Wolfgang Werlé apparently hasn't heard of the Streisand Effect, wherein attempts at censorship could actually backfire on you. At any rate, lawyers took immediate action for the sake of Werlé—a controversial man who received a life sentence for a crime that was committed way back in 1990—over the disclosure of his name in a Wikipedia article. He is actually one of two convicts who served over fifteen years in prison for the murder of Walter Sedlmayr, a famous German actor.

The attorneys didn't dispute the guiltiness of Werlé in the letter they sent late last October to the higher-ups of Wikipedia. However, they still demanded to the user-editable encyclopedia's English language version to remove the convicted felon's name in the murdered Bavarian celebrity's biography. They reasoned that under German law, Werlé is a private individual who should not have his name published in such a public forum.

The lawyers went on to state that they are presently filing a formal complaint against the Wikipedia organization in the Hamburg trial court. Moreover, the Electronic Frontier Foundation also revealed that the gung-ho team of prosecutors have also sued the Austria-based ISP that disclosed the names of the convicts in the first place. The legal debacle is the latest instance of a party reaching halfway across the world in order to attempt to deprive everyone of content that may break the rulings of a particular jurisdiction.

According to Werlé's legal representatives, his alleged future life outside the prison walls and present rehabilitation process will be severely and adversely affected by Wikipedia's refusal to censor articles dealing with his involvement in Walter Sedlmayr's murder. They emphasize that because the articles in question involve the discussion of a local German public figure (that is, Sedlmayr), they expect that the Wikipedia officials should follow applicable German law and strike off Werlé's name from the record.

One thing of note about this issue is that if Werlé's attorneys were to succeed with their plans to censor the convict's name, it'll set an unpromising precedent where lawyers are free to infringe upon people's free speech rights by imposing the laws of their own country or region. The gray area of jurisdiction and authority when it comes to the Internet is so wide and vast that no all-inclusive law at present can cover it.