German Murderer Seeks to Censor Wikipedia
German Murderer Seeks to Censor Wikipedia
Posted 11/11/2009 at 5:01pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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A well known Bavarian actor by the name of Walter Sedlmayr was murdered in 1990. Two of his associated were tried and convicted of the crime. These men were recently paroled, and one of them is none too pleased that anyone can read all about him on the internet. He has retained a lawyer and has sued Wikipedia in Germany, and is also making noise about suing the English language version.
This all comes back to German law, which holds that private citizens should have their names and likenesses protected. The ex-convict is making the argument that while he may have been a public figure during the trial, he isn’t anymore. He wants the Sedlmayr page censored to remove all mention of him.
The EFF is strongly opposed to the possibility of censoring Wikipedia at the behest of a convicted murderer (or anyone for that matter). They point out that is it impossible for all publications to abide by the censorship laws of any legal system. The U.S. First Amendment protects this sort of speech, but how far will the German lawyers try to take this?
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Trooper_One
November 12, 2009 at 1:16pm
Maybe he should've thought of about being infamous before murdering someone.
Too bad so sad. Freedom of speech and histroy can be a dead man's revenge.
Btw, what would the victim say? I'm sure he didn't appreciate getting killed.
Biceps
November 12, 2009 at 10:02am
Well, this is one problem that would have been solved by the electric chair.
Evasive
November 12, 2009 at 5:17am
Argue that he has now made himself famous as a convicted murderer taking on Wikipedia internationally. He wasn't relevant until he opened his big pie hole...now he's famous again. Help the POS by linking to articles about him all over the net to get his google rating up :)
gendoikari1
November 11, 2009 at 5:29pm
Wow. First, the German video game censorship board is so strict that any game more mature that Ultra Super Happy Cute Baby Fest Farmer 3000 would likely get blacklisted. Now, some murderer tries to get rid of probably the sole mention of him and the case isn't thrown out. Just wow.
nekollx
November 12, 2009 at 8:58am
well that's causeeveryone knows Germany is Happy funtime place, nothing amoral ever happens there
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The Relic
November 11, 2009 at 7:40pm
Thus guaranteeing that more people will read about their misdeeds...not very intelligent.
nekollx
November 12, 2009 at 1:19pm
*Wikkies "Murder of Walter Sedlmayr"*
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Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
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