Legal Hosting

[chadknowslaw]

[email protected]

That is the email for Daniel Koetz. He is a German lawyer and a member of the First Amendment Lawyers Association.

[basschick]

damn, chad - you totally rock!

[email protected]

That is the email for Daniel Koetz. He is a German lawyer and a member of the First Amendment Lawyers Association.

[attis]

Basschick is completely right about the situation in Germany. Nothing to add here.

Simon, the problem with going overseas, or even moving to the Netherlands, is that you are still a German (if you are). And if you break German laws, especially those related to anything sexual, you still could be held liable under German laws, even if you were completely legal in the country where you didn't comply to German laws.

So for example, if someone knows or finds out that you are the owner of a foreign operated website which doesn't comply to the German laws and reports you to the authorities, you could be in trouble. I don't know if this is a realistic scenario, but if you want to take chances give it a try.

The problem is that the German government listens very much to all the lobbyists which tell them that the internet can be governed by German laws. Their strongest weapon is protection of the youth, which is actually a good thing (but only in sexual context, nazi shit is pretty okay if you want to throw it at young people). However, for all the lobbying organizations it's more about getting their hands on government money instead of doing some real work to help and protect young people.

[chadknowslaw]

I respectfully disagree with Attis' assessment.

If a German person owns a company in another country that complies with the laws of that country and does not export those goods/services illegally back into Germany, there are no laws broken, even if the good or service would be illegal if produced in Germany.

Think of Henry Ford owning Ford of Europe, producing diesel automobiles for sale in Europe that cannot legally be sold in the United States and Henry does not sneak any across the border.


When the product is being distributed through Internet channels you will need to take extra care in structuring the business so that the company is not violating German laws.


I repeat and STRESS that Server Location does not equal Company Location!

[attis]

Chad, you are right of course, but it's a special situation as soon as porno becomes involved. I really value your contribution and help and of course I can't enter a legal discussion with you since I'm just less than an amateur when it comes to law. However, I try to keep myself informed about the law situation to be safe.

A lot of information I have about the legal situation over here comes from a German adult webmaster board where Mr. Koetz is very active himself. There are lengthy discussions about all legal aspects of the adult business and a wealth of useful information and links about the local situation.

The real problem is the distribution through Internet, though. If you own or run a website with explicit material (considered as porn), you would have to take any measures that the website either would be completely blocked for access from Germany (and it would involve proxies) for people under the age of eighteen or you would have to implement those nifty little government approved AVS systems. The latter of course would require face-to-face identification before granting access to your visitors, because that's the only measure that will be accepted by German laws. How you manage face-to-face is entirely up to you.

The second point is the law that holds you responsible for your actions even if they would be perfectly legal in a foreign country. This particular law is mainly aimed at sex tourists and afaik it is based on a EU directive and is also implemented into the laws of other (if not all) EU countries.

For example, the age of consent between an adult and a minor in Germany is 16. In other countries (even in Europe) it's 15 or even 14. So if a German gets involved into a consenting act with a person of 15, as it would be perfectly legal in some neighboring countries, whilst both stay in this particular country, the German person would still break the German law. And since the law doesn't explicitly say that it is limited to sexual contacts, I'm afraid it could be used for internet activity involving porn as well.

It might not be a realistic scenario that someone goes after you, but you never know and of course one should accept and respect the laws even if you don't like them. Of course I can be wrong, but I just want to stress the possible traps Simon could run into. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

Every now and then adult webmasters, as it happens very often on the above mentioned German board, come to a forum like this to receive any form of confirmation that possible illegal actions are legal if you try to work around the laws. But luckily for those who ask, they almost never get to hear what they obviously want to hear.

It's always the best way to seek legal advice from a lawyer if in doubt. "I've read on some webmaster board that it's pretty okay" probably doesn't stand very well in court.

[chadknowslaw]

attis, you are starting to sound like a lawyer. :smoke:

[MMemmer]

Dittos, Dittos, Dittos on all that Patti said above (aka Basschick).

Good luck with your search and my one peice of advice, do not pick your hosting based upon price and choose that actually supports the adult industry, in the long run you will be far better off that the few Euro's that you might save in the short term. $0.02