"it doesn't mean that everybody is entitled to get a copy of those standards for free."
Can you cite some case law for this assertion?
At least in the US, every court i'm aware of to confront the issue has decided that if they incorporate a standard by reference into a law, you must be allowed to access it for free, or it cannot be enforced against you.
Some even go further, and state it is no longer copyrightable. See, e.g., VEECK v. SOUTHERN BUILDING CODE CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL, INC (293 F.3d 791)
"Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives. As model codes, however, the organization's works retain their protected status."
If you have contrary authority, i'd love to see it (veeck has, last i looked, 283+ citations).
Even those commentators who criticize the Veeck decision all agree that the public must be given access to the code, for free. The only portion they disagree on is whether incorporation causes the copy to enter the public domain or not (IE whether it's still copyrightable).
Please cite any european decision to the contrary to support your decision ...
Germany's official copyright law (which i only have english translations of, so apologies) says:
"(3) The copyright on private collections of standards is not affected by section 1 and 2 if they are referred to in laws, regulations, decrees or official announcements without reproduction of their wording. In this case, the originator is obliged to grant each and every publisher the right to copy and distribute on reasonable terms. If a third party is the holder of the exclusive right to copy and distribute, that party is obliged to grant the license of use in accordance with sentence 2."
I doubt 103 euros per copy is going to be found to be reasonable terms ...
(And if it was not by reference, it would be covered by the sentence one that i didn't copy, which would just make it plain old not copyrightable)
But enough of this, you made an assertion (and not even about german law, mind you, but about 'the law'), it's your job to support it.
> I doubt 103 euros per copy is going to be found to be reasonable terms ...
§32 of the law seems to apply here for "reasonable terms", which states in (2):
(2) (...) Any other remuneration shall be equitable if at the time the agreement is concluded it corresponds to what in business relations is customary and fair, given the nature and extent of the possibility of exploitation granted, in particular the duration and time of exploitation, and considering all circumstances.
Which is quite unspecific, but I think (sorry, no case I can quote) that 103 will be seen as "ok".
I made an assertion and now it's my "job to support it"?! How is that for an assertion. Stating that everybody is not entitled to get a free copy of copyrighted material is hardly an assertion in the first place and I think you maybe have a very strong sense of entitlement if you think you should tell me what my job is ;-)
I am not a German lawyer but a Danish one. The Danish copyright law doesn't have such provision but in Denmark charging manufacturers 100 euro for a standard would not upset any judge. 100 Euro is the price of a meal at an average restaurant, 20 minutes of lawyer time or a text book on insolvency law (if you can't pay for it). Things are cheaper in Germany so maybe 100 Euro is too much. I don't know.
Lawmakers often prefer that technical standards are made by private and semi private bodies because politicians and government clerks have absolutely no clue about technicalities. manufacturers prefer it for the same reason.
Even if these technical bodies sell 1,000 "baby pacifier standards" all over Germany, and I doubt they sell that many, the proceeds barely cover the direct cost of creating the standards, including hiring lawyers, engineers and other experts, negotiating with different interest groups, printing etc.
If the alternative would be to let the taxpayers bear the full price I think it's fine to have manufacturers pay a few hundred euros yearly to get the standards they need.
In most of Europe compliance with product safety regulations is not ensured through the courts by lawyers hired by those who have suffered damage. Yes, these cases exist but in much smaller numbers than in the US. The real enforcement of the rules is carried out by public agencies that control that the rules are followed, issue fines and bans, close factories etc. So there are very few readers of most of these standards.
As for court cases, I don't know of any on this subject.
Actually no. Stating the fact that random rulings in the US don't apply to this case here is nothing that needs further support. Even if the general idea ('those documents should be free') would be supported in a German court that observation would still be true: Those court cases aren't relevant. Interesting maybe, related for people asking themselves how the US handles this. But they don't mean a thing for the case in the article.
The original assertion was (basically): "Just because you make something part of the law, doesn't make it free".
Note it was not even an assertion made about german law, but the law in general. There was no support for this statement offered, just a bare assertion that this was true.
I pointed out this was not true in the US, and probably not true in plenty of places. I specifically asked if there was any caselaw to support the assertion.
The response, rather than to offer support for the bare assertion, was to point out i cited the US. Which was kind of besides the point.
So I went to the trouble of looking up german copyright law, and posting what it says about it. At that point, I felt like I was essentially doing the work of the parent for them, and pointed out again that maybe they'd like to support their still bare assertion about the law.
So yes, there was something to support, and at least as of this writing, it's still not supported.
I don't think the article is concerned about manufacture, but about the rest of us. How can you as a consumer know the safety assurances a product has when it claims to conform to a given standard? If you can't read that standard... Maybe it isn't unreasonable to expect manufacturers pay a hundred euros for a standard (though I'd hate to), but it is unreasonable to expect the general public to do the same.
I hope I needn't explain why safety standards (as well as laws, regulations, and anything we rely on) should be open to public scrutiny.
"I made an assertion and now it's my "job to support it"?! How is that for an assertion. "
You made a bare assertion about the law. If you are going to simply assert things as true, yes, you get to support them. As a lawyer, you should know you can't just walk into court and say "bob is not guilty" (or the reverse, depending on where you live). You actually have to support this thesis.
I pointed out your assertion was quite incorrect in several countries, and specifically asked you for some caselaw to the contrary, in the hopes of getting some that may be directly applicable. Rather than support your assertion, you just pointed out these were not US rulings, which was kind of besides the point.
" Stating that everybody is not entitled to get a free copy of copyrighted material is hardly an assertion in the first place "
????
There are a very large number of situations where a a lot of people are entitled to free copies and use of copyrighted material, in both the US, and Europe, so yes, it is quite an assertion. It's also the case that there are a lot of situations where such material would become uncopyrightable, again, in the US, and Europe.
So it's not "hardly an assertion in the first place".
The rest does not seem to be quite on point, which is the question of whether or not what Carl did is going to be found to be a violation, and not about who should bear the cost.
The only thing I see here that answers the question I asked directly is "As for court cases, I don't know of any on this subject."
I take it then you don't have any legal support for your assertion? Cases, laws, etc, that would say that what Carl is doing is illegal, rather than policy arguments?
To add a bit to flexie's comments, I'm not from Denmark but from Iceland, which used to be a Danish colony, so it shares some of the same legal framework. But what I'm about to point out is true in much of Europe.
Much of the culture clash you're seeing between comments from Europeans and Americans in this thread comes down to the difference in how the funding for public institutions is managed when it comes to copyrighted works.
In the US it's federal law that any work the government produces be placed in the public domain, no questions asked. So e.g. when the USGS produces a map it's fully funded by the government and placed in the public domain.
In Europe it's common for public (and pseudo-public, like the DIN) institutions to have a hybrid funding model, they're partially funded by taxpayers, but are expected to collect a nominal fee from the public or industry that expects to directly use some of their work.
Both models have their advantaged and disadvantages. One obvious one over in Europe is that if you partially depend on direct public funding you're more likely to actively serve the public, whereas in the US institutions would me more likely to gravitate towards serving the government itself, since it's only the government they depend on for funding.
Another aspect is that hypothetically it costs around the same thing to produce a map in Europe and America, but in Europe the general population will be taxed less for it, but people who directly use it (and buy it) will disproportionally pay for it.
Much of this is changing over in Europe, e.g. the National Land Survey of Iceland now gives out its map data under a free license, because indirect value to society of having freely available maps was judged greater than the sum of the nominal fee they previously charged for a license to use those maps.
This gets especially hairy in cases like these where some of this data being charged for is referenced directly or indirectly by law.
In the Reykjavík area in Iceland you can't do significant construction work without spending a relatively trivial sum to buy a ridiculously accurate map from the city (I think it's accurate down to 1-2 millimeters) showing where all the pipes and electrical cabling is installed. The surveying effort is mostly funded by private construction companies.
Would it be better if the average citizen just paid more in taxes and that map was made freely available, is some private citizen who isn't going to build a whole road but just do some significant yard work being overcharged because he has to legally comply with proprietary information?
I don't know, but the trade-offs involved aren't very clear in my mind.
| 100 Euro is the price of a meal at an average restaurant
Wow!!! Something is rotten in the kingdom of Danemark...
The life seems to be very expensive. In France it'll be like 30 Euro (3 courses and wine)
I visited Copenhagen as recently as this summer, and I think what flexie considers the average restaurant would feel pretty upscale to me. Then again I'm not a lawyer. :)
Not all countries have the nice US standard of it all being free. Frequently Irish law refers to maps that are heavily copyrighted by Irish semi-state bodies.
However, while that appears to be the law in Germany, that doesn't mean it ought to be the law in Germany (or anywhere else). Sounds like iRights.Law is looking to get that changed.
Can you cite some case law for this assertion?
At least in the US, every court i'm aware of to confront the issue has decided that if they incorporate a standard by reference into a law, you must be allowed to access it for free, or it cannot be enforced against you.
Some even go further, and state it is no longer copyrightable. See, e.g., VEECK v. SOUTHERN BUILDING CODE CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL, INC (293 F.3d 791)
"Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives. As model codes, however, the organization's works retain their protected status."
If you have contrary authority, i'd love to see it (veeck has, last i looked, 283+ citations).
Even those commentators who criticize the Veeck decision all agree that the public must be given access to the code, for free. The only portion they disagree on is whether incorporation causes the copy to enter the public domain or not (IE whether it's still copyrightable).