Håkon Wium Lie of WWW fame has written on his blog about being sued for publishing public domain court decisions in Norway. Various volunteers have been publishing this material at rettspraksis.no, which is now down because of the copyright lawsuit against them even though both Norwegian laws and court decisions are exempted from copyright in Norway.
The basis for the lawsuit has been the copyright harmonization effort, Directive 96/9/EC from 1996, which asserts a 15-year copyright on databases and their contents. Not worried that Norway is outside the EU, the judge apparently considered the matter for less than 24 hours and without hearing counter arguments before deciding against rettspraksis.no, taking the site's contents offline, even material older than 15 years, and then slapping the volunteers with a large legal bill. An appeal is underway.
Via Boing Boing : Norwegian court orders volunteers to take down public domain court verdicts and pay copyright troll's legal bills.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @05:45PM (3 children)
Ouch, severely wrong on all counts except cultish brainwashing propaganda.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday June 12 2018, @10:01PM (2 children)
Indeed.
Hey, lawyers and other judges. Do you still wonder why tech savvy people think you're clueless? If this was the only decision like this ever made, we could understand it being a freak accident. But no. There's a constant stream of bad court decisions and idiotic laws that shouldn't have been passed. You know, like how Mickey Mouse is still not public domain. Time and time again, the legal system gets it wrong.
Sometimes there are signs that you do know better, but you don't care enough not to do it, because you've been bought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @02:59AM (1 child)
Haha, we rule you, so fuck you!
-- The Legal Priesthood.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @03:38PM
You're wrong. The real power is elsewhere. Hint: Golden rule.