Hi, quick question about the website, which is evolving quite fabulous.

The page is operated and sponsored by a German company Hanseatic Bits UG (haftungsbeschränkt) & Co. KG .

I’m wondering: what the philosophy behind the project is? How is the funding taking place? What will happen to the crowd-sourced data and the joint effort? Don’t get me wrong, but putting effort in a closed source database that belongs to a company, which then claims the copyright of said database (German Urheberrecht), is something I would like to discuss upfront.

  • snuggledick@lemm.ee
    5·
    8 days ago

    It’s not just for commercial websites, any website that provides any kind of content is subject to Impressumspflicht. AFAIK strictly private/personal websites are exempt in theory, however in Germany it’s a fun pastime for asshole lawyers to automatedly search the web for websites w/o impressum and extort some bucks off some poor granny’s recipe blog, so it’s better to be safe than sorry. And since people generally don’t want to put their full private address on the web and most don’t have have a postbox or something like that, I totally get why they’d use the company for simplicity.

    • Señor Mono@feddit.orgOP
      21·
      8 days ago

      Yea, I’m discussing that with my partner - an author - all the time. When does her blog starts to be commercial, when do people begin to be content providers? I guess in case of moderated contents (social media) and communities, there is no gray area anymore. Anyhow discussing the Impressumpflicht is just a detail and a little bit derailing.

      Since they’ve chosen to use the firm, there are other questions at hand.

      • snuggledick@lemm.ee
        2·
        8 days ago

        I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is that as soon as there is a anything on the website that could (even just in theory) help you make a single cent, it’s considered commercial. Any ad banner, an affiliate link or in case of your author partner a link to their books on amazon or wherever is probably enough to be considered commercial. I honestly wouldn’t take any risk there, especially as an author. 1 single hater is enough to cost you up to 5k€.

        • Señor Mono@feddit.orgOP
          1·
          8 days ago

          Thanks. We got that covered. She already has an Impressum and you can hire an Impressum service. My blog however, with journey impressions and profanity, has no Impressum.