DLsite is no longer accessible for all of Germany

[marcoxD95]

Well, looks like DLsite was forced to remove access for Germany. Trying to visit the site nowadays leads to a "cloudfont blocked access" website. This also hits already existing consumers who complain that they lost access to all their purchased content, unless they use a VPN.

While there is no official statement as to why, it has most likely to do with the fact that DLsite recently made endeavours to be more interesting for non Japan people like adding many new languages such as German. Generally they showed growing interest into making business with as many countries as possible and that backfired at them in the case of Germany.

Germany has very strict youth protection laws and to be able to buy from and use such websites, you need to provide a proper age verification that justifies law. And in the case of Germany this is extremely difficult to do, especially for companies without a seat inside the country. Basically you need to provide your ID card AND also they need to verify that its you via videochat, etc. Alternatively within the country there is post ident but thats not possible for non German companies.

Countless businesses have blocked the access from German IPs in the past or they heavily censored their website such as removing adults only products. Steam would be a good example in this case.

This probably happened because they wanted to do business with Germans and the government took notice of it. "Either add a youth protection verification system that justifies law or face the consequences". Which usually means massive fines for the companies. And seeing that the age verification system would be too bothersome to implement they just decided to block access for the entire country. Thats how it often goes.

Thats the gyst of the topic but there are more discussions about it here and here.


I personally find it annoying as German. I do find the youth protection idea good on a technical level but the way its executed is way too bothersome for any non German company to deal with. If at least the law would find a id card scan alone enough...

Another website or service I cannot use. I am still annoyed about having no proper way to buy adults only products as a ADULT. Usually it ends up with me having to use VPN or buying Steam keys, or getting things in other non legal ways. Also the whole youth protection thing is mostly pointless. If any underage person wants these products, they can get them in the web anyway so this law is awfully outdated and does not cover the modern digital world and just punishes full age legal consumers.

Aber wie sagt man so schön, ist ja alles Neuland. Maybe in some decades the laws will have caught up.

 

[Checkmate]

The German youth protection has been causing quite a nuisance lately. They have been imposing their laws on us, even though we have absolutely no connection to Germany whatsoever.

 

[Lucumo]

Germany has very strict youth protection laws and to be able to buy from and use such websites, you need to provide a proper age verification that justifies law. And in the case of Germany this is extremely difficult to do, especially for companies without a seat inside the country. Basically you need to provide your ID card AND also they need to verify that its you via videochat, etc.

It's that bad? I remember providing my ID to Amazon back in the day and that was all that was needed to buy USK 18 products. I do think some form of online verification is reasonable, but something like videochat is retarded, as people can't be expected to own webcams (not to mention I wouldn't wanna show myself to some online company).
And IIRC, isn't it only one state in Germany which keeps bothering companies, as online games aren't regulated by a single body? At least I remember reading so when it happened to GOG.

It's annoying that DLsite didn't give a warning to its German users, especially because I own hundreds of items (mostly games) there.

 

[JohDBlin]

It's that bad? I remember providing my ID to Amazon back in the day and that was all that was needed to buy USK 18 products. I do think some form of online verification is reasonable, but something like videochat is retarded, as people can't be expected to own webcams (not to mention I wouldn't wanna show myself to some online company).
And IIRC, isn't it only one state in Germany which keeps bothering companies, as online games aren't regulated by a single body? At least I remember reading so when it happened to GOG.

It's annoying that DLsite didn't give a warning to its German users, especially because I own hundreds of items (mostly games) there.

Thankfully it appears that your library at play.dlsite is not affected. At least I can still access mine without VPN just as well as before for the time being...

I do hope they keep it that way since removing access to content you already paid for would be very extreme, but for the most part I'm relieved it's just an issue of forced compliance with German national law and not a sudden 180 in company doctrine - being locked out of the site so suddenly after they'd obviously been making efforts to expand into Western markets had me pretty worried the Japanese might be falling back into old habits lol

 

[nobis_c]

This happens in literally all parts of the world, especially in enforced-religious and moral-police nationstates. Fuck all this woke BS, man. They can't protect real children due to their own incompetence, so they pick on "easy targets" to feel good about themselves, with their holier-than-thou attitude.

Secularism and anti-woke all the way.

 

[Lucumo]

Thankfully it appears that your library at play.dlsite is not affected. At least I can still access mine without VPN just as well as before for the time being...

I do hope they keep it that way since removing access to content you already paid for would be very extreme, but for the most part I'm relieved it's just an issue of forced compliance with German national law and not a sudden 180 in company doctrine - being locked out of the site so suddenly after they'd obviously been making efforts to expand into Western markets had me pretty worried the Japanese might be falling back into old habits lol

Thank you for the heads-up. I went and got myself a VPN instead though and that works fine. Wanted to use it for some Japanese-only streaming service but nope, apparently they have been aggressively banning VPNs... Oh well, looks like with the 60% off campaign for certain games, I can at least still throw some money at DLsite and get like 30 more games.

That's why I only buy DRM-free and immediately download it to an external HDD. It's just a shame that a lot of professional companies went for DRM only or even half DRM-free and half DRM in some cases (Pia Carrot 2 is DRM-free for instance, but 1 and 3 are not, that's why I have to own the first (PC-98) and third (PC) physically...then again, I prefer physical in general, it just takes up too much space).
I mean, they folded their international website back into the Japanese one like... 2 1/2 years ago? So that effort failed pretty much.

 

[AlfredHeslin]

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. I will keep it in my mind. :)

 

[Kirashi]

Isn't that the same issue as why dmm/fanza was region locked for some EUW countries? In france we can still access dlsite but not dmm anymore (guess it's a matter of time before it's no longer accessible)

 

[evawillms183]

You've shared something truly special.