[OT] EDRI-gram newsletter uber Nutzwerk
Liebe Skoletuxe,
Nimmt bitte mahl die Zeit um dies zu lesen.
Es berichtet von ein Versuch um anders denkende still zu kriegen.
Ich bitte euch um zum überleggen was eure ISP machen wird,
wenn er eine Frage von einen Anwalt bekommt.
Grüsse
Geert Stappers
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EDRI-gram
biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe
Number 3.16, 10 August 2005
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5. Angry pro software patent company takes down FFII website
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The long running legal fight between the German software company Nutzwerk
(Leipzig) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII,
best known for its extensive lobby against software patents) has
culminated in the takedown of the FFII.org website on 1 August 2005.
Technically, the website itself wasn't removed, but in a far more radical
move, the German company Teamware removed the DNS-registration of the
website, making it invisible to the rest of the world. Nutzwerk justified
the takedown claim to Teamware by referring to an intermediate Hamburg
court injunction that ordered FFII to remove some specific phrases and an
insultory headline about Nutzwerk. The line was: 'Nutzwerk: Zuck und Nepp
mit Softwarepatenten' (which roughly translates as 'gamble and fake with
software patents').
Teamware was afraid it might be sued if it didn't take action, but also
hesitantly admitted to the Dutch e-zine Webwereld that there could also be
costs if Nutzwerk's claim was false and FFII would sue for damages. A
spokesperson told Webwereld: "We did offer FFII the possibility to host
their dns domain at another party," and even the reporter was offered to
administer the domain. The DNS-provider of the almost identical website at
www.ffii.de has not yet succumbed to the legal threats, nor has the
hosting company of this website, www.united-domains.de.
FFII has covered extensive reporting about 6 patent claims of the company,
following a public patent software row between Nutzwerk and the company
Cobion. One of these patents expired, two were declared invalid and two
were withdrawn. One patent has not been granted yet. When Google in 2003
showed a high page rank for these files about Nutzwerk, the company
started litigation. Later, FFII dug up news about confronting and/or
misleading search terms bought by Nutzwerk, including the term 'Scheiss
Juden' to advertise an anonymous surfing service. Currently the FFII
website contains some documented comments about a link-farm operated by
Nutzwerk, to confuse searchbots with many metatags. After publication of
this practice, Nutzwerk silently but immediately removed all the
misleading referrals.
The legal case started in October 2004, when Nutzwerk simultaneously
launched civil proceedings at courts in the cities Halle, Leipzig and
Hamburg, making it extremely expensive for FFII to defend itself. When the
reputable e-zine Heise reported about the case, on 28 October 2004,
Nutzwerk also started to litigate the publisher and the editor-in-chief.
In a recent article on the case, Heise writes they have already won in 10
different court proceedings.
While Nutzwerk claimed damage to personality rights, the FFII defence
attorney claimed freedom of speech rights, within the context of educating
a large audience about the problems arising from software patents. Since
the entire FFII website consists of links and commentaries to developments
with regards to software patents, the Nutzwerk file is nothing
exceptional. Besides, the attorney pointed out, Nutzwerk didn't succeed in
criminal proceedings against Cobion and also lost at the German patent
court.
The Hamburg court ordered FFII to remove 8 critical sentences, in Halle
Nutzwerk "lost 80% of the case" FFII says and in Leipzig Nutzwerk even
withdrew the case completely. According to EFFI, since May 2005 Nutzwerk
has successfully intimidated several web portal operators to remove links
to the documentation and succeeded in taking several entire websites down.
On 26 July 2005, the Internet service provider of the FFII, BayCIX,
received a similar takedown request:
"In accordance with the regulations of the telecommunication service act
(/Teledienstgesetz/) you are obliged, after getting knowledge of illegal
contents, to remove them (in comparison to the ruling of the Federal Court
(/Bundesgerichtshof/) from September 23rd, 2003, about reference number VI
ZR 335/02). We hereby demand you to de-connect the IP address 212.72.72.97
immediately, but no later than on 28 July 2005, at 18:00 (6pm)."
BayCIX wasn't intimidated. FFII claims the reference to the Federal Court
ruling is erroneous, since the case wasn't about takedown, but about a
specific claim transfer from a website author to an internet service
provider. In general, German jurisprudence rather excludes liability if
the author is only citing external sources. The express ruling of the
local court in Hamburg did not affect the nutzwerk.ffii.org documentation
as a whole nor the FFII server as a whole, but only 8 specific phrases.
These phrases were removed by FFII by mid-July 2005. But Nutzwerk
continues to send takedown letters, as if reporting about the court
decision is also forbidden.
Self-censored FFII case file on the legal battle against Nutzwerk (in German)
http://nutzwerk.ffii.org/index.de.html
FFII overview in English of press articles about the case
http://wiki.ffii.org/NutzwerkEn
Webwereld article, by Brenno de Winter (in English)
http://dewinter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=194
Heise article (02.08.2005)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/62354
Counter file on the proceedings against Heise by Nutzwerk (in German)
http://www.nutzwerk-heise.de/
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