germanier

On the other hand, there are numerous cases where Facebook has been compelled by German courts to restore posts they have deleted under their content policy to protect the user's free speech rights. Something like that is unthinkable in the US.

The law in question only concerns itself with publishing. It has accounted for the case you mention: It is explicitly allowed to publish photos that include people which have wandered into frame by chance and the main focus is some locality and not the person in question.

I'm not taking a stance, I just try to represent the argument fairly - whether one actually agrees is another thing. Misrepresenting arguments as the PGLAF does is lazy.

According to German legal rules you always have to take an overall view into account, not only to each argument on its own. In this case, whether they intended to also(!) reach German users.

Anyway, 2016 the highest German civil court ruled in accordance to precedence from the European Court of Justice that copyright infringement on websites fall under German jurisdiction as long as 1) the website is accessible from Germany without circumventing any blocks 2) it's infringing according to German law. Showing that the website operator actually intends to reach German users is no longer necessary.

In the other hand, the standard for enforcing civil judgements is much lower.

> Even worse, they only blocked people from Germany that didn't know how to use a VPN. German courts really don't get how the internet works.

German courts are aware of the existence of means to circumvent such a block but don't see that as a reason to not even try. See e.g BGH, 26.11.2015 - I ZR 174/14

That's only half the story. The court based it on the following facts:

* The website was accessible from Germany

* The website was partly translated into German

* The website offered German-language content

* The explicitly offered worldwide service ("anyone anywhere")

* There was a disclaimer directed at people not located in the US

That's the biased interpretation of the PGLAF. Framing the whole thing as "unambiguous", "managed to find a German Court" and "some precedents" is disingenuous. There is a reason they don't refer to any precedent supporting their position: there is none. How can you say with a straight face that the issue is unambiguous when in fact there is precedence pointing in the other direction?

Note that the courts didn't ignore those treaties and or somehow ruled they weren't enforceable. They just have a different interpretation of the legal contents of those treaties than the PGLAF does. Law is often not black or white and anyone who claims there is just one true position doesn't tell you the whole truth. The issue is actually pretty interesting legally and there is a lot more subtlety to it than the claim that courts are somehow bending the law.

Which international treaties were ignored by German courts in these cases?

Many modern smartphones function as a reader (by installing the AusweisApp2) for many years now, see https://www.ausweisapp.bund.de/mobile-geraete/ for the compatibility list. No need to buy any additional hardware beyond what a lot of people already own nor is installing the app actually hard.

Each municipality is free to choose their own solution to the legal requirements (which includes a standardized API). For the moment, there are eight different software solutions on the market (developed by both public and private entities), see https://www1.osci.de/meldewesen/xmeld/registrierte-herstelle...

There is no central database, even after the changes of 2015. It is still hosted by each individual municipality (which is exactly what your link states).

However, there here is a standard API which allows some entities to query all those decentralized registers. It is designed to make it hard to siphon out all data at once (which hopefully trips audit systems in enough places that someone cares to look into).

The only centralized database of that kind is the one at BZSt, which contains far less data. For the moment access is limited to tax-related issues but it will be soon expanded to a centralized base data registry (Registermodernisierung).

In Germany we draw the line on what type of information the person in question makes public by their own choice. Do you invite tabloids for a home story and let them take pictures? Then other pictures of your home can be published. If you on the other hand never talk about your home and family publicly let alone invite media in, that can remain private. In addition, if the information is relevant to a larger topic (e.g. a corruption scandal involving a politician's home) then you can show anything relevant to that.

The shape itself is not copyrighted (in the US), only the representation in code is. It's the same concept with pronunciations: the pronunciation itself is not copyrighted, a specific recording of someone saying a word is.

> whether a German who neglects to sign up for a new sickness fund after changing jobs

Just for the record: There is nothing you have to do when switching jobs in Germany - you just keep your previous health fund. There is a very small amount of people without health insurance but once you are in the system (which I think is fair to call "national healthcare system") you will find it very hard to leave even if you try.

Not sure what point you are trying to make. It's not a "private company" (not even a closely regulated one) in any sense of the word "private" no matter where in the world that word it is used.

Health care might be organized differently than in most other countries but that does not imply that those institution are private.

Is the City of Munich also a private company? It has self-administration, is responsible for its own budget which can't be negative, has to operate within legislative bounds including giving compulsory benefits to its residents (which are exactly the criteria you quote). Of course not, that's a city. What about the Technical University of Munich? They even have "members" instead of residents in addition to the things above. It's all the exact same kind of legal entity. Saying one is public and the other one private doesn't make any sense. What's the difference between those in your eyes?

The current plan is to get rid of that piece of paper by the same time next year.

Statutory health insurances are Körperschaften des öffentlichen Rechts, which (as the name implies) are public institutions and very much not private companies. They have the right to bear seals, can issue titles to collect missing payments, are bound to administration law, etc. It's the same legal designation as e.g. the city of Munich which hopefully nobody calls a "private company". It's really just their marketing which looks more corporate than what we are used to from most other public institutions.

Many hospitals are part of a municipality or a university (again, established by public law), many others are organized as private companies (either publicly or privately owned). Non-hospital doctors are almost completely private entities.

Having the possibility to pay for a doctor on your own or there being multiple actors does not stop having a "national healthcare system" which the GKV-system can fairly be recognized as given how much formalized and standardized it is.

Gematik is completely owned by public institutions (including medical self-governing institutions) except for a very minor stake of the PKV-Verband.

German government IT is far removed from being a monolithic entity. There are a lot of different actors involved with different priorities.

In this case law enforcement can simply request the data (as long as such a request is legal) at either end. No need to attack the connection in between.

Unfortunately, at the moment even code access for other public institutions is buried behind many layers of bureaucracy but I have been promised they will start to open up soon enough.

A shift to open source is sanctioned from the very top. For example, in the area of OZG (broad digital access to public services, coming soon) the explicit decision is (my translation):

> Open standards must be used in the implementation and operation of digital offerings. The source code from the realization of digital offerings by the administration (in-house development) is made available as open source, i.e., in reusable form, wherever possible. https://www.it-planungsrat.de/fileadmin/beschluesse/2020/Bes...

They are also starting a project to host public, open source code which is backed by the federal CIO and many state and local governments: https://www.cio.bund.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/DE/2021/pm_...

This is not something sneaked in by some techies. Every decision maker is probably aware by now what "open source" means.

Usually the mere announcement of such a plan is enough to find enough volunteers but there do exist a handful of such conscripted firefighter troops. Often this is necessary after a mass resignation of volunteers such as in Helsa, Hessia this year.

In German court proceedings you can only recover attorney fees up to the (pretty low) legal fee schedule (RVG). Anything above that you will have to pay yourselves

The law is not that absolute in this respect and there have been cases before higher courts accepting "data in exchange for value" contracts under some conditions. There are also legal opinions out there that this is illegal but note that there is a controversy here.

We are talking about a warranty-related claim, not a claim about damages they'd have to pay regardless of the warranty offered.

But anyway: If I travel outside the US and buy a harmful appliance in a local shop, a US court would probably not take the case. Am I right? What would the manufacturer have to do to get exposure to US law?

Honestly, I'm not well versed in US law but as far as I understand, you need to show nexus to apply it which has totally different and much more nuanced criteria compared to the GDPR (which simply spells those out)

They are not a US company nor do they operate from within the US at all. That law does not apply to their warranty.

Last time I looked into this, there are no fuses in the required range available and I'm not sure they can be produced without significant R&D investment.

Yes, as a direct to consumer seller located in the EU they have to offer a two year warranty on manufacturing defects.

Companies have to, see Article 3. GDPR triggers whenever the processing is done by a company located in the EU or targeting users located in the EU.

Google probably does not as they surely don't do processing of non-EU user's data within their EU subsidiaries.