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Running a website in Germany seems like a god damned nightmare: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/abmahnung-creative-commons https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/

Running a website in Germany seems like a god damned nightmare: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/abmahnung-creative-commons https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/abmahnung-creative-commons

bruce343434 5y ago
You just need to have a bit of common sense about what's good for your users and what's not good for them. That copyright example by the way, that applies everywhere.
- drstewart 5y ago
  My common sense would say embedding a link to Google Fonts to make use of caching is possible is good for the user
  - bruce343434 5y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30136221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30136221 > The browsers don't share third-party caches across domains, because it made it easier to leak information about which sites the user has visited.
  - neoromantique 5y ago
    And because of people like you we are stuck with NoScript and the like
onli 5y ago
That specific scam does not have to work anymore though. Abmahnungen in Germany are the most stupid and lawyer serving system in the world, but the CC image scam got closed by judges deciding no monetary harm was done. Possible that these lawyers are still trying, but note that the article started 2018.
- account42 5y ago
  The linked article also never went to court because they decided to pay instead: > September 21: After months of silence, we have received another letter from Kanzlei Schröder. This time, they threaten to take us to court unless we pay 400€ by October 1. We decided to pay. That was our last interaction with Kanzlei Schröder.
- brtkdotse 5y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the update!
- arlcode 5y ago
  Do you have a link. I read that recently this specific scam was picking up steam in the US and was concerned about the implications here in Germany.
  - onli 5y ago
    Yeah, I think https://www.rechtambild.de/2018/09/kein-schadensersatz-bei-creative-commons-lizenzen/ https://www.rechtambild.de/2018/09/kein-schadensersatz-bei-c... references the decision I was remembering.
    - arlcode 5y ago
      Awesome. Thanks
vanviegen 5y ago
Whereas in the US you don't need to worry about frivolous lawsuits at all...?
- HL33tibCe7 5y ago
  Frivolous lawsuits, maybe, but frankly that’s irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is the legislative liability of running a website. I’ve never heard anything even close to what the GP describes happening in any other country.
  - smorgusofborg 5y ago
    Software patents are a construct of the legislature that hands out a template for privateers to create liability. I wouldn't want to do anything in the US market.
Aeolun 5y ago
And they decided to pay? FFS… well, that was certainly educational. It has a very chilling effect on innovation no doubt.
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  You are doing Your Thing™ and the lawyers are doing Their Thing™, and you are both incompetent at the other one. The worst you could do to a lawyer is that maybe you could embarrass them about their lack of network engineering knowledge, but they in turn can extract real money from you through various means. Also defending oneself results in involving a different lawyer enriching lawyers as a whole anyways.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    > maybe you could embarrass them about their lack of network engineering knowledge I’m fairly certain it’s possible to do much worse to a laywer, especially a technically clueless one. Defending oneself from a frivolous lawsuit (e.g. judge has already said ‘you can’t do that’) in a sensible country like Germany might not cost you anything. Much, much more likely however, is that they wouldn’t go to court at all (because, you know, they would lose, and even if both sides pay their own cost they’d lose more money than they could potentially make).
croes 5y ago
Spreading your data across the internet is the real nightmare
snickerbockers 5y ago
Why can't they just read the terms of the license before they use the content? By this logic, saying that you didn't cause any economic damage because the software is freely available ought to be a valid reason to violate the terms of the GNU GPL.
bitwize 5y ago
A smaller nightmare than the dystopian surveillance the free-market free-for-all in the USA has manifested. The government has the absolute authority to regulate you into a corner, if need be, to protect its people from predation by powerful interests. That's what governments are for.
Kim_Bruning 5y ago
This is called copyleft trolling, and is a problem outside Germany as well. It's a known bug in early CC licenses, and has been fixed as of CC 4.0 . https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator-5f6360713299 https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-... (action still required: authors need to update to CC 4.0 or later)

Running a website in Germany seems like a god damned nightmare: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/abmahnung-creative-commons https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/abmahnung-creative-commons

bruce343434 5y ago

You just need to have a bit of common sense about what's good for your users and what's not good for them. That copyright example by the way, that applies everywhere.

drstewart 5y ago
My common sense would say embedding a link to Google Fonts to make use of caching is possible is good for the user
- bruce343434 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30136221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30136221 > The browsers don't share third-party caches across domains, because it made it easier to leak information about which sites the user has visited.
- neoromantique 5y ago
  And because of people like you we are stuck with NoScript and the like

onli 5y ago

That specific scam does not have to work anymore though. Abmahnungen in Germany are the most stupid and lawyer serving system in the world, but the CC image scam got closed by judges deciding no monetary harm was done. Possible that these lawyers are still trying, but note that the article started 2018.

account42 5y ago
The linked article also never went to court because they decided to pay instead: > September 21: After months of silence, we have received another letter from Kanzlei Schröder. This time, they threaten to take us to court unless we pay 400€ by October 1. We decided to pay. That was our last interaction with Kanzlei Schröder.
brtkdotse 5y ago
Interesting, thanks for the update!
arlcode 5y ago
Do you have a link. I read that recently this specific scam was picking up steam in the US and was concerned about the implications here in Germany.
- onli 5y ago
  Yeah, I think https://www.rechtambild.de/2018/09/kein-schadensersatz-bei-creative-commons-lizenzen/ https://www.rechtambild.de/2018/09/kein-schadensersatz-bei-c... references the decision I was remembering.
  - arlcode 5y ago
    Awesome. Thanks

vanviegen 5y ago

Whereas in the US you don't need to worry about frivolous lawsuits at all...?

HL33tibCe7 5y ago
Frivolous lawsuits, maybe, but frankly that’s irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is the legislative liability of running a website. I’ve never heard anything even close to what the GP describes happening in any other country.
- smorgusofborg 5y ago
  Software patents are a construct of the legislature that hands out a template for privateers to create liability. I wouldn't want to do anything in the US market.

Aeolun 5y ago

And they decided to pay? FFS… well, that was certainly educational. It has a very chilling effect on innovation no doubt.

faeyanpiraat 5y ago
You are doing Your Thing™ and the lawyers are doing Their Thing™, and you are both incompetent at the other one. The worst you could do to a lawyer is that maybe you could embarrass them about their lack of network engineering knowledge, but they in turn can extract real money from you through various means. Also defending oneself results in involving a different lawyer enriching lawyers as a whole anyways.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > maybe you could embarrass them about their lack of network engineering knowledge I’m fairly certain it’s possible to do much worse to a laywer, especially a technically clueless one. Defending oneself from a frivolous lawsuit (e.g. judge has already said ‘you can’t do that’) in a sensible country like Germany might not cost you anything. Much, much more likely however, is that they wouldn’t go to court at all (because, you know, they would lose, and even if both sides pay their own cost they’d lose more money than they could potentially make).

croes 5y ago

Spreading your data across the internet is the real nightmare

snickerbockers 5y ago

Why can't they just read the terms of the license before they use the content? By this logic, saying that you didn't cause any economic damage because the software is freely available ought to be a valid reason to violate the terms of the GNU GPL.

bitwize 5y ago

A smaller nightmare than the dystopian surveillance the free-market free-for-all in the USA has manifested. The government has the absolute authority to regulate you into a corner, if need be, to protect its people from predation by powerful interests. That's what governments are for.

Kim_Bruning 5y ago

This is called copyleft trolling, and is a problem outside Germany as well. It's a known bug in early CC licenses, and has been fixed as of CC 4.0 . https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator-5f6360713299 https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-... (action still required: authors need to update to CC 4.0 or later)