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

Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like the German wikipedia is taken off the net. It's just the popular domain wikipedia.de that's unavailable. de.wikipedia.org works just fine, and has all the information ready that is being debated.
It more of a side-effect of the german justice system that you're experiencing here. There are "act quickly" court orders that you need to obey, until the real case is being discussed in court. I'd bet they'll just reject to even start debating the case. Freedom of press is valued highly _in Germany_, you know.

What this is (apparently) really about

[mrchaotica]

Last paragraph of Wikipedia's [EN] entry:

The Austrian online magazine "futurezone" interviewed Andy Müller-Maguhn on 19 January 2006 about the case and its backgrounds. Maguhn admitted that the true reason behind the incident is a fictitious work recently published by a German author in which the main actor has the same (civil) name as Tron. The parents sent a protest to the publisher but were turned down with the argument that the German Wikipedia is using the name as well. Müller-Maguhn then asked the German Wikipedia to remove the name, but was turned down for a number of reason, including failure to present proof that he is entitled to speak and act on behalf of the parents.

So basically, because they want to stop some guy from using the name for a fictional character they're trying to stop Wikipedia from using it to refer to the actual, original person.

W. T. F?! -- and, more importantly, why don't they sue the publisher?!!

Re:Actually,

[Captain Perspicuous]

Just wanted to add this: It's pretty easy to block a server quickly in many countries with a provisional injunction (at least it's easy in most european countries). But as soon as such an injunction has to cross a national border, it becomes much more tricky. So the distributed nature of the internet has made it easier to keep information out there (or more difficult to stop info, whatever is your view point), and this principle is what we can see at work here.

Hurray for US free speech rights, now automatically exported to every other nation on the planet*.
(*exceptions apply for walled China, Saudi Arabia and Tunesia...)

See, now that's bizarre

[Anonymous Coward]

So you sue someone to stop them from mentioning your name.

That just brings up all kinds of odd questions. Like: Is wikipedia allowed to talk about the fact they got sued? And if they do talk about being sued, are they allowed to mention the names of the people who sued them? Since, you know, it's apparently banned to mention these people's last names, that's why wikipedia's in court in the first place. How does wikipedia report on the court case? Do they have to just say "we have been sued by somebody, we can't tell you who, but their name begins with F"? Are they allowed to publish documents, like court summons and such, from the case but only so long as they black out the names of the plaintiffs with a magic marker?

Legal Status

[RebelGuys2]

I was editing on Wikipedia when the legal notice started to surface on the English Wikipedia entry for this individual, which was quickly deleted by English Wikipedia Administrators. Last I checked, all Wikipedia entries do not include Boris's last name, and though our opinions differ on the matter, most of us refer to Boris as "Boris F---" or something of the like in Discussion and Talk pages. The main dilemma, of course, remains as to whether Germany has jurisdiction over our content. Legally, they do not, as the Wikimedia servers are hosted in Florida. However, there is precedent that any individual involved in writing this article can be immediately detained upon ever setting foot in Germany. I can't remember the details, but an Australian man writing revisionist Nazi theories was arrested for publishing his works elsewhere. We can continue to post up "Floricic," or however it's spelled, on Wikipedia if we wished. However, I think that the Administrators were justified in making the page deletes due to legal threats. Where do we draw the line, though? If Iran ordered us to not write about something, I'd seriously doubt most administrators on Wikipedia would take drastic action. I seriously doubt the U.S. would ever consider extradition (not to mention the public outcry) if an American was shipped away because of an anti-free speech German law. The bottom line is: legally, Wikipedia has no need to listen to Germany. However, what will happen when one of the article's editors, or a member of the Wikimedia foundation, sets foot in Germany?

Re:If they can do this over the issue of a name

[slavemowgli]

Calm down, it's just a preliminary injunction. These are relatively easy to get pretty much everywhere, and it doesn't say anything about what the final decision will be.

And for that matter... the whole case is clearly ridiculous, so it will get thrown out quickly enough. There's no need to rave about how "no single country can shut down information on the internet" and how "some Germans still want to rewrite history" - in fact, the last statement seems to be borderline Godwinesque, although I may be misinterpreting it.

So, just relax.

Re:Just hot air

[hweimer]

Wikipedia is (mostly) hosted in the US. The German court does not have jurisdiction. End of story. They can do whatever they want to the wikipedia.de domain, but de.wikipedia.org as well as the actual content is totally unaffected.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. If Jimbo decides to ignore this issue, Wikimedia Germany might face paying fines and damages since the original offender is out of reach. German law has some provisions allowing this and they are enforced quite often, especially when dealing with links to sites in another jurisdiction.

Re:Actual Complaint

[parabyte]

The background here is extremely complex. I knew TRON personally, and I know many people from the german wikipedia community and the Chaos Computer Club, where TRON was active until his death. From what I see, the community has been divided in about two halves for some time regarding the issue of TRON's real name in wikipedia, even if no one appreciates the escalation. But the story is not a story of censorship or some bad guys against wikipedia, it is the story of parents of a dead hacker against ignorance and harping on about principles. The parents did not want to have the article removed, 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. Seven letters.

But for everyone who has not been involved: here is a short version of a complex story how I have experienced it:

• Boris F. was a german hacker under the pseudonym TRON, doing a lot of advanced chipcard hacking and crypto gear development
• TRON died in 1998, he probably committed suicide, but there is a slight chance he was murdered
• All german newspapers and TV covered the case, and two books were written about it, among them a novel ("Offenbarung 23") that contains a lot of bullshit that no parent wants to read about a son, especially if it is fiction; however, for marketing purposes, the author of the novel printed the full real name in the book, stating that his novel was "based" on this real case
• the parents sued the publisher/author of the book to remove the real name
• the author/publisher used as a defence that the real name can be found in the wikipedia
• the parents removed the real name from the article
• a wikipedia edit war broke out, which resulted in several locks by wikipedia admins
• the parents tried for months to convince wikipedia admins to remove the real name; of course they are aware that the name can be found in the internet at many places, but the fact it is on wikipedia was used against them in a court case, so they had to act
• in the wikipedia community, there were advocates for both sides, probably about half of the people arguing to respect the wish of the parents, the other half to keep the full real name there, for the sake of information freedom; if you speak german you can read the discussion page at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Tron_(Hack er)
• the wikipedia community finally decided to leave the name there, but the process is not a very democratic or transparent one, and even if it was, minority rights are above democratic decisions
• at the german wikimedia foundation, no one was able to really deal with the situation; instead, they basically argued "we are not responsible for the content"
• some individuals at wikipedia who had no mandate to do so dragged this thing into the press, escalating the issue out of control of the community
• the parents, their supporters and the german court machinery did their work, and now a court ordered that the domain wikipedia.de must no longer forward to the de.wikipedia any more

The question is: How could this get so far? I think, because of the ignorance and stubbornness some of the wikipedia people in Germany who decided to ignore the asking and adjuring of the parents of a dead guy on one side, and the determination of friends of TRON and supporters of the parents, who are also part of the hacker community and at some point gave up in convincing *all* of the involved wikipedians and finally helped the parents to legally proceed against wikipedia. Maybe Wikipedia underestimtated the determination of the parents because they are just, well, some parents of some dead hacker. They even ignored all ample warnings, publicly accusing the people who warned them that they are making up the legal threats, and that they do not speak for the parents. All in the name of freedom of information.

In Germany ther