Textz.com owner accused of German copyright crimes [ip]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: textz.com, copyright, jail
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 15:47:50 +0100
From: Sebastian Luetgert <sebastian () textz org>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

Dear Declan McCullagh,

I am sending you this mail because I remember that, three years ago,
you forwarded the "initial" rant from textz.com to politech (see
http://www.politechbot.com/p-01816.html).

Textz.com is currently involved in a (to say the least) interesting
legal battle over the copyrights on two essays by the German
philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, currently held by a foundation owned
by a wealthy Hamburg philanthropist, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, who has
obtained a warrant of arrest against the owner of textz.com (me).

I have no idea whether this case is of any interest to your readers
(it is currently stirring a lot of discussion in Germany, both in
mainsteam press and more specialized publications, but that may be
just because it is a very "German" case). I'm just sending you this
to announce that I'm going to send, later today, some more
information about the issue to a list of English-speaking friends,
journalists, etc, and that this list includes you. Just to make
sure it doesn't go *directly* to your spam folder...

Best regards,
Sebastian Luetgert
textz.com
Berlin/Germany






-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Textz.com: Copy Adorno, go to Jail?
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 21:13:49 +0100
From: Sebastian Luetgert <sebastian () textz org>
To: textz () textz org

[Bcc: Daniel G. Andujar, Jeebesh Bagchi, Rachel Baker, Richard Barbrook, Sharon
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Dear all,

some of you may already know about the issue, some of you may not. Textz.com --
which, juridically, boils down to me -- is currently having a problem with two
essays by Theodor W. Adorno. Their copyright holder -- a Hamburg foundation run
by Jan Philipp Reemtsma, well-known theory collector and wealthy philanthropist
who owns a big slice of Adorno and Benjamin -- has obtained a warrant of arrest
against me, claiming textz.com has trespassed on their "intellectual property".
The case has already stirred a bizarre controversy in German mainstream press,
but I think that the issue deserves some more attention beyond just that.

Attached is an open letter sent to the Hamburg foundation, as well as the press
release textz.com has issued last week. The latter includes both a how-to that
lists a few ways to support textz.com and a collection of links that point to
some more background information, correspondence, press coverage, and the like.
Most of it is archived at http://textz.com/adorno -- and since at least some of
it is even quite funny, I hope that I'm not completely wasting your time.

Best regards,
Sebastian Luetgert
textz.com
Berlin, Germany


================================================================================


Free Adorno, Free Benjamin

An Open Letter to Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Regarding His "Intellectual Property"

Jan Philipp Reemtsma
Hamburg Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Culture
Mittelweg 36
20148 Hamburg/Germany

Dear Jan Philipp Reemtsma,

you are a man of immense wealth - a wealth that is not limited to the material
world, but stretches far into the realm of the intellectual. You have founded
and are continuously funding a number of institutions and archives that claim to
serve the public by advancing both scientific research and cultural expression.
Today, we have to notify you that, just as your material riches are about to
increase by another few thousand Euros, you have irrevocably lost the rights to
some of your most precious pieces of "intellectual property".

As you, as its president, must be aware of, the Hamburg Foundation for the
Advancement of Science and Culture has sued - and obtained a preliminary
injunction against - the owner of textz.com, who, according to your lawyers,
Senfft, Kersten, Voss-Andreae and Schwenn, has caused your foundation damages of
more than 2,300 Euros by making available for download two essays by Theodor W.
Adorno. Even though textz.com, by never paying or even acknowledging these
fictitious damages, has given you sufficient time to realize your mistake, you
have filed for and obtained a warrant of arrest against the - still undefended -
defendant.

Jail time for copying Adorno: that's where you have crossed the line that
separates ordinary copyright cases from extraordinary tales of copyright madness
- despite, and maybe just because, the formal correctness of your procedure. As
an "intellectual proprietor" of Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin, you
should be aware of the power that still emanates from their works: a negative,
dialectical, weak and historical power that stretches far beyond the reach of
any court of law, and that it impossible to contain in any of your archives.
"Intellectually", Adorno and Benjamin will always escape the idea of becoming
commodities, and their works, even as the private property they have become,
have a peculiar tendency to vanish the very moment you try to get hold of them.

The question of "intellectual property" is not if the producers of creative
works should be denied their right to material reproduction through their
creative work, or if the temporary owners of such works should be hung by the
guts of their lawyers. The question of "intellectual property" is when it will
finally be acknowledged that the people have a universal right to the
reappropriation of the means of production, that creative works - however
privatized and commodified they may have become - are a such means of
production, and that their reproduction ist a fundamental and fully legitimate
form of production itself.

Even confronted with today's draconic laws against digital reproduction - the
state of permanent emergency and institutionalized panic that is the "war
against piracy" - people have never ceased to copy, paste, modify, save, upload,
download, print and share digital data. In the case of "intellectual property",
the power of the factual exceeds by far the power of the law. The people are
perfectly aware of the historical fact that no law is ever just given. Law is
created though factual struggle, and it erodes through factual struggle. Thus,
the critique of "intellectual property" cannot remain individual, sporadic, and
theoretical - it has to become swarming, massively parallel, and practical.

We are glad to announce that, effective today, every single work by Adorno and
Benjamin that you claim as your "intellectual property" has become part of the
very public domain that had granted you these copyrights in the first place. Of
course they will not be available instantly, and of course we will not publish
them ourselves - but you can take our word that they will be out, in countless
locations and formats, and that not even a legion of lawyers will manage to get
them back. Maybe it helps if you think of your "intellectual property" as a
genie, and of your foundation as a bottling business.

We like non-fiction, and we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we
have fictitious "intellectual property" laws that serve fictitious copyright
holders. We live in a time where we have fictitious private institutions that
are going to war against piracy for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction
of rights management or the fiction of intellectual theft - we are against this
war, Mr. Reemtsma. Shame on you, Mr. Reemtsma, shame on you. And any time you
got the Arts and the Sciences against you, your time is up.

Thank you very much,

The Berlin Foundation for the Advancement of Production and Reproduction

a.k.a.
A.S.Ambulanzen
Berlin/Germany
February 24, 2004

P.S.: We know that German Neo-Fascists have attacked you numerous times for the
exhibition on the crimes of the German Wehrmacht, curated by your Hamburg
Institute for Social Research, and that they continue to defame you as the "heir
of a tobacco company", which not only, and in the first place, perfectly fits an
anti-semitic cliché, but also resonates, in many of these defamations, with
hints to your "personal responsability for the death of millions of smokers".
Please be assured that - even though we don't share your opinion that said
exhibition was a "success", and even though tobacco may be just another
commodity that kills - we, as a group of smokers who know the Germans and their
history, are on your side, no matter what, in defense of society against
Fascism. If you side with us in defense of wealth against scarcity is an
entirely different question - but we bet that one day you will.


================================================================================


Copy Adorno, Go To Jail? Textz.com Doesn't Think So

The Hamburg Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Culture, presided by
Jan Philipp Reemtsma, has just advanced science and culture to a whole new
level: Sebastian Luetgert, the founder of textz.com, is facing a warrant of
arrest and may go to jail if he fails to pay more than 2,300 euros in damages
for the alleged copying of two essays by Theodor W. Adorno that the foundation
claims as their "intellectual property". Reemtsma was kindly asked to settle,
but refused.

The case dates back to August 2002, when the foundation filed for a preliminary
injunction against Luetgert at the Hamburg State Court, referring to the alleged
distibution of two works by Theodor W. Adorno, "Jargon der Eigentlichkeit" and
"Fascism and Anti-Semitic Propaganda". Since not a single e-mail was sent to
notify textz.com of the matter, and since written notification failed to reach
the defendant, textz.com only learned about the issue after a few days. The
works in question were immediately removed from the site to avoid any further
legal hassles.

In December 2003, Luetgert found himself confronted with a warrant of arrest,
obtained against him by the Hamburg Foundation, citing unpaid claims related to
the unauthorized copying of said works. In January 2004, Luetgert addressed the
issue in a letter to Reemtsma and asked for a scholarship so he could pay this
debt and avoid jail time. Reemtsma did not reply, but handed the letter over to
his foundation's lawyers - Senfft, Kersten, Voss-Andreae & Schwenn - who insist
on the payment of 2,331.32 Euros for alleged damages and legal fees.

Textz.com believes that an "intellectual proprietor" of Theodor W. Adorno and
Walter Benjamin who claims to advance science and culture by sending people to
jail for taking Adorno and Benjamin serious is seriously wrong on a whole number
of points. The Hamburg Foundation undererstimates the resistance of their
possessions against their legal protection just as much as their lawyers
underestimate the ability of the Internet to route around damage. In the end,
they may even be wrong in thinking that they will ever get their property back.

Today, in an open letter (http://textz.com/adorno/open_letter.txt), Reemtsma has
been notified that his foundation's "intellectual property" has been returned to
the public domain. This first-of-its-kind protest signals a refusal to let
copyright holders and lawyers censor the very works they pretend to protect and
control what the public can archive or read. There is a universal right to copy
that will never cease to apply, and there is copyright legislation that will.
We're just at the beginning.

Textz.com
February 24, 2004

http://textz.com
mailto:textz () textz org

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How you can support textz.com:

- Spread the word. Tell your friends, tell a journalist, write about it, put it
  on a website, post it to a mailing list, etc. Textz.com is also available for
  interviews, just mail to press () textz org.

- Sign our petition at http://textz.com/adorno/petition.html.

- Write a letter to Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Hamburg Foundation for the Advancement
  of Science and Culture, Mittelweg 36, 20148 Hamburg, Germany. If you like,
  send a copy of your letter to textz () textz org.

- Donate to textz.com via http://textz.com/adorno/donate.html.

- Buy a copy of Robert Luxemburg's "The Conceptual Crisis of Private Property as
  a Crisis in Practice" (http://textz.com/crisis). All proceedings will go to
  textz.com's fund for legal expenses.

- Put our "Free Adorno" banner (http://textz.com/adorno/banner.gif) on your
  website, and/or link to http://textz.com/adorno.

- Meet textz.com at Neuro Festival, February 26-29, Munich, Germany (check
  http://neuro.kein.org for details) and join our discussion about further
  strategies in this case.

- Select all, copy, paste, save, upload, share. Reappropriate. (And remember:
  there is no need to break what you can circumvent. Don't innovate, imitate.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Related links:

Documentation of our correnspondence:
http://textz.com/adorno/documentation.de.txt
http://textz.com/adorno/documentation.en-babelfish.txt

Press coverage:
http://textz.com/adorno/press.de.txt
http://textz.com/adorno/press.en-babelfish.txt

Open Letter to Jan Philipp Reemtsma:
http://textz.com/adorno/open_letter.txt

The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction:
http://textz.com/adorno/work_of_art.txt

Franz Kafka on "intellectual property":
http://textz.com/kafka

Textz.com mission statement, early 2001:
http://textz.com/concept

What others say about textz.com:
http://textz.com/press

The textz that textz.com is all about:
http://textz.com/cache
http://textz.com/textz

Some state-of-the-art copyright circumvention technologies:
http://textz.com/trash
http://textz.com/crisis

Some more stuff we have not yet been sued for:
http://textz.com/search
http://textz.com/news

Drop us a line, send us a text, or subscribe to our newsletter:
http://textz.com/contact

Finally, while freeing Adorno, please free the Grey Album too:
http://textz.com/greyalbum/greyalbum.html


        
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