ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades US style switches in Europe

You see, that's the sort of thing which most of us from Common Law countries (i.e. most if not all English-speaking countries) find quite alarming. I don't have to prove that I was innocent. If you say I've done something wrong, it's up to you (the state) to prove that I'm guilty.

I fear we may be straying a little too far into political issues here though, although I'll PM everyone in this thread later with some thoughts.

Ragnar, if you want to send the photos through to put on the ECN server in the photos area, I don't think any of us here will have any objections.

Well, in theory "in dubio pro reo" is valid in all countries I know. However, German lawyers (and courts) seem to have gone a little overboard recently resulting in severe fear of legal action. Illegal use of trade marks is one thing for example. A German board was sued because one of the users posted something that contained the term "Ceran cooktop" but did not refer to a product by the manufacturer that holds the trade mark. Now you can't write that word there any more... but it is common language, pretty much synonymous for all those cook tops.
They have seen the rise of an incredible number of lawyers just scanning the internet for illegal (or even dubious) activities waiting to sue people, mostly for trade mark and copyright issues. Mostly those lawyers tell people: "You did something illegal. Either you pay this sum to the copyright/trade mark holder (and a nice provision to me) or I'll rat you to said holder who'll sue you.

This practice ("Abmahnungen") has gotten heavily out of hand it seems and raised a lot of dust, so most Germans just seem to panic.

If we need anything here then it's an off-topic area for discussions like this!

Ragnar,
This is just getting silly.
I'm outside of the EU, send the pics over here, I'll place them on the ECN server for you.
No arguments.
You took the pics, that makes them "public domain".
Good Lord, are we prevented from taking photo's these days and posting them on the Net, someone should tell those at Break.com and PhotoBucket about this.

Since I'm not in Germany I won't care ;-)
I just wanted to explain my initial doubts.

As soon as I get to downsize them I'll mail the pics to one of you mods. Might take a few days though sice I spend the weekend at my GFs place and don't have my computer.