quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

Hi, 

today I filed bug #313159 against the quake2 package, because of a
possible violation of the german Jugendschutzgesetz (youth protection
law). The bug report is attached below.

I'm not sure in how far the same applies for the doom-alike packages
(prboom, lxdoom etc.), since Doom I and Doom II have also been put on
the official list by the federal government as "endangering
youth". But AFAIK, these packages are less identical to the original
Dooms than quake2 to Quake II.

The federal institution responsible for assessing media with regard to
their youth-suitability can be found online at:
http://www.bundespruefstelle.de

They also provide the relevant laws there:
http://bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/arbeitsgrundlagen/index.php

But the list of youth-endangering media seems to be off line for some
reason, so I have not been able to confirm the listing there first
hand. Using google one finds a lot of references to the fact
though.

Ciao
  Michael Below

-snip-

The official Quake II CDs have been put on a list of media
"endangering youth" by the federal government in Germany, for
glorifying violence. I.E. they may not be offered / distributed to
people below 18 years of age, and they may not be advertised. 

This limitation applies also, without need for notification, to
media that contains wholly or essentially identical content (§ 15
Abs. 3 Jugendschutzgesetz).  Now it doesn't seem far-fetched that
the quake2 binaries are essentially identical to the Quake II game
as distributed by ID and banned by the federal government.  One
could try to deny this, because the game data is missing. But I
don't know how convincing this is towards german officials.

If one accepts that quake2 and Quake II are essentially identical,
the distribution limitations apply. For violation of these
limitations, one can be fined or (less likely) sentenced to prison
for up to 1 year (§ 27 Abs. 1 Jugendschutzgesetz).

So I think quake2 should be removed from CDs and servers in
Germany, just to be sure. Sorry to bring these bad news after the
release...

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[MJ Ray]

Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> today I filed bug #313159 against the quake2 package, because of a
> possible violation of the german Jugendschutzgesetz (youth protection
> law). The bug report is attached below.

Does this only apply to German distributors or to anyone distributing
to Germany? (My German is not really up to legal standard and the
failure to set a background colour hurts on
http://bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/arbeitsgrundlagen/juschg.php )

It would be nice to know whether it is game engine or data that
is actually the problem, too.

This looks like a bug in Germany rather than a bug in quake2.
I don't think contrib (where quake2 is) is on the official CDs,
but ICBW (not checked latest images to be sure).

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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Måns Rullgård]

MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> today I filed bug #313159 against the quake2 package, because of a
>> possible violation of the german Jugendschutzgesetz (youth protection
>> law). The bug report is attached below.
>
> Does this only apply to German distributors or to anyone distributing
> to Germany? (My German is not really up to legal standard and the
> failure to set a background colour hurts on
> http://bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/arbeitsgrundlagen/juschg.php )

I can't complain about the style or colors of that page, but the
content leaves me none the wiser.  Perhaps someone who actually knows
German can make more of it.

> It would be nice to know whether it is game engine or data that
> is actually the problem, too.

In my opinion, the game engine by itself can't be classified in those
terms.  It contains no inherent depiction of violence, glorification
of war, or whatever else is on that list.  I am fairly certain that
the quake2 engine could be used to create a totally non-violent game.

> This looks like a bug in Germany rather than a bug in quake2.

Does the German government have a bug tracking system?

-- 
Måns Rullgård
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Baltasar Cevc]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1



On 13.06.2005, at 11:37, Måns Rullgård wrote:


MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:


Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

today I filed bug #313159 against the quake2 package, because of a
possible violation of the german Jugendschutzgesetz (youth protection
law). The bug report is attached below.


Does this only apply to German distributors or to anyone distributing
to Germany? (My German is not really up to legal standard and the
failure to set a background colour hurts on
http://bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/arbeitsgrundlagen/juschg.php )

As far as I've seen, the act does not say anything about this.


I can't complain about the style or colors of that page, but the
content leaves me none the wiser.  Perhaps someone who actually knows
German can make more of it.

§ 12 Bildträger mit Filmen oder Spielen

(1) Bespielte Videokassetten und andere zur Weitergabe geeignete, für 
die Wiedergabe auf oder das Spiel an Bildschirmgeräten mit Filmen oder 
Spielen programmierte Datenträger (Bildträger) dürfen einem Kind oder 
einer jugendlichen Person in der Öffentlichkeit nur zugänglich gemacht 
werden, wenn die Programme von der obersten Landesbehörde oder einer 
Organisation der freiwilligen Selbstkontrolle im Rahmen des Verfahrens 
nach § 14 Abs. 6 für ihre Altersstufe freigegeben und gekennzeichnet 
worden sind oder wenn es sich um Informations-, Instruktions- und 
Lehrprogramme handelt, die vom Anbieter mit „Infoprogramm” oder 
„Lehrprogramm” gekennzeichnet sind.


A quick (but quite imperfect) translation:
§ 12 image-containing media with films or games

(1) Video tapes with content or other media that are usable for 
distribution and are programmed for use with video terminals as films 
or games (image-containing media) may only be made accessible to 
children or teenagers if the highest state administration or a 
organization of the FSK (organizations of producers and distributors 
that classify films and games as dangerous for youth, I'm not sure 
whether they have to be approved by the gouvernment) has declared them 
to be suitable for that age and marked them for that age in the 
procedure defined by § 14, paragraph 6, or if they are informational, 
instructional or learning software which have been declared as 
"informational program" or "learning program" by the provider.


(sorry for the sentence constructions - they seem impossible in German, 
too.)



It would be nice to know whether it is game engine or data that
is actually the problem, too.


In my opinion, the game engine by itself can't be classified in those
terms.  It contains no inherent depiction of violence, glorification
of war, or whatever else is on that list.  I am fairly certain that
the quake2 engine could be used to create a totally non-violent game.

I'm quite sure it's the data after having read the above.


This looks like a bug in Germany rather than a bug in quake2.


Does the German government have a bug tracking system?

Don't think so ;-)

Baltasar
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=IZU7
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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Don Armstrong]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, Baltasar Cevc wrote:
> 6 für ihre Altersstufe freigegeben und gekennzeichnet worden sind
> oder wenn es sich um Informations-, Instruktions- und Lehrprogramme
> handelt, die vom Anbieter mit ???Infoprogramm??? oder
> ???Lehrprogramm??? gekennzeichnet sind.
> 
> A quick (but quite imperfect) translation:
> if they are informational, instructional or learning software which
> have been declared as "informational program" or "learning program"
> by the provider.

Oh, brilliant. I hereby declare these programs to be Infopgrogram as
well as Lehrpgoramm.

Seems to satisfy this paragraph completely. Next?


Don Armstrong

-- 
This can't be happening to me. I've got tenure.
 -- James Hynes _Publish and Perish_

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Does this only apply to German distributors or to anyone distributing
> to Germany? (My German is not really up to legal standard and the
> failure to set a background colour hurts on
> http://bundespruefstelle.de/bpjm/arbeitsgrundlagen/juschg.php )

I'm not sure. I will try to look it up in the next days.

> It would be nice to know whether it is game engine or data that
> is actually the problem, too.

The law deals with "media", i.e. the whole Quake 2 CD has been put on
the list. I guess the actual problem is that kids could have too much
fun with too much sputtering blood, killing human-looking opponents.

Probably there could be a version without red blood and with obviously
non-human targets that would be acceptable. AFAIK for some
other games, special german versions have been created with such
modifications.

> This looks like a bug in Germany rather than a bug in quake2.

Maybe... But that's how the law is, see DMCA or whatever.

Michael Below


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Måns Rullgård]

Don Armstrong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, Baltasar Cevc wrote:
>> 6 für ihre Altersstufe freigegeben und gekennzeichnet worden sind
>> oder wenn es sich um Informations-, Instruktions- und Lehrprogramme
>> handelt, die vom Anbieter mit ???Infoprogramm??? oder
>> ???Lehrprogramm??? gekennzeichnet sind.
>> 
>> A quick (but quite imperfect) translation:
>> if they are informational, instructional or learning software which
>> have been declared as "informational program" or "learning program"
>> by the provider.
>
> Oh, brilliant. I hereby declare these programs to be Infopgrogram as
> well as Lehrpgoramm.
>
> Seems to satisfy this paragraph completely. Next?

I was of the impression that Quake 2 had been placed on an official
list of restricted publications, and that this was the primary cause
of concern.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

Måns Rullgård <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> In my opinion, the game engine by itself can't be classified in those
> terms.  It contains no inherent depiction of violence, glorification
> of war, or whatever else is on that list.  I am fairly certain that
> the quake2 engine could be used to create a totally non-violent game.

Sounds reasonable to me. But I'm afraid that you could as well stick
to the letter of the law and say it's essentially identical to content
of media that has been found to be youth-endangering. 

Also, there is the problem that you may not advertise for Quake
II. And the package description could be seen as advertisement.

Finally, there is a package quake2-data that provides an installer for
the Quake 2 shareware game data. And that data is definitely
problematic.

When I'm at the university library next time I will look for some more
information on this issue.

Michael Below

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Humberto_Massa_Guimar=E3es?=]

* Michael Below ::

> Måns Rullgård <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > In my opinion, the game engine by itself can't be classified in
> > those terms.  It contains no inherent depiction of violence,
> > glorification of war, or whatever else is on that list.  I am
> > fairly certain that the quake2 engine could be used to create a
> > totally non-violent game.
>
> Sounds reasonable to me. But I'm afraid that you could as well
> stick to the letter of the law and say it's essentially identical
> to content of media that has been found to be youth-endangering. 

This would be factually false. Nothing in quake2*.deb is identical
to something that is in the id's Quake2 cds. The media itself is not
in quake2*.deb, but in www.idsoftware.com ... the program is a
different program.
>
> Also, there is the problem that you may not advertise for Quake
> II. And the package description could be seen as advertisement.

Nope. Adverstisement is a well-defined term, and I can only suppose
that the German law is well-behaved in relation to this. And no,
package description is only description, not advertisement.
>
> Finally, there is a package quake2-data that provides an installer
> for the Quake 2 shareware game data. And that data is definitely
> problematic.

I don't know if German law has the aberration that USofA law calls
"contributory infrigement" (which only applies to copyright IIRC
anyway). The "installer" quake2-data is better describer as a
"downloader". If it infringes German law, so does Mozilla.
>
> When I'm at the university library next time I will look for some
> more information on this issue.

Please, do that.

--
HTH,
Massa

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Måns Rullgård]

Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Måns Rullgård <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> In my opinion, the game engine by itself can't be classified in those
>> terms.  It contains no inherent depiction of violence, glorification
>> of war, or whatever else is on that list.  I am fairly certain that
>> the quake2 engine could be used to create a totally non-violent game.
>
> Sounds reasonable to me. But I'm afraid that you could as well stick
> to the letter of the law and say it's essentially identical to content
> of media that has been found to be youth-endangering. 

The original CD consists a small (a few MB) generic game engine, plus
several hundred MB game data.  I can't see how a copy of the engine
only could possibly be considered essentially identical to the full
kit, being only a small fraction of the combined data.  Add to this
that all the offending elements are in the portion that was not
copied.

> Also, there is the problem that you may not advertise for Quake
> II. And the package description could be seen as advertisement.

Advertising is not equivalent to mentioning the existence, or
requirement, of something.

> Finally, there is a package quake2-data that provides an installer
> for the Quake 2 shareware game data. And that data is definitely
> problematic.

That's certainly more debatable.  Of course, the debian package
doesn't actually contain any of the data, so it could easily be argued
that it is to be considered harmful.  AFAIK, it could be used equally
well with other, similarly formatted data.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

Baltasar Cevc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> § 12 Bildträger mit Filmen oder Spielen

That's the wrong one. § 15 applies to media that has already been put
on the "index". Basically, this is anti-pornography law:

§ 15 Jugendgefährdende Trägermedien

(1) Trägermedien, deren Aufnahme in die Liste jugendgefährdender
Medien nach § 24 Abs. 3 Satz 1 bekannt gemacht ist, dürfen nicht

1. einem Kind oder einer jugendlichen Person angeboten, überlassen
   oder sonst zugänglich gemacht werden,

2. an einem Ort, der Kindern oder Jugendlichen zugänglich ist oder von
   ihnen eingesehen werden kann, ausgestellt, angeschlagen, vorgeführt
   oder sonst zugänglich gemacht werden,

3. im Einzelhandel außerhalb von Geschäftsräumen, in Kiosken oder
   anderen Verkaufsstellen, die Kunden nicht zu betreten pflegen, im
   Versandhandel oder in gewerblichen Leihbüchereien oder Lesezirkeln
   einer anderen Person angeboten oder überlassen werden,

4. im Wege gewerblicher Vermietung oder vergleichbarer gewerblicher
   Gewährung des Gebrauchs, ausgenommen in Ladengeschäften die Kindern
   und Jugendlichen nicht zugänglich sind und von ihnen nicht
   eingesehen werden können, einer anderen Person angeboten oder
   überlassen werden,

5. im Wege des Versandhandels eingeführt werden,

6. öffentlich an einem Ort, der Kindern oder Jugendlichen zugänglich
   ist oder von ihnen eingesehen werden kann, oder durch Verbreiten
   von Träger- oder Telemedien, außerhalb des Geschäftsverkehrs mit
   dem einschlägigen Handel angeboten, angekündigt oder angepriesen
   werden,

7. hergestellt, bezogen, geliefert, vorrätig gehalten oder eingeführt
   werden, um sie oder aus ihnen gewonnene Stücke im Sinne der Nummern
   1 bis 6 zu verwenden oder einer anderen Person eine solche
   Verwendung zu ermöglichen.

[...]
(3) Den Beschränkungen des Absatzes 1 unterliegen auch, ohne dass es
einer Aufnahme in die Liste und einer Bekanntmachung bedarf,
Trägermedien, die mit einem Trägermedium, dessen Aufnahme in die
Liste bekannt gemacht ist, ganz oder im Wesentlichen inhaltsgleich
sind.

[...]

Translation:

§ 15 Youth-Endangering Media

(1) If the inclusion of media in the list of youth-endangering media has
been announced according to § 24 par. 3 sentence 1, they may not be

1. offered, given to or otherwise made available to children or
   youth,

2. displayed, demonstrated, advertised or made available at a place
   children or youth may enter or look into,

3. distributed or offered on the street, in booths that customers
   usually don't enter, by mail-order or in commercial libraries,

4. rented or otherwise let commercially, except in shops that may not
   be entered or looked into by children or youth,

5. imported by mail-order,

6. offered, advertised or announced at a place that children or youth
   may enter or look into, or by distribution of media outside of the
   relevant trade,

7. produced, obtained, delivered, stocked or imported to be used
   according to No. 1 - 6, or to enable such use for another person.

(3) Without need for inclusion in the list or announcement, the
limitations of par. (1) also apply to media which is wholly or in the
main the same as media whose inclusion in the list has been published.

> I'm quite sure it's the data after having read the above.

Probably the data is more problematic, yes. But see my other mail, I
think the quake2 package plus the quake2-data installer could at least
be constructed as an advertisement or announcement for Quake II. 

Michael Below

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Florian Weimer]

* Måns Rullgård:

> I was of the impression that Quake 2 had been placed on an official
> list of restricted publications, and that this was the primary cause
> of concern.

Does Debian distribute the data files?  The engine itself is not on
the German Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

But this doesn't matter at all.  Our guardians became frustrated with
the necessity to index both the German translation and the original,
so they installed a mandatory rating system for computer games
(similar to movies in Germany and other countries).  The main problem
isn't that quake2 is a violent game, but that it's a game.  "M-x
tetris RET" has the same problem.

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Humberto Massa Guimarães]

* Florian Weimer ::

> * Måns Rullgård:
>
> > I was of the impression that Quake 2 had been placed on an
> > official list of restricted publications, and that this was the
> > primary cause of concern.
>
> Does Debian distribute the data files?  The engine itself is not
> on the German Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
>
> But this doesn't matter at all.  Our guardians became frustrated
> with the necessity to index both the German translation and the
> original, so they installed a mandatory rating system for computer
> games (similar to movies in Germany and other countries).  The
> main problem isn't that quake2 is a violent game, but that it's a
> game.  "M-x tetris RET" has the same problem.

And so, what seems to be the solution to this problem?

--
HTH,
Massa

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Humberto Massa Guimarães]

* Michael Below ::

> Baltasar Cevc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[German text respectfully cut]
> § 15 Youth-Endangering Media
>
> (1) If the inclusion of media in the list of youth-endangering
> media has been announced according to § 24 par. 3 sentence 1, they
> may not be
>
> 1. offered, given to or otherwise made available to children or
> youth,

The German Debian mirror does, in fact, "otherwise make available"
the entire Quake2 for Debian GNU/Linux, without any age check
whatsoever. The only way I see to solve this is that the German
mirror erases automagically quake2*.deb from its mirror, including
the reference to it in Packages.gz and other similar content files.
The German mirror admin might want to see if any other packages
contain similarly censored speech (such as Nazi/racist propaganda
etc).

Alternatively, the German mirror could ask for some form of
authorization that proves the age of the downloader (like pr0n sites
do). It's terrible, but it's the law.

Or you could close the German mirror and German citizens would have
to download debian from other countries with less censoring laws.
>
> 2. displayed, demonstrated, advertised or made available at a
> place children or youth may enter or look into,

Nope. We don't do that.
>
> 3. distributed or offered on the street, in booths that customers
> usually don't enter, by mail-order or in commercial libraries,

Nope. We don't do that either.
>
> 4. rented or otherwise let commercially, except in shops that may
> not be entered or looked into by children or youth,

No, again.
>
> 5. imported by mail-order,

No.
>
> 6. offered, advertised or announced at a place that children or
> youth may enter or look into, or by distribution of media outside
> of the relevant trade,

This should be achieved by the Packages.gz censorship I mentioned.
>
> 7. produced, obtained, delivered, stocked or imported to be used
> according to No. 1 - 6, or to enable such use for another person.
>
> (3) Without need for inclusion in the list or announcement, the
> limitations of par. (1) also apply to media which is wholly or in
> the main the same as media whose inclusion in the list has been
> published.

This does not apply to debian*.deb, because none of those are in the
same media as Quake2 (the original id CDs). It's just a compatible
game engine that happens to play the game files on the original id
CDs.
>
> > I'm quite sure it's the data after having read the above.
>
> Probably the data is more problematic, yes. But see my other mail,
> I think the quake2 package plus the quake2-data installer could at
> least be constructed as an advertisement or announcement for Quake
> II. 

It's not advertisement nor announcement, but it *is* "making
otherwise available", if your translation is correct.

--
HTH,
Massa

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Kai Blin]

* Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [14/06/05, 13:57:02]:
 
> But this doesn't matter at all.  Our guardians became frustrated with
> the necessity to index both the German translation and the original,
> so they installed a mandatory rating system for computer games
> (similar to movies in Germany and other countries).  The main problem
> isn't that quake2 is a violent game, but that it's a game.  "M-x
> tetris RET" has the same problem.

No, it doesn't. The "or similar games" goes both ways. There's a bunch
of rated Tetris games out there, so M-x tetris RET will give you a
"similar game". 

I looked into that issue a while ago. (see
http://mindx.josefspillner.de/advocacy/juschg/discussion.en.html)

There is something I tend to call "lex microsoft". It's not in the law
itself but in the "Bundesgerichtsblatt" comment, and usually courts
follow those comments. (It's the closest thing to case law we have
here). These comments usually elaborate what the gouvernment wants to
achieve with a law. There's a section saying that if the computer game
is "part of a bigger software package, and not a significant portion of
it", it doesn't need a rating. (So noone would need a rating to play MS
Minesweeper) I talked to the SuSE and RedHat people on that LinuxTag,
and both companies seem confident this also applies to GNU/Linux
distributions.

Of course this doesn't change the fact that quake2 indeed is on the
index of jouth endangering games. It just says that we don't need to get
a rating for tuxcart, pingus and kolf.

Of course the IANAL paragraph applies.
Kai

-- 
Kai Blin aka. nowhere (blingmx.net), WorldForge Project
Web: http://www.worldforge.org/

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
argument.
-- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Humberto Massa Guimarães]

* Måns Rullgård ::
> MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > This looks like a bug in Germany rather than a bug in quake2.
> Does the German government have a bug tracking system?

It's called "Parliament" :-) Actually, I don't know *how* is it called aus 
Deutsch, but you know what I mean.
YMMV.

--
HTH, Cheerfully, Respectfully,
Massa

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Florian Weimer]

* Kai Blin:

> * Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [14/06/05, 13:57:02]:
>  
>> But this doesn't matter at all.  Our guardians became frustrated with
>> the necessity to index both the German translation and the original,
>> so they installed a mandatory rating system for computer games
>> (similar to movies in Germany and other countries).  The main problem
>> isn't that quake2 is a violent game, but that it's a game.  "M-x
>> tetris RET" has the same problem.
>
> No, it doesn't. The "or similar games" goes both ways.

Are you sure?  Is this some kind of regulations adopted by the Länder?
Approval by analogy is not part of JuschG.

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Florian Weimer]

* Humberto Massa Guimarães:

>> But this doesn't matter at all.  Our guardians became frustrated
>> with the necessity to index both the German translation and the
>> original, so they installed a mandatory rating system for computer
>> games (similar to movies in Germany and other countries).  The
>> main problem isn't that quake2 is a violent game, but that it's a
>> game.  "M-x tetris RET" has the same problem.
>
> And so, what seems to be the solution to this problem?

Ignore the issue and hope that it won't bite us?

It's only an issue for German mirrors, and it's very likely they can
escape liability when they take down offending packages upon notice.

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Kai Blin]

* Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [14/06/05, 19:20:30]:
> * Kai Blin:
> 
> > * Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [14/06/05, 13:57:02]:
> >  
> >> But this doesn't matter at all.  Our guardians became frustrated with
> >> the necessity to index both the German translation and the original,
> >> so they installed a mandatory rating system for computer games
> >> (similar to movies in Germany and other countries).  The main problem
> >> isn't that quake2 is a violent game, but that it's a game.  "M-x
> >> tetris RET" has the same problem.
> >
> > No, it doesn't. The "or similar games" goes both ways.
> 
> Are you sure?  Is this some kind of regulations adopted by the Länder?
> Approval by analogy is not part of JuschG.
 
Pretty sure. I don't have my old paperwork at hand. It might have been
on the USK website.

Cheers,
Kai

-- 
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Web: http://www.worldforge.org/

Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics,
because the stakes are so low.
-- Wallace Sayre


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Francesco Poli]

On 13 Jun 2005 02:18:51 GMT MJ Ray wrote:

> I don't think contrib (where quake2 is) is on the official CDs,
> but ICBW (not checked latest images to be sure).

Well, it seems that YCBW...  ;-)
I recently upgraded from Woody to Sarge and:

$ apt-cache policy quake2
quake2:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1:0.3-1.1
  Version Table:
 1:0.3-1.1 0
500 cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 r0a _Sarge_ - Official i386
Binary-4 (20050607)] unstable/contrib Packages
500 http://ftp.it.debian.org sarge/contrib Packages
500 http://freedom.dicea.unifi.it sarge/contrib Packages
500 http://ftp.sk.debian.org sarge/contrib Packages


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..
  Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4
 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12  31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4



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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

Hi,

as promised I looked it up at the library. I found the book
Nikles et al.: Jugendschutzrecht, München 2003.

This led me to a left out part in my interpretation of the
Jugendschutzgesetz: § 1 defines the used terms. I hope if I translate
this also, my understanding of the law becomes more understandable :)

§ 1 Begriffsbestimmungen
...
(2) Trägermedien im Sinne dieses Gesetzes sind Medien mit Texten,
Bildern oder Tönen auf gegenständlichen Trägern, die zur
Weitergabe geeignet, zur unmittelbaren Wahrnehmung bestimmt oder
in einem Vorführ- oder Spielgerät eingebaut sind. Dem
gegenständlichen Verbreiten, Überlassen, Anbieten oder
Zugänglichmachen von Trägermedien steht das elektronische
Verbreiten, Überlassen, Anbieten oder Zugänglichmachen gleich,
soweit es sich nicht um Rundfunk im Sinne des § 2 des
Rundfunkstaatsvertrages handelt.

Translation:

§ 1 Definitions
...
(2) For the scope of this law, carrier media are media carrying texts,
pictures or sounds on physical objects that are either suitable to
be passed on, designated to be perceived immediately or built into
devices for presentation or play.  Electronic dissemination,
leaving, offering or making available is considered the same as
physical dissemination, leaving, offering or making available of
carrier media, except if it is done by broadcast as defined in § 2
Rundfunkstaatsvertrag.

Humberto Massa Guimarães <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>> § 15 Youth-Endangering Media
>>
>> (1) If the inclusion of media in the list of youth-endangering
>> media has been announced according to § 24 par. 3 sentence 1, they
>> may not be
>>
>> 1. offered, given to or otherwise made available to children or
>> youth,
>
> The German Debian mirror does, in fact, "otherwise make available"
> the entire Quake2 for Debian GNU/Linux, without any age check
> whatsoever. 

Not directly. It's the carrier media ("Trägermedien") that has been
banned (the ID-Soft CDs), and Debian is not making these CDs available
in any way.

But electronic dissemination is considered the same, see § 1,
paragraph (2), sentence 2. And the broadcast exception at the end of
that sentence doesn't apply to web pages.

Now this still doesn't apply to Debian, because the content made
available electronically by Debian isn't exactly the banned
content. AFAIK the Windows version has been banned.

But paragraph (3) of § 15 applies here, which extends the ban to media
which has essentially the same content. And, with regards to youth
protection, a full installation of quake2 for Debian with those
shareware files is essentially the same as an installation of Quake II
as distributed by ID. This is not a matter of binary identity or
something like that. The youth-endangering parts have to be compared,
considering the overall impression (Nikles et al., Rn. 100). Even
changes in the content don't matter if they don't change the
youth-endangering overall impression.

> The only way I see to solve this is that the German
> mirror erases automagically quake2*.deb from its mirror, including
> the reference to it in Packages.gz and other similar content files.
> The German mirror admin might want to see if any other packages
> contain similarly censored speech (such as Nazi/racist propaganda
> etc).

Maybe there should be a new Debian category, either "non-German" or
"adult". This would make the server operator's lives easier, just like
"non-US".

But I don't think too many other Debian packages will be affected:
Possibly prboom/lxdoom/freedoom, because Doom II is on the list, too,
and these claim to be clones. Otherwise I don't see much
trouble. AFAIK, Debian doesn't contain hardcore pornography or neo
nazi music, which are the most part of the listed "youth-endangering"
content. Games are no longer put on the index, for some years now the
industry has established a self-rating system for age suitability
instead.

> Alternatively, the German mirror could ask for some form of
> authorization that proves the age of the downloader (like pr0n sites
> do). It's terrible, but it's the law.

Yup. But there is a tightening with regard to age verification systems
(AVS) in Germany right now, I just read it on heise.de: One AVS
supplier has sued his competitors that they don't provide enough youth
protection. So now it's no longer enough to enter a valid
name/passport number combination somewhere (they are mathematically
connected, so the AVS could calculate if they fit). You will need to
identify yourself in person somehow once, probably towards the postal
service.

This is nothing I would want to implement for a Debian mirror. And
buying services from one of the existing AVS would be costly, I guess.

> Or you could close the German mirror and German citizens would have
> to download debian from other countries with less censoring laws.

Which would bring the Debian vendors in other countries into conflict
with the German law. The import-prohibition applies to p

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> As a next step, I think we should tell the german mirror ftp admin
> about our conclusions, if we agree on the legal matters.

Hm. Nobody seems to disagree, right? I will inform the german mirror
admin tomorrow.

Michael Below


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[MJ Ray]

Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > As a next step, I think we should tell the german mirror ftp admin
> > about our conclusions, if we agree on the legal matters.
> 
> Hm. Nobody seems to disagree, right?

This was on the end of a very long email originally, so I don't
think you can tell much from lack of disagreement.  Disagree with
what, anyway? You have posted little about what you intend to
say. I suspect my conclusions are different to yours:

I am strongly against directing the German mirror admins about
such an unclear problem. If you want to send them a "this law
may be a problem" statement, fine, but maybe that should go
through debian-mirrors and/or debian-user-german.

It would probably be helpful to ask FFII's German branches
about this. My German isn't good enough to write that.
http://bb.ffii.org/ http://muenchen.ffii.org/

> I will inform the german mirror admin tomorrow.

There are around 25 mirrors in Germany that we know about.

-- 
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My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>> Hm. Nobody seems to disagree, right?
>
> This was on the end of a very long email originally, so I don't
> think you can tell much from lack of disagreement.  Disagree with

That's why I repeated it.

> what, anyway? You have posted little about what you intend to
> say. I suspect my conclusions are different to yours:

My research has shown that quake2 and quake2-data seem to conflict
with german youth protection law. In a discussion on d-l, my
conclusions have been accepted. That was my impression until I read
your mail. Right now, my conclusions are not that defined: I'm
wondering at which point specifically you don't follow my explanation
of the german youth protection law.

> I am strongly against directing the German mirror admins about
> such an unclear problem. If you want to send them a "this law
> may be a problem" statement, fine, but maybe that should go
> through debian-mirrors and/or debian-user-german.

What part of the problem is unclear to you? The text of the law seems
to say that Debian shouldn't distribute packages in Germany that
result in installation of something very similar to Quake II, as
banned by the federal government. The literature as far as I read it
seems to agree.

Of course this is nothing definitive like a court ruling, but from my
point of view this isn't very unclear either. It's a well-founded
legal opinion, I'd say.

And what do you mean by "maybe this should go through..."? Do you want
me to ask for consensus there first? For a mail saying "my legal
research says this is a problem"? Seriously?

Sorry, but my time is limited. I want to help the Debian project to
avoid legal trouble, but that's going only so far. I am not going to
force anybody to listen to something he/she doesn't want to hear.

> It would probably be helpful to ask FFII's German branches
> about this. My German isn't good enough to write that.
> http://bb.ffii.org/ http://muenchen.ffii.org/

Hm. I don't know them, but their web page seems to say they are
lobbyists, informing people about the drawbacks of software
patents. How does Quake II relate to software patents? Are there any
law professionals involved in the FFII, preferably german-speaking
ones?

According to their web page, the FSF Europe seems to follow a more
broad approach, but they don't seem to have a legal discussion
list. The Creative Commons team is working with two german law
institutes (listed on the CC web page). You could ask them for their
advice on this.

>> I will inform the german mirror admin tomorrow.
>
> There are around 25 mirrors in Germany that we know about.

Good point. I was thinking of ftp.de.debian.org

My conclusion right now: Either you come up with specific criticism,
or you decide to ask those free software law institutes for advice
(yes, they do speak english, just point them to this
thread). Otherwise I'd say my findings are still valid and mail those
mirrors accordingly.

What do you say?

Michael Below


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[MJ Ray]

Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> My research has shown that quake2 and quake2-data seem to conflict
> with german youth protection law.

As I understand it, you are relying on them being regarded
"im wesentlichen" the same as a Windows-based quake2 CD.
I don't know how that term is seen by German law.  From
bugs.debian.org/313159, you weren't either. What has convinced
you so strongly since then?

There was a post pointing out that quake2 is probably not
offensive and quake2-data does not contain the questionable
content and that post went unchallenged.

I questioned the victims of this problem and received no answer,
although you replied that you would try to look it up. It is
possible that this law may affect all EU or world mirrors.

> In a discussion on d-l, my conclusions have been accepted.

There were no replies to your latest claims. Who do you believe
accepted your conclusions?

Considering others shown on http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/ -

Maybe disagreed with your interpretation or proposed action:
MJ Ray, Måns Rullgård, Baltasar Cevc, Don Armstrong,
Florian Weimer

Not much opinion about quake2 AFAICT: Kai Blin, Francesco Poli

Maybe agreed with you: Humberto Massa Guimarães

More significantly, the package maintainer is unconvinced on
bugs.debian.org/313159 and I don't think this will convince.

> That was my impression until I read
> your mail. Right now, my conclusions are not that defined: I'm
> wondering at which point specifically you don't follow my explanation
> of the german youth protection law.

I think I follow it, but I am unconvinced by your interpretation.

Why? Well, I don't know Michael Below from Adam. One homepage
is 404 not found, others date from 1998. As far as I can
tell, background includes student radio, atom tech and
socio-economics. My background includes getting punished for
copyright infringement, so I'm healthily cautious about laws.
Why should I trust a law interpretation from Michael Below?

> > I am strongly against directing the German mirror admins about
> > such an unclear problem. If you want to send them a "this law
> > may be a problem" statement, fine, but maybe that should go
> > through debian-mirrors and/or debian-user-german.
[...]
> And what do you mean by "maybe this should go through..."? [...]

I mean, use that for your announcement rather than direct email.

> > It would probably be helpful to ask FFII's German branches
> > about this. My German isn't good enough to write that.
> > http://bb.ffii.org/ http://muenchen.ffii.org/
> 
> Hm. I don't know them, but their web page seems to say they are
> lobbyists, informing people about the drawbacks of software
> patents. How does Quake II relate to software patents?

It doesn't. That is their main campaign, but they are more
generally concerned with a free information infrastructure.

> Are there any law professionals involved in the FFII,
> preferably german-speaking ones?

Yes.

> According to their web page, the FSF Europe seems to follow a more
> broad approach, but they don't seem to have a legal discussion
> list.

I have a route to do so and will do.

> The Creative Commons team is working with two german law
> institutes (listed on the CC web page). You could ask them for their
> advice on this.

I have found local CC groups to be rather variable. Not all
are much concerned with free/liberal distribution (but some are).

> >> I will inform the german mirror admin tomorrow.
> >
> > There are around 25 mirrors in Germany that we know about.
> 
> Good point. I was thinking of ftp.de.debian.org
> 
> My conclusion right now: Either you come up with specific criticism,
> or you decide to ask those free software law institutes for advice
> (yes, they do speak english, just point them to this thread).

I consider it arrogant to write in my native language to a foreign
language list about foreign laws when an alternative is obvious.

> Otherwise I'd say my findings are still valid and mail those
> mirrors accordingly.
> 
> What do you say?

I say: you are an aggressive person of undisclosed origin who
wishes to claim a backing from debian-legal that you do not have,
for an argument based on a questionable-looking interpretation,
in order to alarm mirror operators and make much work for FTP and
CD maintainers. You should at least disclose your credentials and 
do tasks to which you committed. At best, you could build
consensus rather than defeat challenges.

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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> My research has shown that quake2 and quake2-data seem to conflict
>> with german youth protection law.
>
> As I understand it, you are relying on them being regarded
> "im wesentlichen" the same as a Windows-based quake2 CD.
> I don't know how that term is seen by German law.  From
> bugs.debian.org/313159, you weren't either. What has convinced
> you so strongly since then?

As I wrote, I looked it up. See Nikles et al., page 138, margin number
100.

> There was a post pointing out that quake2 is probably not
> offensive and quake2-data does not contain the questionable
> content and that post went unchallenged.

I think I answered this in the same mail mentioned above, after
looking it up. The quake2-data package contains an installer for the
shareware data files, they are fetched from the net. And as far as I
can see this is "Zugänglichmachen" as prohibited by the law. In the
above mentioned book, "Zugänglichmachen" (=making available) is
defined as opening the concrete possiblity of immediate contact,
directly or indirectly, complete or partially (Nikles et al., p. 138,
no. 18).

About the quake2 package: I looked it up again, there seems to be no
problem: The package description is talking about Quake II in a way
that seemed to violate § 15 par. 1 No. 6 (public announcement, offer
or advertisement): "Quake II is a 3D action game engine in
first-person perspective, commonly known as a ``first person
shooter''.  [...]  You will need to either install the commercial data
from the Quake II CD-ROM with the ``quake2-data'' package, or install
some free data files."

Now I found an explanation for the relevant terms in a penal law
commentary, regarding pornography. This seems to be transferrable
(Nikles et al., p. 123, margin no. 36). According to Tröndle/Fischer:
Strafgesetzbuch, 52. ed., § 184, margin no. 16, the pornographic (read:
youth endangering) character of the offer has to be discernible for
the averagely interested and informed viewer. There may be no doubt
about the content.

Since not every first person shooter is youth-endangering, there is
at least doubt about the character of the offer. So the package
description and thus the quake2 package seem to be alright. Probably
things are different if Quake II is considered so famous that the
averagely interested and informed viewer knows about its
youth-endangering content. But I think the game is old enough now to
be not that famous anymore.

> I questioned the victims of this problem and received no answer,
> although you replied that you would try to look it up. 

You questioned victims? Sorry, I'm not a native speaker. I don't
understand the sense of this sentence. Some days after I replied I
would try to look it up, I went to the library and found the book
cited above. That's what I reported in my last reply to Humberto. And
in that mail, I hoped to answer all open questions.

> It is possible that this law may affect all EU or world mirrors.

Yes, it is possible. But I don't think so. Immediately, this law
applies only to Germany. In addition, people not in Germany are
prohibited to import banned media to Germany by mail-order, as I
explained in that last mail to Humberto (§ 15 par. 1 No. 5 JuSchG).

In § 1 par. 4 JuSchG, mail-order is defined essentially as 
- a transaction for payment ("entgeltlich"), 
- by mail or electronically,
- without personal contact or other means to ensure that media are not
delivered to children or youth.

The mirrors I know don't demand payment, so there is no immediate
danger for them. But, as I wrote in that mail to Humberto, there seems
to be legal risk for CD vendors delivering to germany without age
verification.

>> In a discussion on d-l, my conclusions have been accepted.
>
> There were no replies to your latest claims. Who do you believe
> accepted your conclusions?
>
> Considering others shown on http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/ -
>
> Maybe disagreed with your interpretation or proposed action:
> MJ Ray, Måns Rullgård, Baltasar Cevc, Don Armstrong,
> Florian Weimer
>
> Not much opinion about quake2 AFAICT: Kai Blin, Francesco Poli
>
> Maybe agreed with you: Humberto Massa Guimarães

I think I have replied to all the arguments in their mails, after
looking things up in the library. After I did that, I announced that I
would inform the mirrors if they now agreed, and asked for dissent
(twice). You are the only one who has told me that his concerns are
not settled by my findings. 

I think it is the practical way to ask for dissent to prove a
result. Is it custom in here to ask for consent instead?

> More significantly, the package maintainer is unconvinced on
> bugs.debian.org/313159 and I don't think this will convince.

That's my impression too. He was very brief, and obviously very sure
that his packages couldn't be a problem. When I explained my initial
concern in more detail, he didn't reply. But I'm afraid he won'

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> As I wrote, I looked it up. See Nikles et al., page 138, margin number
> 100.

Oops. It's margin number 99, sorry.

> directly or indirectly, complete or partially (Nikles et al., p. 138,
> no. 18).

And this is p. 118. Sorry, it had been a long day...

Michael


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[MJ Ray]

Michael Below <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > There was a post pointing out that quake2 is probably not
> > offensive and quake2-data does not contain the questionable
> > content and that post went unchallenged.
> 
> I think I answered this in the same mail mentioned above, after
> looking it up. The quake2-data package contains an installer for the
> shareware data files, they are fetched from the net. And as far as I
> can see this is "Zug=E4nglichmachen" as prohibited by the law. In the
> above mentioned book, "Zug=E4nglichmachen" (=3Dmaking available) is
> defined as opening the concrete possiblity of immediate contact,
> directly or indirectly, complete or partially (Nikles et al., p. 138,
> no. 18).

I've been reading around http://www.lehrer-online.de/
(forgive me, but German law textbooks are not easy to obtain
quickly in the fens) under Recht: Ausf. Info.: Schulhomepage:
illegale Inhalte and it looks like unclear cases like ours are
only punishable if the federal authorities complain and we do
nothing. Have I misunderstood?

If that may be a correct understanding, I'm worried about
scaring off mirror admins with a strong statement that
exaggerates an uncertain legal situation. If you do contact
mirror admins, you should include the simplest possible
option which avoids this uncertainty without harming debian.

The closest example on lehrer-online isn't helpful, as it seems to
fall back to distribution not being allowed because of copyright,
just to make sure teachers are scared to distribute game CDs.

> About the quake2 package: I looked it up again, there seems to be no
> problem: The package description is talking about Quake II in a way
> that seemed to violate =A7 15 par. 1 No. 6 (public announcement, offer
> or advertisement): "Quake II is a 3D action game engine in
> first-person perspective, commonly known as a ``first person
> shooter''.  [...]  You will need to either install the commercial data
> from the Quake II CD-ROM with the ``quake2-data'' package, or install
> some free data files."

So, because we are not offering to supply the Quake II CD-ROM or files,
nor does quake2 describe where such things are obtained itself, it
is not such an offer or advertisement?

May quake2-data be a problem under this term?

> Now I found an explanation for the relevant terms in a penal law
> commentary, regarding pornography. This seems to be transferrable
> (Nikles et al., p. 123, margin no. 36). [...]

Is pornography a different section of this law to cited contents?
How confident are you that these definitions transfer?

> > I questioned the victims of this problem and received no answer,
> > although you replied that you would try to look it up.=20
> You questioned victims? Sorry, I'm not a native speaker. I don't
> understand the sense of this sentence. [...]

Sorry, I questioned who would be the victims of this law. I am a
native speaker, but I sometimes omit words by mistake.

> > It is possible that this law may affect all EU or world mirrors.
> Yes, it is possible. But I don't think so. Immediately, this law
> applies only to Germany. In addition, people not in Germany are
> prohibited to import banned media to Germany by mail-order, as I
> explained in that last mail to Humberto (=A7 15 par. 1 No. 5 JuSchG).

The person not in Germany would be exporting to Germany and the
recipient in Germany would be the importer. I can't find this
in your previous email, so I'm not sure whether you reflected
this and it's just an English-language slip; or whether this
law is a problem for non-Germany residents.

[...]
> The mirrors I know don't demand payment, so there is no immediate
> danger for them. But, as I wrote in that mail to Humberto, there seems
> to be legal risk for CD vendors delivering to germany without age
> verification.

So, is this more of a problem for debian-cd than debian-mirrors?
I see this German law appears to have very particular limits on
what is permissible age verification, as you've mentioned.

> >> In a discussion on d-l, my conclusions have been accepted.
> > There were no replies to your latest claims. Who do you believe
> > accepted your conclusions? [listing]
> I think I have replied to all the arguments in their mails, after
> looking things up in the library. After I did that, I announced that I
> would inform the mirrors if they now agreed, and asked for dissent
> (twice). You are the only one who has told me that his concerns are
> not settled by my findings.

As such, it's not clear what the other opinions are. You can't
claim safely that your claims have been accepted.

> I think it is the practical way to ask for dissent to prove a
> result. Is it custom in here to ask for consent instead?

I don't regard a two-line "I think we should tell [X]
[unspecified message] if we agree" as a practical way to ask
for dissent. Few agreed, but it seems you actually meant "I
will tell [X] [unspecified message] if no-one objects".

Your mails are verbose and you seem to ofte

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Henri Sivonen]

On Jun 18, 2005, at 17:25, Michael Below wrote:


non-German


It is highly likely that you'll find similar laws all over the EU if 
you start looking.


In Finland, for example, distribution of interactive image programs (or 
is photoplay the correct legal term?) ie. games requires informing the 
State movie inspection bureau. Inspection before distribution is not 
mandatory, but the bureau may take an interactive image program in 
inspection if there is a reason to believe that it contains material 
harmful to children. The age limit (inspected or unchallenged voluntary 
limit) must be presented on packaging.


I didn't find any rating for Quake II specifically, but the voluntary 
(ie. suggested by the distributors and not challenged by the bureau) 
age limit for other games from the Quake series that are in the 
database is 15. (Unlike in Germany, typical American entertainment 
violence in games and movies gets the 15 limit in Finland--not 18.)


If one is to assume the strictest outcome (in debian-legal style) while 
still assuming that the content is not totally banned, one has to 
assume that interactive image programs are banned from persons under 18 
unless inspected and shown otherwise.


IANAL, INADD, TINLA, but I doubt a game engine without data files 
constitutes an interactive image program.


--
Henri Sivonen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/


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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Raul Miller]

On 6/27/05, Henri Sivonen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> If one is to assume the strictest outcome (in debian-legal style) while
> still assuming that the content is not totally banned, one has to
> assume that interactive image programs are banned from persons under 18
> unless inspected and shown otherwise.

For our purposes, any restriction on redistribution which makes someone
liable for the actions of someone else is a big deal.

We also tend to view those issues rather conservatively (as in: don't change
what we're doing without an obviously good reason).

Then again, we can anticipate that there will be more of these issues in
the future:  Packages which a mirror operator might have some reason
to not want to distribute, for whatever reason (sometimes for really good
reasons, sometimes for reasons which make no sense whatsoever).

In the context of mirrors, I think we need to be alert for legal issues where 
simply stopping distribution of the afflicted package, (when an appropriately 
authorized person tells us there's a problem) is not likely to satisfy the law.

-- 
Raul

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> I've been reading around http://www.lehrer-online.de/
> (forgive me, but German law textbooks are not easy to obtain
> quickly in the fens) under Recht: Ausf. Info.: Schulhomepage:
> illegale Inhalte and it looks like unclear cases like ours are
> only punishable if the federal authorities complain and we do
> nothing. Have I misunderstood?

There are different cases mentioned on
http://www.lehrer-online.de/dyn/16.htm

Our problem is not comparable to the first case, I'd say (i.e., not
comparable to linking to online content that had not been publicly
declared to be youth-endangering). Quake II has been put on the index
officially. So the norms I cited in my last mails apply. These norms
require the publication of the original ban. They expressedly not
require the publication of a ban for media that has essentially the
same content.

I'd try and explain the rationale like this: If you know that
something is banned, you should respect the law and not try to
circumvent it by distributing something which is, regarding to youth
protection, essentially the same. This is a different situation than
if you distribute something that has been put on an internal list
only, and you can't know about the listing. Harder standards apply if
you seem to be trying to circumvent the law. (This is my personal
idea, how to explain things in a way comparable to the
rationalizations on lehrer-online.de -- you shouldn't take this as a
basis for further conclusions, the text of the law is more important)

The quake2 case is comparable to the second case on that web page
(offering the ego-shooter "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", which has
been put on the index oficially, for download on one's web page). For
this, the authors of lehrer-online.de deduce a violation of § 4 par. 2
sentence 1 No. 2 JMStV and predict a fine.

The Wolfenstein case has the additional problem that the game contains
lots of swastikas and other nazi symbols, which are banned in
Germany. Using these banned symbols (outside of history education) is
what the cited No. 2 of the JMStV applies to. But in No. 11 of the
same norm it is also banned to distribute media that has been included
in the list of youth-endangering media.

I have to admit that I am not fully sure about the applicability of
the JMStV here. It applies to broadcast and "telemedia". I would have
to do some more research to find out reliably if the Debian package
repositories could be considered "telemedia". A first look makes me
assume that they are probably not, because it seems like telemedia is
content to be consumed online (text, music, images, on-demand films).

Anyhow, the different laws all ban the distribution of media that has
been declared youth-endangering. So the result won't change.

> If that may be a correct understanding, I'm worried about
> scaring off mirror admins with a strong statement that
> exaggerates an uncertain legal situation. If you do contact
> mirror admins, you should include the simplest possible
> option which avoids this uncertainty without harming debian.

I don't know about practical solutions. Leaving quake2-data out of the
repository (and maybe changing the parts of quake2 pointing to the
commercial game) would fulfill the requirements, as would introducing
a substantial age verification.

> The closest example on lehrer-online isn't helpful, as it seems to
> fall back to distribution not being allowed because of copyright,
> just to make sure teachers are scared to distribute game CDs.

That bit about copyright in their answer isn't essential to their
legal conclusions regarding youth protection. It's more like an afterthought.

> So, because we are not offering to supply the Quake II CD-ROM or files,
> nor does quake2 describe where such things are obtained itself, it
> is not such an offer or advertisement?

No. The description is not explicit enough, that's the point (at least
for penal law standards, see below). It's rather technical, just an
advisory that you should install the (banned) Quake II commercial
data. If it was more colorful, making the youth-endangering content
obvious, it would be definitely a problem (compare "Quake II is a 3D
action game engine in first-person perspective" to something like
"Kill all the enemies!  Wade through their blood! Get Quake II!"). As
it is, I am unsure again, see below.

> May quake2-data be a problem under this term?

Yes. There are different cases covered in the JuSchG. One of them is
"announcing, advertising, offering" youth endangering media, one is
"distributing, making available" and another one is "importing by
mail-order". So if the "advertising" case is not present, the other
ones can be.

>> Now I found an explanation for the relevant terms in a penal law
>> commentary, regarding pornography. This seems to be transferrable
>
> Is pornography a different section of this law to cited contents?

No, pornography is in the same category as hard violence, as far as
the JuS

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Francesco Poli]

On Sat, 02 Jul 2005 15:32:50 +0200 Michael Below wrote:

> The Wolfenstein case has the additional problem that the game contains
> lots of swastikas and other nazi symbols, which are banned in
> Germany. Using these banned symbols (outside of history education) is
> what the cited No. 2 of the JMStV applies to.

Really?
Are you saying that every use of any nazi symbol outside of history
education is prohibited in Germany?

This seems ridiculous!  :-(
How do you deal with movies such as _Raiders of the lost ark_ and
_Indiana Jones and the last crusade_ ?
They are quite full of swastikas and other nazi symbols and they cannot
be considered (AFAICT) "history education".
Nonetheless, it's hard to imagine a movie that's more anti-nazi than
those two...

IANAL, but I don't think we have such overreaching laws in Italy about
fascist symbols...

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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Alexander Schmehl]

Hi!

* Francesco Poli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [050702 17:00]:
> > The Wolfenstein case has the additional problem that the game contains
> > lots of swastikas and other nazi symbols, which are banned in
> > Germany. Using these banned symbols (outside of history education) is
> > what the cited No. 2 of the JMStV applies to.
> Really?
> Are you saying that every use of any nazi symbol outside of history
> education is prohibited in Germany?
> 
> This seems ridiculous!  :-(
> How do you deal with movies such as _Raiders of the lost ark_ and
> _Indiana Jones and the last crusade_ ?
> They are quite full of swastikas and other nazi symbols and they cannot
> be considered (AFAICT) "history education".

No, it's the law is a bit softer.  As far as I understand it's some kind
of "you may use it in history and in arts (if it was to complex to
remove them)".

They didn't changed those movies (beside killing some good jokes with
bad synchronisation), but they changed for example the games.

The german release of Lucas Arts "Indiana Jones and the last crusade"
adventure game has no "swastikas".  Some kind of funny and idtiotic to
see red flags with a white circle standing arround in the game.

Don't ask me for details, I don't understand our laws either ;)


> Nonetheless, it's hard to imagine a movie that's more anti-nazi than
> those two...

:)


Yours sincerely,
  Alexander

-- 
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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Michael Below]

Alexander Schmehl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> * Francesco Poli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [050702 17:00]:
>> Are you saying that every use of any nazi symbol outside of history
>> education is prohibited in Germany?
>> 
>> This seems ridiculous!  :-(
>> How do you deal with movies such as _Raiders of the lost ark_ and
>> _Indiana Jones and the last crusade_ ?
>> They are quite full of swastikas and other nazi symbols and they cannot
>> be considered (AFAICT) "history education".
>
> No, it's the law is a bit softer.  As far as I understand it's some kind
> of "you may use it in history and in arts (if it was to complex to
> remove them)".

Right. § 86a StGB (=penal code) points to § 86 III StGB. There is an
exception for civic enlightenment, defense against anti-constitutional
efforts, art, science, research and teaching, reporting about current
events or history, and similar causes.

The exception for art has been reduced by the courts, because the
courts have a very broad understanding of the term art. The interests
of art have to be weighed, probably it won't be allowed if the art is
trivial, affirmative or only commercially motivated. But those Indiana
Jones films will still be accepted as art, they have a plot and some
kind of message is expressed. I think computer games are
often thought to be too trivial/too commercial.

Michael Below

Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Francesco Poli]

On Sun, 03 Jul 2005 10:41:47 +0200 Michael Below wrote:

> The exception for art has been reduced by the courts, because the
> courts have a very broad understanding of the term art. The interests
> of art have to be weighed, probably it won't be allowed if the art is
> trivial, affirmative or only commercially motivated. But those Indiana
> Jones films will still be accepted as art, they have a plot and some
> kind of message is expressed. I think computer games are
> often thought to be too trivial/too commercial.

Awkward and frustrating...

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Re: quake2 and german youth protection law

[Kalle Olavi Niemitalo]

Henri Sivonen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> In Finland, for example, distribution of interactive image programs
> (or is photoplay the correct legal term?) ie. games requires informing
> the State movie inspection bureau.

Distribution via the Internet is exempted, though:
, under "Laki ei koske".

The text of the law (775/2000) might be read as categorizing such
distribution as "tilausohjelmapalvelu", which would again require
registration and typically also enforcement of an age limit.
Back in January 2001 however, a person from the Finnish Board of
Film Classification told me that the category was not meant to
include interactive programs.


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