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Project Gutenberg is a well-known repository for e-books that are out of copyright.
Recently, a German subsidiary of an international publisher started a copyright case against the project concerning 18 books, for which it claimed copyright. Read Project Gutenberg's summary of the whole mess here. The trick here is that the books in question were officially out of copyright in the USA, but still within copyright in Germany. In Germany, copyrights are "life + 70 years", meaning the copyrights to these books will expire in 2020, 2025 and 2027.
There's some interesting details (claims of copyright transfers during the trial), see Gutenberg's statement.
The long and short of it: the judge rules in favour of the plaintiffs, and ordered Project Gutenberg to cease distribution of the books. The project will file an appeal, but while that is pending, they chose to comply with the ruling (even though they feel that the project should fall wholly under US law or WIPO arbitration). To comply with the order, and likely to prevent further claims, the project decided to block Germany entirely.
[Ed note: I find it troublesome that a court in Germany can make a decision concerning an American company. I am not unaware of the irony in that statement compared to the US courts being asked to require Microsoft to turn over e-mails stored on a server in Ireland. Here is a selection from the Project Gutenberg link; following that is FakeBeldin's take on the situation.]
Q: Why block all of Germany, rather than just those 18 books?
A: PGLAF's legal advisors disagree with all claims that there must be any blocking, or removal, or anything associated - censorship, fines/fees, disclaimers, etc. - for items that are in the public domain in the US. Period.Because the German Court has overstepped its jurisdiction, and allowed the world's largest publishing group to bully Project Gutenberg for these 18 books, there is every reason to think that this will keep happening. There are thousands of eBooks in the Project Gutenberg collection that could be subject to similar over-reaching and illigitimate actions.
PGLAF is a small volunteer organization, with no income (it doesn't sell anything) other than donations. There is every reason to fear that this huge corporation, with the backing of the German Court, will continue to take legal action. In fact, at least one other similar complaint arrived in 2017 about different books in the Project Gutenberg collection, from another company in Germany.
Project Gutenberg's focus is to make as much of the world's literature available as possible, to as many people as possible. But it is, and always has been, entirely US-based, and entirely operating within the copyright laws of the US. Blocking Germany, in an effort to forestall further legal actions, seems the best way to protect the organization and retain focus on its mission.
Q: The plaintiff is S. Fischer Verlag, GmbH. Is that the international conglomerate?
A: Yes, it is part of a family of companies all under single ownership and control or majority stakeholdership, from Germany, reaching around the world. S. Fischer Verlag, GmbH is a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg Holtzbrinck GmbH. Internationally it is known in the US and elsewhere as Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC. Readers in the US know this as Macmillan, which is one of the largest publishers in the US by revenue, and owns many familiar imprints. US readers might also recall that Macmillan was one of four companies accused by the US Dept. of Justice in 2012 of price fixing. The companies eventually settled the antitrust claims, including by giving credits to customers who had overpaid for eBooks.Q: Why did this all take place in the German Court system, rather than the US - where Plaintiff does business as Macmillan, and PGLAF is based?
A: The legal guidance PGLAF received is that US law requires that such proceedings should have taken place in the US, and in fact any attempts at enforcement of the judgement would need to occur in the US Court system. PGLAF already informed Plaintiff and the German Court that the US Court system is the appropriate venue for Plaintiff's concerns. Plaintiff declined.Alternatively, international treaties - notably the Berne Convention and related treaties - provide mediation processes through the World Intellectual Property Organization. PGLAF offered to undergo this mediation process, and Plaintiff declined.
International treaties explicitly and unambiguously support PGLAF's legal guidance as described above: that the copyright status in one country is not impacted or enforceable or otherwise relevant in other countries. Plaintiff managed to find a German Court, and some precedents from Germany (and, after the lawsuit was filed, from the EU), which were willing to flaunt international treaties by developing a theory that PGLAF is under jurisdiction of the German Court system.
The decision to acceed to the German Court's order to make items inaccessible from Germany is intended to be a temporary appeasement, while the appeal occurs - this is because the German appeal Court will likely look disfavorably on PGLAF if it shows contempt for the German Court. Ultimately, PGLAF seeks to establish that any complaints about copyright must be brought either to the US Courts (where PGLAF operates) or WIPO processes (as guided by international treaties).
<opinion>
While that may seem draconian, I fully support this move. One case concerning 18 books highlighted that there are different interpretations of copyright law between Germany and the US. Now that this is known, it is an open invitation to further litigation - while Project Gutenberg may not be infringing US copyright laws, they may be infringing German copyright laws, for which they could be slapped with fines.
The (very) chilling side effect of this is that I can easily envision this concept sliding down the slippery slope.
Germany is a western-alike country, signatory to most trade agreements, conventions (such as the Berne convention governing copyright), and part of the EU. If Project Gutenberg falls afoul of German copyright law, then it most likely falls afoul of most copyright laws in the EU. And those are (by the Berne Convention) more or less aligned with other countries... so if that fails, then it probably fails in many more countries than just the EU.
If the final judicial conclusion is that Project Gutenberg was in the wrong and therefore liable for damages, I would recommend them to block everywhere but the USA. Even though I would hate losing access to Gutenberg (living outside the USA), for this non-profit initiative to expose themselves around the world to court cases is a tremendously bad idea.
</opinion>
(For added irony: the project is named after Johannes Gutenberg, the German who more or less invented the printing press.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday March 05 2018, @03:57PM (5 children)
I think the original 14 may be to short for many if not most things that copyright protects, but the 28 years was plenty. If you can't come up with another masterpiece that will bring in the pfennigs in the space of three fricken decades, perhaps you, and maybe that prior so-called masterpiece too, weren't so great after all.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday March 05 2018, @04:52PM (1 child)
But even that is usually a lie. The artist sells off the rights to their work to a corporation that sits on the profits for effectively ever. When the life+70 comes up, they will just lobby to extend it.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Monday March 05 2018, @08:20PM
What if the corporation was the original developer? How long does a corporation last?
I seem to remember that Disney was one of the prime proponents the Life +70 and further extensions for works for hire.
Apparently its as long as 120 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_lengths [wikipedia.org]
It no longer a simple determination under US copyright: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf [copyright.gov]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @05:14PM (1 child)
28 for non-commercial distribution, immediate non-commercial termination if not published (even just a quantity of 1) for 5 years.
This retains financial incentive for the author of the work, provides avenues for people who can't legally procure a copy to recieve it if the work is commercially unavailable and provides enough commercial leeway for someone whose writing or concepts is so far ahead of the time that only in the trailing end of their life is their work commercially successful to still benefit financially from the work. There have actually been authors whose early work wasn't appreciated until the latter half of their lives and allowed them to recover from/reduce their poverty level as a result of the earlier works (also examples of copyright having expired and them dying destitute, hence my 56 year limit, which would put them in their mid 70s before copyright would expire.)
HOWEVER. This should not apply to works for hire, which should be capped at 14 years, period. Additionally, copyrights should not be transferable, except under the limited circumstance of work for hires being transferred as part of a division of a corporation that is sold.
As an added requirement, for copyrights on hardware designs, software, and digital 'traditional media' it should be required that the original source code, not simply the published works be put into escrow to provide the innovations contained therein for the good of future generations, much like both patent and copyright were originally intended, and which have been seriously diluted as a result of the mix of science and creativity in both copyright and patent protections, both of which have been abused such that the material being provided to the public is not complete after the covenant's time limited rights are expired. If copyright was only 14-28 years there would be far more scrutiny going on about the lack of material being returned to the public commons as a result of patents or technology copyrights if the physical/technology designs of the works were still available when copyright expired.
As a final aside: private key escrow is needed for many technological devices today as a result of permanent code signing burned into many devices, without original images available and archived to replace them with.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday March 05 2018, @08:09PM
I don't think you have any concept of what "code signing" actually means.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday March 06 2018, @11:07AM
I can see an argument where an author is writing a continuing series that he/she should retain copyright on the earlier books. Some series might well continue past 28 years, (Asimov's Foundation maybe?). They do have a vested interest in not having unauthorised works in their 'universe'.
I think life plus 7 years, or 14+14 years whichever is the longer would be fair. However, I also think it should be combined with what I think Europe calls the right to be recognized as the author. The Author gets Life+7 or 14+14. As soon as the copyright is sold/transferred then it instantly reverts to 14 years, (with an option to pay a yearly fee for up to another 14. The reason for the yearly fee is to prevent orphan works. If someone pays the fee, you know who to pay for use, if no-one pays, you have to wait at most one year to use it.)
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.