Court Order to Block Access from Germany
This page provides information about a lawsuit which was brought against the [1]Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (PGLAF,the organization that operates Project Gutenberg) and its Director & CEO, Greg Newby.
The Basics
On December 30, 2015, PGLAF received notification that a lawsuit had been filed in Germany against it, and its CEO.
+The lawsuit was concerned with 18 eBooks, by three authors, which are part of the Project Gutenberg collection.
The lawsuit was filed in the Frankfurt am Main Regional court, in Germany.
+ The Plaintiff is S. Fischer Verlag, GmbH. Hedderichstrasse 114, 60956 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. They are represented by the law firm, Waldorf Frommer of Munich.
The essence of the lawsuit is that the Plaintiff wants the 18 eBooks to no longer be accessible, at least from Germany. It also seeks punitive damages and fines.
Based on legal advice from its US attorneys, PGLAF declined to remove or block the items. The lawsuit proceeded, with a series of document filings by both sides, and hearings before the judges (all of which occurred in German, in the German court). PGLAF hired a German law firm, Wilde Beuger Solmecke, in Köln, to represent it in Germany.
On February 9 2018, the Court issued a judgement granting essentially all of the Plaintiff's demands.
PGLAF complied with the Court's order on February 28, 2018 by blocking all access to www.gutenberg.org and sub-pages to all of Germany.
[It goes on]
Isn't that great, and isn't it so funny how Open and Self-Confessed socialist nations are the first to censor works? This time, public domain works are being censored. Thanks, Israel!