German 'porn pirates' to be publicly named | Hacker News Reader

German 'porn pirates' to be publicly named

bbc.com

22 pointsstfu23 comments

"Under German law, solicitors are allowed to publish the names of those accused by their clients."

....ahem... no. What he is referring to: There was a court decision that solicitors are "generally" allowed to name their clients and those accused by the clients (http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rk20071212_1bvr162506.ht..., german, sorry), but this was in a professional context. The application on a private level is unclear. The court ruled that it would be a restriction of the solicitors right of free profession if he were not to. But this is not absolute, the court only ruled that its generally possible, but other reasons might weight heavier. There is still the possibility that naming the accused in a process involving porn is an illegal invasion of privacy and - quite frankly - extortion and the right of the accused weights higher. The general consensus in germany is that this case is pretty clear and will fail in court if it wasn't some kind of advertisement joke.

I have no idea about German law. But does this not risk qualifying as extortion? Pay or we go publish your name. I do not think it matters much that there is a crime involved, it can still be extortion.

> I do not think it matters much that there is a crime involved, it can still be extortion.

Not even a crime, an accusation.

The way I read it they publish the names unconditionally, and then you get the option of paying money as a settlement to avoid being part of the following lawsuit.

I think you are probably right about that.

I wonder though what it would be if they were naming people instead of attempting to sue/fine them. If they named everybody and made no attempt to actually extort something. Maybe libel/slander laws would kick in at that point.

Not maybe, surely.

That would be publishing of an information, and i think the media law would kick in. The reputation of a person is protected and may only be harmed by proven/qualified allegations. So this would surely be illegal over here.

As Argorak also stated, the german public - the lawyers giving statements - also believe this.

There isn't any defamation when the thing being said is a fact.

This is true in the US, but not necessarily in other countries.

In the US you could probably get away with this until you made a mistake and published the name of someone who could show they'd never downloaded your porn. And by the time their legal team was done with you your net profit would end up being, like, minus twenty million dollars.

I've always heard German law is more strict when it comes to privacy. Wouldn't something similar occur?

Porn has become so culturally acceptable I doubt many people will pay up.

If my name were published as a list of humans who view pornography, I would not care.

The most embarrassing thing is you got caught and therefor "can't into internets".

Not if it is BDSM (it is abuse claims those who don't like it), rape porn (rape is bad, but murder is worse, yet action movies routinely kill a lot of people but somehow that is not a problem but fake filmed rape is), goat porn, midget porn, etc.

Because there's actually such a thing as legitimate murder (soldiers, etc) and no such thing as legitimate rape.

Eh, almost. There is such a thing as legitimate killing, but murder is a crime by definition.

The gentleman from missori would would disagree with you.

> The gentleman from missori would would disagree with you.

Actually, he doesn't. What he said is that women who are raped are capable of reducing their odds of conception by some sort of physiological/emotional response.

While wacky, that's not the same as denying that rape exists.

And, that wacky is basically the flip side of a very common belief among "the right people", namely that one can affect conception odds through various new age techniques, including meditation.

That argument would fly if the movies were only about legitimate killings. Most action movies aren't.

The 'name and shame' angle is really curious - the lawyers threatening to do this are instructed by the copyright holders -- ie the companies that own the rights to the pornography in the first place. The rights holders probably produced the pornography too, or at the very least are in charge of its distribution.

It's a peculiar state of affairs when a company wants to assert shame for (allegedly) viewing/possessing the material they produced/distributed. I wonder what message that says to people who legitimately purchased, viewed and own copies of the same titles the rights holder is trying to shame people over?

I guess they can only keep this up if they do it in small batches. Once you get like 5 million people listed the extortion party ends since http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVNjnyD38UA

Sounds familiar? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/08/mugshots/

"identified as having downloaded pornography"

I assume illegally?

Yes, of course.

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