way of lawyers!

Re:that's incorrect

[1u3hr]

If someone receives a DMCA notice, and replies asserting that the material in question is not a violation of copyright, the material stays up and the complainer must take them to court to get it taken down. So your description of how it works ("don't even need to get a court involved") is simply incorrect, unless the defendant simply acquiesces.

Except the "defendant" may be your hosting company that will "acquiesce" immediately. A guy tested this a year or so ago, put up several sites with public domain text (hundreds of years old), then sent a complaint claiming he was the copyright owner. Most of the ISPs just shut it down.

Re:Actual Complaint

[juhaz]

You've been claiming that the publisher used wikipedia as a "defence" or "evidence" - that doesn't matter, what matters is did the court really buy that abysmally bad excuse? If they did, THERE is your real problem, everyone can see that usage of name in a factual biography, foreign to boot, is vastly different from use in libelous fiction novel, file an appeal.

You've also stated that other sites with the name are not "relevant" which is, frankly, bullshit. It may not have been presented yet, but the publisher has shown that they're willing to use that excuse, and they WILL use it again even if Wikipedia should yield, if the parents think they can censor the whole world while the publisher keeps up coming with other places that show it, one after another, they're kidding themselves, that way lies defeat, but they also end up hurting freedom of speech in the process.

Wikipedia is not the bad guy here, prosecuting an innocent third party as a workaround because you can't get at the real culprit is wrong, no matter what. The parents deserve to lose this one.

Re:Actual Complaint

[gowen]

But the story is not a story of censorship ... they just wanted TRONs real name to be abbreviated as Boris F., instead of the full name as it is in the wikipedia right now.

This isn't a story of censorship, they just want the legal power to remove factual information from a website because they don't want it to become known...

Erm ... how is that not censorship exactly?