Court Order Blocks Access to Project Gutenberg in Germany

From a Post on an Info Page on The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation:

• 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.
  • 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 [listed on the web page] 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.
  • Court’s original decision (in German).
  • Decision translated into English.
• 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.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation web page also includes 18 questions asked and answered (about 2000 words) and links to more information.

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