5 ms·

Germany does not have the notion of copyright like in the Anglo-American legal system, so I guess it's basically only applicable in Germany and countries where

by wolfi1 5y ago

Germany does not have the notion of copyright like in the Anglo-American legal system, so I guess it's basically only applicable in Germany and countries where they do have the same regulations

mminer237 5y ago
Germany has copyright laws like virtually all countries do, and it was party to the Berne Convention. Its copyright laws are in the Gesetz über Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte. It just doesn't call them that. The main difference I believe is that they're not totally transferable and it doesn't have the work for hire doctrine, but it gives the author of a work the exclusive right to reproduce that work, i.e., the right to copy it and to delegate that right.
- foepys 5y ago
  Yes but there are still significant differences. E.g. Germany has no legal concept of dedicating work to the "public domain". Everything released as "public domain" today is effectively copyrighted. You can release your work under GPL, MIT, CC0, and so on but not as public domain.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > Germany has no legal concept of dedicating work to the "public domain". Maybe I'm misunderstanding your statement, but Germany very much has a legal concept like "public domain", that of Gemeinfreiheit [0] which also includes; "Werke, die vom Schöpfer in die Gemeinfreiheit entlassen wurden." What's the big difference to "public domain" I'm missing here? [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinfreiheit https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinfreiheit
    - andi999 5y ago
      From your link:"Nach deutschem und österreichischem Recht ist umstritten, ob ein Totalverzicht auf das Urheberrecht zugunsten der Allgemeinheit möglich ist. Die wohl herrschende Meinung schließt dies unter Berufung auf § 29 UrhG-D bzw. § 19 UrhG-Ö aus. Daher gibt es dort keine Gemeinfreiheit durch Rechteverzicht wie in den USA," So the current legal opinion is that you cannot 'give' your work to public domain. Minority opinion believes you can. So for your work to enter public domain, you just have to pass away and wait 70 years (or whatever the specific requirement was).
      - ttybird2 5y ago
        https://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html https://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html
        pdonis 5y ago
        Abandoning your copyright to a work does not place it in the public domain. It just makes it abandoned property, which then becomes owned by the first person to take ownership of it (barring further complications in the applicable jurisdictions abandoned property laws, or pre-existing claims by others such as the former owner's heirs or assigns). http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.ht...
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  Not only does Germany have copyright, it is the reason why Disney was able to bully around the US into the last major copyright term extension. On a more meta note, I'm noticing a pattern where people figure that jurisdictional or cultural differences constitute such a dramatic difference that "insert crazy copyright law here" is just assumed to not apply in their local jurisdiction, or that it will never apply to them. It will. There might be cases where you do have cultural differences, but copyright isn't one of them. Copyright enjoys deep international consensus on almost every issue, and the only practical differences between jurisdictions are things like: - Should copyright terms be long (life+50), extra-long (life+70), or practically forever (up to life+100)? - Should authors be allowed to unwind licensing agreements and copyright transfers? - Can an author intentionally destroy their own copyright interest in a work? Or does "public domain" only include works whose copyright has naturally expired? - Do authors enjoy moral rights to their work? If so, can those rights be waived or not? - Do online services need to proactively filter content in order to avoid copyright liability, or is merely offering no-questions-asked takedowns to copyright owners enough? - Do you need to register your copyright in order to sue? Y'know, things "on the margins" of copyright. It's important not to understate how ridiculously radical the stereotypical hacker position on copyright is. Even avowed Communists were willing to continue a watered-down copyright regime[0] despite having a legal system that specifically considered profit to be a form of exploitation and regularly charged people with things like "social parasitism". The kinds of people here who would like to see copyright abolished or reformed into oblivion are, in one sense at least, "to the left[1] of Soviet Russia". Everywhere else, people hold copyright as a base assumption. This includes "America", "the Anglosphere", "the West", and any other division you want to talk about to make your point that you don't think the law applies when it does. [0] Strictly speaking, I've been told by actual Russian emigrants who lived under Soviet rule that copyright wasn't a thing people worried about until the fall of Communism. However, this is also concomitant with copyright interests in capitalist countries being increasingly worried about consumer-level copyright infringement. What I do know is that the laws on the books did exist, but I suspect they were only used against state-owned publishing enterprises, as that would fit in with the general ideas behind Socialist law better. The Soviets were actually worried about the masses copying music before the RIAA was. However, this had less to do with copyright and more to do with censorship: before the 1970s importing western music was hella illegal. There actually were bootleg music copying rings at that time; they'd copy the music onto makeshift vinyl records made out of old X-ray prints. [1] Insamuch as "left" without additional qualifiers is even a meaningful term at that point.
bitwize 5y ago
Continental copyright is actually a bit stronger than Anglo-American copyright because it draws from the concept of authors' rights, the moral right of an author to control how their work is exhibited (because the work is tied up with the author's reputation). Hence why essential aspects of American copyright law, like public domain and fair use, are leas developed or missing in non-Anglo Western Europe.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by wolfi1 5y ago

Germany does not have the notion of copyright like in the Anglo-American legal system, so I guess it's basically only applicable in Germany and countries where they do have the same regulations

mminer237 5y ago

Germany has copyright laws like virtually all countries do, and it was party to the Berne Convention. Its copyright laws are in the Gesetz über Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte. It just doesn't call them that. The main difference I believe is that they're not totally transferable and it doesn't have the work for hire doctrine, but it gives the author of a work the exclusive right to reproduce that work, i.e., the right to copy it and to delegate that right.

foepys 5y ago
Yes but there are still significant differences. E.g. Germany has no legal concept of dedicating work to the "public domain". Everything released as "public domain" today is effectively copyrighted. You can release your work under GPL, MIT, CC0, and so on but not as public domain.
- freeflight 5y ago
  > Germany has no legal concept of dedicating work to the "public domain". Maybe I'm misunderstanding your statement, but Germany very much has a legal concept like "public domain", that of Gemeinfreiheit [0] which also includes; "Werke, die vom Schöpfer in die Gemeinfreiheit entlassen wurden." What's the big difference to "public domain" I'm missing here? [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinfreiheit https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinfreiheit
  - andi999 5y ago
    From your link:"Nach deutschem und österreichischem Recht ist umstritten, ob ein Totalverzicht auf das Urheberrecht zugunsten der Allgemeinheit möglich ist. Die wohl herrschende Meinung schließt dies unter Berufung auf § 29 UrhG-D bzw. § 19 UrhG-Ö aus. Daher gibt es dort keine Gemeinfreiheit durch Rechteverzicht wie in den USA," So the current legal opinion is that you cannot 'give' your work to public domain. Minority opinion believes you can. So for your work to enter public domain, you just have to pass away and wait 70 years (or whatever the specific requirement was).
    - ttybird2 5y ago
      https://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html https://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html
      - pdonis 5y ago
        Abandoning your copyright to a work does not place it in the public domain. It just makes it abandoned property, which then becomes owned by the first person to take ownership of it (barring further complications in the applicable jurisdictions abandoned property laws, or pre-existing claims by others such as the former owner's heirs or assigns). http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.ht...
kmeisthax 5y ago
Not only does Germany have copyright, it is the reason why Disney was able to bully around the US into the last major copyright term extension. On a more meta note, I'm noticing a pattern where people figure that jurisdictional or cultural differences constitute such a dramatic difference that "insert crazy copyright law here" is just assumed to not apply in their local jurisdiction, or that it will never apply to them. It will. There might be cases where you do have cultural differences, but copyright isn't one of them. Copyright enjoys deep international consensus on almost every issue, and the only practical differences between jurisdictions are things like: - Should copyright terms be long (life+50), extra-long (life+70), or practically forever (up to life+100)? - Should authors be allowed to unwind licensing agreements and copyright transfers? - Can an author intentionally destroy their own copyright interest in a work? Or does "public domain" only include works whose copyright has naturally expired? - Do authors enjoy moral rights to their work? If so, can those rights be waived or not? - Do online services need to proactively filter content in order to avoid copyright liability, or is merely offering no-questions-asked takedowns to copyright owners enough? - Do you need to register your copyright in order to sue? Y'know, things "on the margins" of copyright. It's important not to understate how ridiculously radical the stereotypical hacker position on copyright is. Even avowed Communists were willing to continue a watered-down copyright regime[0] despite having a legal system that specifically considered profit to be a form of exploitation and regularly charged people with things like "social parasitism". The kinds of people here who would like to see copyright abolished or reformed into oblivion are, in one sense at least, "to the left[1] of Soviet Russia". Everywhere else, people hold copyright as a base assumption. This includes "America", "the Anglosphere", "the West", and any other division you want to talk about to make your point that you don't think the law applies when it does. [0] Strictly speaking, I've been told by actual Russian emigrants who lived under Soviet rule that copyright wasn't a thing people worried about until the fall of Communism. However, this is also concomitant with copyright interests in capitalist countries being increasingly worried about consumer-level copyright infringement. What I do know is that the laws on the books did exist, but I suspect they were only used against state-owned publishing enterprises, as that would fit in with the general ideas behind Socialist law better. The Soviets were actually worried about the masses copying music before the RIAA was. However, this had less to do with copyright and more to do with censorship: before the 1970s importing western music was hella illegal. There actually were bootleg music copying rings at that time; they'd copy the music onto makeshift vinyl records made out of old X-ray prints. [1] Insamuch as "left" without additional qualifiers is even a meaningful term at that point.

bitwize 5y ago

Continental copyright is actually a bit stronger than Anglo-American copyright because it draws from the concept of authors' rights, the moral right of an author to control how their work is exhibited (because the work is tied up with the author's reputation). Hence why essential aspects of American copyright law, like public domain and fair use, are leas developed or missing in non-Anglo Western Europe.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]