5 ms·

None of those pass muster. 1. There are plenty of German-speakers not living in Germany. 2. Is that organization somehow affiliated with project gutenberg? O

None of those pass muster. 1. There are plenty of German-speakers not living in Germany. 2. Is that organization somehow affiliated with project gutenberg? Or did it simply use the name, which gutenberg probably doesn't care to trademark and wouldn't have the funds to legally enforce anyway. 3. You must know that hardly anyone uses .us. 4. So all it takes to be subject to a country's courts is for that country's media to bring up your activities? If you think those points create any sort of legal nexus in Germany, that would also imply that most activism and protest against authoritarian countries' laws should be illegal, with those responsible subject to the authoritarian regimes' legal systems. That is untenable if you have an ounce of respect for free speech or liberal values or a free internet. Apply the reasoning to the laws of certain Middle Eastern countries. China. North Korea.

TheCoelacanth 9y ago
> Is that organization somehow affiliated with project gutenberg? Or did it simply use the name, which gutenberg probably doesn't care to trademark and wouldn't have the funds to legally enforce anyway. The failure to protect their trademark in Germany would actually demonstrate that they are not operating in Germany.
jhasse 9y ago
Those points can't be picked apart like you did. They add up and make it reasonable to argue that gutenberg.org is very well known in Germany and that lots of Germans have downloaded the books in question. The copyright owners are still selling those here and have probably already lost sales due to this. They tried to contact gutenberg.org, but where ignored. This isn't about free speech amd censorship. > If you think those points create any sort of legal nexus in Germany, that would also imply that most activism and protest against authoritarian countries' laws should be illegal illegal where? > 3. You must know that hardly anyone uses .us. I really didn't know. .de is very common in Germany.
- harshreality 9y ago
  > illegal where? On the internet, where project gutenberg is located. The argument put forward, that you repeated, implies just as much that someone could be prosecuted in a Chinese court for publishing a harsh (to the point of being illegal in China) criticism of China named freexinjiang.com, at least if the site included a Chinese version. And that, since it refers specifically to a Chinese province/area, would have at least some nexus to China, whereas Project Gutenberg has zero connection to Germany. Arguing the connection by language (the fact that German-language books of note exist to be digitized does not imply a connection to Germany the country) or Gutenberg's biography (what does the nationality of Gutenberg the historical person have to do with anything? Is shakespeare.com subject to uk laws?) is insanity. > I really didn't know [.us isn't commonly used] I didn't realize how this might not be intuitive to people in other countries, so... The U.S. mostly invented / was the testbed for the internet. It's standard in the U.S., and for almost any English-language website that's not seeking to be tied to a specific country of origin, to use .com .net or .org. I get that people in countries where English isn't official or where they're targeting the country's population as visitors will prefer .cc tlds either to indicate that their site targets that country's residents, or targets people who speak that country's primary language, but .us is not at all the norm in the USA; .com .net and .org generally serve that purpose, and .us is a distant fourth [1]. But, supposing .us were the primary domain used by U.S. organizations, even if Project Gutenberg didn't use .org but instead used a generic TLD, it would still have zero to do with Germany. [1] It's actually 6th, behind .xyz and .info, but those two probably have a higher percentage of spammy junk websites and email domains, so .us might be fourth in domains that aren't junk ecommerce advertising sites.
  - jhasse 9y ago
    > On the internet I still don't understand what that means exactly. > whereas Project Gutenberg has zero connection to Germany. I disagree. > what does the nationality of Gutenberg the historical person have to do with anything? Is shakespeare.com subject to uk laws? There's a lot inbetween of zero connection with country X and subject to it's law. So regarding shakesbear.com: No, not necessarily.
    - 9y ago
- mcguire 9y ago
  Ignored? Where are you seeing that?
  - jhasse 9y ago
    In the court order.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > Those points can't be picked apart like you did. They add up Others are doing a fine job of taking apart the specifics, but it's important to understand why this form of argument is itself a fallacy. Inference works by taking into account new evidence and using it to adjust the probability with which you believe something to be true. So if you see Bob wearing a red shirt, you are more likely to believe that Bob owns a red shirt. Could still be that he has borrowed it or something, but it's now more likely he owns one than it was previously. By contrast, if you go all through Bob's bedroom and find zero red shirts, that makes it less likely, even though it's still possible he owns one that isn't in his bedroom. The problem with allowing plaintiffs or prosecutors to play this game is that they can take the list of everything you've ever done, ignore everything that makes what they're trying to prove less likely and present only the list of things that make it more likely. If you look only at that evidence then each piece of it increases the probability that you believe what they want you to believe, regardless of whether it's actually true. How guilty they can make you look is directly proportional to their level of resources in finding things that make you look bad, independent of your actual guilt. > I really didn't know. .de is very common in Germany. Most countries have .co.uk, .org.uk, .net.uk, etc. The US doesn't have those. US companies use .com, .org, .net, etc. regardless that they're nominally not US-specific.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    The US does have .us - it was actually the first ccTLD - and a complex hierarchy under it, it's just not commonly used for historical reasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.us
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      It's not commonly used because the hierarchy is weird. Originally the names had to be four deep, containing both the state and the locality, which is silly since all but the smallest operations span localities and even small companies often change locality. So they eventually allowed registrations directly at .us but there is still no .us equivalent to .org.uk.
  - 9y ago

TheCoelacanth 9y ago

> Is that organization somehow affiliated with project gutenberg? Or did it simply use the name, which gutenberg probably doesn't care to trademark and wouldn't have the funds to legally enforce anyway. The failure to protect their trademark in Germany would actually demonstrate that they are not operating in Germany.

jhasse 9y ago

Those points can't be picked apart like you did. They add up and make it reasonable to argue that gutenberg.org is very well known in Germany and that lots of Germans have downloaded the books in question. The copyright owners are still selling those here and have probably already lost sales due to this. They tried to contact gutenberg.org, but where ignored. This isn't about free speech amd censorship. > If you think those points create any sort of legal nexus in Germany, that would also imply that most activism and protest against authoritarian countries' laws should be illegal illegal where? > 3. You must know that hardly anyone uses .us. I really didn't know. .de is very common in Germany.

harshreality 9y ago
> illegal where? On the internet, where project gutenberg is located. The argument put forward, that you repeated, implies just as much that someone could be prosecuted in a Chinese court for publishing a harsh (to the point of being illegal in China) criticism of China named freexinjiang.com, at least if the site included a Chinese version. And that, since it refers specifically to a Chinese province/area, would have at least some nexus to China, whereas Project Gutenberg has zero connection to Germany. Arguing the connection by language (the fact that German-language books of note exist to be digitized does not imply a connection to Germany the country) or Gutenberg's biography (what does the nationality of Gutenberg the historical person have to do with anything? Is shakespeare.com subject to uk laws?) is insanity. > I really didn't know [.us isn't commonly used] I didn't realize how this might not be intuitive to people in other countries, so... The U.S. mostly invented / was the testbed for the internet. It's standard in the U.S., and for almost any English-language website that's not seeking to be tied to a specific country of origin, to use .com .net or .org. I get that people in countries where English isn't official or where they're targeting the country's population as visitors will prefer .cc tlds either to indicate that their site targets that country's residents, or targets people who speak that country's primary language, but .us is not at all the norm in the USA; .com .net and .org generally serve that purpose, and .us is a distant fourth [1]. But, supposing .us were the primary domain used by U.S. organizations, even if Project Gutenberg didn't use .org but instead used a generic TLD, it would still have zero to do with Germany. [1] It's actually 6th, behind .xyz and .info, but those two probably have a higher percentage of spammy junk websites and email domains, so .us might be fourth in domains that aren't junk ecommerce advertising sites.
- jhasse 9y ago
  > On the internet I still don't understand what that means exactly. > whereas Project Gutenberg has zero connection to Germany. I disagree. > what does the nationality of Gutenberg the historical person have to do with anything? Is shakespeare.com subject to uk laws? There's a lot inbetween of zero connection with country X and subject to it's law. So regarding shakesbear.com: No, not necessarily.
  - 9y ago
mcguire 9y ago
Ignored? Where are you seeing that?
- jhasse 9y ago
  In the court order.
AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> Those points can't be picked apart like you did. They add up Others are doing a fine job of taking apart the specifics, but it's important to understand why this form of argument is itself a fallacy. Inference works by taking into account new evidence and using it to adjust the probability with which you believe something to be true. So if you see Bob wearing a red shirt, you are more likely to believe that Bob owns a red shirt. Could still be that he has borrowed it or something, but it's now more likely he owns one than it was previously. By contrast, if you go all through Bob's bedroom and find zero red shirts, that makes it less likely, even though it's still possible he owns one that isn't in his bedroom. The problem with allowing plaintiffs or prosecutors to play this game is that they can take the list of everything you've ever done, ignore everything that makes what they're trying to prove less likely and present only the list of things that make it more likely. If you look only at that evidence then each piece of it increases the probability that you believe what they want you to believe, regardless of whether it's actually true. How guilty they can make you look is directly proportional to their level of resources in finding things that make you look bad, independent of your actual guilt. > I really didn't know. .de is very common in Germany. Most countries have .co.uk, .org.uk, .net.uk, etc. The US doesn't have those. US companies use .com, .org, .net, etc. regardless that they're nominally not US-specific.
- icebraining 9y ago
  The US does have .us - it was actually the first ccTLD - and a complex hierarchy under it, it's just not commonly used for historical reasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.us
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    It's not commonly used because the hierarchy is weird. Originally the names had to be four deep, containing both the state and the locality, which is silly since all but the smallest operations span localities and even small companies often change locality. So they eventually allowed registrations directly at .us but there is still no .us equivalent to .org.uk.
- 9y ago