Re: [Savannah-users] Savannah project => German law, "Impressum" (imprint) necessary?

[Marcus Müller]

Hi Dieter,

I'm not a lawyer myself, but your mail does raise a few "I think that
isn't right" flags¹. Please don't start an argument about this with me,
I'm really not a lawyer, just think this indicates you haven't consulted
one so far (and thus, I could simply and plainly be wrong). Since I
don't think this is the best forum for legal questions, however:

If the FSF has a lawyer that could advise you in German law, then that's
definitely the best solution to this. Otherwise, I'd strongly suggest
you look towards what other projects do (and I guess that's why you
wrote to this list in the first place). FSF Europe might be of
assistance, too.

Yours definitely wouldn't be the first FOSS project headed by a German
hosted outside Germany. I'm really not expecting you'd meet any trouble
hosting your project on Savannah. Again, I'm not a lawyer.

Best regards,
Marcus

¹ among those such things like the Telemediengesetz definitely not being
criminal code; there's no criminal prosecution, just civil
"Abmahnbarkeit" and liability.
On 08/14/2017 03:22 PM, address@hidden wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> please forgive me to pull up a 10-year old message.
> It is even more relevant today. To clarify:
> 
> Said law requires every user who publishes content on the
> web to provide his full name and postal address at the
> project site. Otherwise severe criminal prosecution may result.
> 
> The law also applies to content hosted on third-party platforms,
> e.g. to personal facebook pages. This should be comparable to
> hosting a project on Savannah.
> 
> This might not be a problem for creating new projects on
> Savannah, as long as I do not disclose being from Germany.
> 
> But it is a different story to migrate a project already being
> hosted in Germany to Savannah (which I am currently considering).
> 
> Please note that the project is completely lawful. It is currently
> published with my postal address in Germany. I just had a
> disturbing encounter with some users and want my privacy back.
> 
> Dropping my postal address from the project exposes me to
> criminal prosecution, but keeping the address leaves my home
> and family exposed. This will effectively lead to self-censorship,
> as simply deleting the project would be the easiest path for me.
> 
> So are there any suggestions for a remedy? Maybe transfer
> project ownership to an American resident and have him register
> and run the project on Savannah?
> Would such application be accepted by the reviewers?
> 
> Regards,
>   Dieter
> 
> 
> Quoting Sylvain Beucler <address@hidden>:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> We don't have policy about that.
>> I honestly have no knowledge about this issue.
>>
>> -- 
>> Sylvain
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 10:56:29AM +0100, address@hidden wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I've got a question regarding the German law. As far as I know in
>>> Germany [1] you have to provide for your  website/ project an
>>> "Impressum" (imprint).
>>> My project "Afghan Calendar" [2] (website and download area) will be
>>> hosted at Savannah, it will also provide German localized calendars
>>> with historical dates.
>>> I would like to know if it is  necessary to provide a personal
>>> "Impressum" (imprint) for this project or is it enough to redirect to
>>> Savannah's imprint (by the way what would be the correct URL?) ?
>>>
>>> In general a imprint is good idea, but regarding the German law one
>>> has to provide a post address (a post office box is not sufficient)
>>> in general this is identical to the address where you live :-( .
>>> For a project which is world wide accessible this could be a little
>>> risky (e.g. if you don't want to be disturbed at the weekends ;-) 
>>> etc.).
>>>
>>> What is the general Savannah policy?
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Alekozai
>>>
>>>
>>> 1: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressum#Deutsche_Rechtslage
>>> 2: https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?6156
> 
> 
> 
> 
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