[Foundation-l] YouPorn in Germany: Another ugly legal case

[Mathias Schindler]

On 10/22/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> This could become a pretty terrible precedent turning the German
> Internet into even more of a legal minefield than it already is. :-(
> At some point we may be faced with the choice to either apply a number
> of Germany-specific restrictions on our content, or have all Wikimedia
> projects be censored in Germany. I'd be inclined towards the latter.

Youporn had the specific problem of providing hardcore pornography
available to people without age verification. This is a problem we are
actually not faced with (to a significant extend). Pictures of nudity
are usually within educational articles about a particular subject, so
there is - for us - no similar problem than the one Youporn faced. On
top of that, we are no ISP, so that particular problem does not
directly affect us. Even if a German ISP would be forced to block
Wikipedia, it would not directly affect Wikipedia. Youpr0n is again
free to provide whatever content they like, as long as people are able
to reach that site.

Of course, there is also the "climate", chilling effect and so on.