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Project Gutenberg Blocks German Users After Outrageous Court Ruling (teleread.org)
Slashdot reader David Rothman writes: The oldest public domain publisher in the world, Project Gutenberg, has blocked German users after an outrageous legal ruling saying this American nonprofit must obey German copyright law... Imagine the technical issues for fragile, cash-strapped public domain organizations -- worrying not only about updated databases covering all the world's countries, but also applying the results to distribution.
TeleRead carries two views on the German case involving a Holtzbrinck subsidiary...
Significantly, older books provide just a tiny fraction of the revenue of megaconglomerates like Holtzbrinck but are essential to students of literature and indeed to students in general. What's more, as illustrated by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in the U.S., copyright law in most countries tends to reflect the wishes and power of lobbyists more than it does the commonweal. Ideally the travails of Project Gutenberg will encourage tech companies, students, teachers, librarians and others to step up their efforts against oppressive copyright laws. While writers and publishers deserve fair compensation, let's focus more on the needs of living creators and less on the estates of authors dead for many decades. The three authors involved in the German case are Heinrich Mann (died in 1950), Thomas Mann (1955) and Alfred Döblin (1957).
One solution in the U.S. and elsewhere for modern creators would be national library endowments... Meanwhile, it would be very fitting for Google and other deep-pocketed corporations with an interest in a global Internet and more balanced copyright to help Gutenberg finance its battle. Law schools, other academics, educators and librarians should also offer assistance.
Significantly, older books provide just a tiny fraction of the revenue of megaconglomerates like Holtzbrinck but are essential to students of literature and indeed to students in general. What's more, as illustrated by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in the U.S., copyright law in most countries tends to reflect the wishes and power of lobbyists more than it does the commonweal. Ideally the travails of Project Gutenberg will encourage tech companies, students, teachers, librarians and others to step up their efforts against oppressive copyright laws. While writers and publishers deserve fair compensation, let's focus more on the needs of living creators and less on the estates of authors dead for many decades. The three authors involved in the German case are Heinrich Mann (died in 1950), Thomas Mann (1955) and Alfred Döblin (1957).
One solution in the U.S. and elsewhere for modern creators would be national library endowments... Meanwhile, it would be very fitting for Google and other deep-pocketed corporations with an interest in a global Internet and more balanced copyright to help Gutenberg finance its battle. Law schools, other academics, educators and librarians should also offer assistance.
What a bunch of Copyright Naz......
First 20 years free. Then an escalating payment is required for each 20 year renewal afterward. Simply requiring a payment will solve the orphan works problem. This solution also lets Disney keep Mickey under copyright forever if they keep paying the escalating renewal fees. This is a simple solution to keeping commercially profitable works under copyright and letting everything else revert to the public domain.
America is the driving force behind copyright extensions and indeed copyright itself all over the world. This is just one of very few situations where works are locked away longer in a foreign country than in the USA.
The outrageous part isn't really the ruling... that's about access, and while it's problematic, the root outrage here should be the ridiculous length of copyright in the western world in general, companies still profiting or restricting access and it's decades after the author has passed
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
American courts were first to apply american rules to the whole world for their own benefit. Now when the role are reversed an american website tell us it's now all bad. I say at this point this is only justice an American organisation feel a bit of heat. Also, them thinking they are somehow essential to the whole world is typical american hubris.
*Shrug*
Tell that to Kim Dotcom, a German born New Zealand citizen and resident, about the US copyright.
No, the issue is that every outlying country shouldn't get to determine worldwide copyright law for everyone else on the internet. It's bad enough that the U.S. has such sway on internet copyright. Now Germany wants to take it even further?
So what happens when Botswana decides that copyright lasts forever, huh?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"While writers and publishers deserve fair compensation, "
But not their great grand-children.
I don't know what to think because the article doesn't even describe what enforcement options are open to Germany in this case. Of course Germany can claim whatever jurisdiction they want. They could claim copyright protection on Jupiter's moons for all I care. The only thing that matters is what enforcement options the US government provides Germany based on our trade agreements and other arrangements.
The article seems to say that there isn't anything Germany can do other than pressure the US government to do something, so if that is true I could hardly care less about this ruling. China and Russia and Europe (and wherever) can make whatever crazy rules they want as long as the US government doesn't allow US companies and citizens to be restricted by them while operating outside of those countries.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The authors of the books were also under contract to publish the books in the United States, and elsewhere, and in those jurisdictions the books have since entered the public domain. In the United States, from which Project Gutenberg operates, the books in question entered the public domain prior to the equivalent in Germany. If the authors had only published in Germany, the German court would clearly have jurisdiction. As they entered multiple agreements contractually, it's not so clear as the plaintiff claims.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
The authors of these books have been dead for 60+ years. I don't they have valid contacts with anyone, not that the existence of such contacts has anything to do with the enforceability of copyrights.
In this particular case the authors of the books are dead, and have been pushing up daisies for a very long time.
It's ridiculous to keep copyright enforced so long after the authors are gone. Copyright should expire; it's a sad testament to greed that these ridiculous lawsuits aren't thrown out.
Gutenberg was german, he invented the printed press process with movable type, which effectively took literacy as a skill away from nobles and the church and started a revolution of book access to the masses. He died largely unknown and with merrits unrecognized.
Basically, there are a bunch of people who just want stuff for free.
* The Gutenberg crowd wants people to give them their books for nothing.
* The publishers want people to give them money for nothing.
You're all a bunch of wankers.
The US Constitution grants the power to the Government "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Note "for a limited Times". It's the right of the creator of a work to get paid for it for awhile, but after a time it is owned by Humanity and yes, everyone should be able to copy it for free. All Project Gutenberg seems to want is for the "limited Times" to not keep getting extended indefinitely, and to be judged under the Constitution of the country in which they live and operate.
E pluribus unum
You've got that the wrong way around...
Imagine having to obey Singapore's littering laws in the United States.
Suppose you bought a brand of tissue available in both Singapore and the United States.
The packaging has a label that contains English, Malay, Tamil, and Mandarin.
You then discarded it in a public area in the United States.
You post videos to Facebook and someone in Singapore notices you discarding a tissue.
You then receive notice that you have a trial date in Singapore because the brand of tissue is available there.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Why should Project Gutenberg have to block German users? If Germany wants to go to the expense of building a Great Firewall, let it do so.
Urheberrecht is not the same as copyright, no matter how much the Content Mafia would love it to be!
Urheberrecht is an AUTHOR's privilege, while copyright is a DISTRIBUTOR's privilege (at the expense of the actual author, mostly deliberately so).
Urheberrecht is NOT transferable, copyright IS transferable (and mostly is).
Urheberrecht is IMPLICIT, copyright is EXPLICIT. Meaning, you don’t have to add a stupid (c) everywhere. The only thing that matters is the treshold of originality ("Schöpfungshöhe").
This makes Urheberrecht a vastly different law.
Give it the short time frames of when it was new, and privileging people to enforce a monopoly to some record of information suddenly seems a lot more sensible, no? (Apart from the fact, that causality makes it impossible to enforce, its infinite no-cost abundance makes it worthless, and the fuckin' cokeheads should just do a proper service business contract in advance, like literally every other business since the dawn of the economy, instead of making up imaginary delusions of “owning” or "stealing" patterns/information/data, of course.)
Also, there was a time, when Germany had no such laws AT ALL, while the UK already had copyright. And as a result, the UK suffered what is now called an information dark age, while Germany got the name "the land of poets and thinkers" as a result. ... settles it, doesn't it?
Leaving aside the obvious truism that by definition *modern* anything didn't exist in the 18th century, corporations certainly existed long before - notably the British & Dutch East India Companies.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Not true.
It *did* have to be stated, but that is no longer the case. Inclusion of notice per regulations precludes certain infringement defenses (e.g. innocent infringement), but no notice is required by U.S. law.
US has signed the Bern Convention, hence the European copyright rules hold for european works, even in the USA.
No. We signed it but don't take it seriously. The Berne (there's an extra 'e') Convention has no independent legal effect here. Copyright is fundamentally national law; each nation might be obligated under the treaty to pass particular laws, but they're meant to do it themselves.
In the US we even have a law that says that Berne is not a law that people can enforce. It's 17 USC 104(c), if you're curious.
We also don't comply with it. Our "moral rights" statute at 17 USC 106A is mere lip service and our infamous exceptions to copyright at 17 USC 110(5) (allowing for public performance of certain works without a license) not only violates it, but there was a lawsuit against the US at the WTO, we lost, and we still haven't done a damn thing about it because we don't care.
Sucks that so many people here talk trash who never even bothered to learnt the basics about copyright how greatly it differs in other countries from the stupid american idea of "work for hire".
I'm a lawyer, practiced copyright law for years, not only did I study it in regular law school, but also got a master's degree in it. I'm reasonably familiar with how it differs. I also know that the US has the best fundamental principles of copyright law, even if our implementation is lacking, and that the entire European copyright model is crap. Knowing more than the basics helps me talk a higher level of trash.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.