Quote:
Originally Posted by sjfan
But it's not. People in Germany are visiting an American site (located in America, with no direct connections to Germany) and then importing books from there. It's like having a book store set up in Minsk that complies with local law, which German people are getting books from and then driving home.
This is different from something like Amazon selling books, where they are actually doing business in Germany (including taking payment from Germans and often delivering physical goods, operating warehouses, etc); once you've established a presence or business relationship in the country then it's entirely reasonable that you should know and comply with their laws. And if that tiny startup takes money from someone in Kiribati to deliver a product there, then they'd better know and comply with Kiribati's laws.
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No, it's not different, and that's the point. Project Gutenberg has to comply with German copyright law because there are international copyright treaties & the Internet is not a US-centric place where PG is somehow above Germany's copyright laws. The Intenet is global & non-profits have to abide by the same copyright laws that a commercial entity does. So PG will have to make adjustments so they stay within the law if they wish to have international site traffic.
Kiribati is a Life + 50 country, and if they had a publisher who was within their rights as the German publisher was, then PG would have to comply.