Convicted Germans Seek to Edit History in Suit Against Wikipedia
Two Germans convicted of killing an actor in 1990 are suing Wikipedia’s parent in an effort to force the online, publicly edited encyclopedia to remove their names from an English-language entry about their crime.
The plaintiffs, Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber, say their right to privacy should prevail, the New York Times reports. “The legal fight pits German privacy law against the American First Amendment,” the story says. “German courts allow the suppression of a criminal’s name in news accounts once he has paid his debt to society, noted Alexander H. Stopp, the lawyer for the two men, who are now out of prison.”
Wikipedia has already removed the names of Werlé and Lauber from its German-language entry on the killing of actor Walter Sedlmayr, but not from the English-language version. The men have filed suit over the U.S. online mention in German courts, and Stopp has sent a cease and desist letter on behalf of Werlé to Wikipedia’s parent, the Wikimedia Foundation.
Stopp had a similar request for the New York Times. “In the spirit of this discussion, I trust that you will not mention my clients’ names in your article,” he said in an e-mail message after an interview.
Julian Höppner, a lawyer with the JBB law firm in Berlin, told the Times that the German privacy law stems from a 1973 decision by Germany’s highest court. German courts have not yet ruled whether the right to privacy requires websites to remove names from their archives, he said.
Jennifer Granick, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Times that the case “really is about editing history.” Writing on the EFF Deeplinks Blog, Granick said: “If all publications have to abide by the censorship laws of any and every jurisdiction just because they are accessible over the global Internet, then we will not be able to believe what we read.”
