From the Financial Times:
For someone writing under the name Robert Basic, it seemed too good to be true.
“My parents are never going to believe I’m going to be catalogued by the German national library,” the blogger wrote about the library’s plans to collect things German on the web to add to its century-old collection of the nation’s books.
But such expressions of delight were drowned out by outraged disbelief as websites reported that the Nationalbibliothek, based in Frankfurt and Leipzig, could force every private website owner and amateur blogger to submit material – and fine the non-compliant up to €10,000 ($13,000, £8,500).
Blogs have since been alive with jokes about German thoroughness, and calls to resist. . .
. . . The internet is often praised for its “viral” qualities, which set it apart from the methods of traditional mass media. But in this case word-of-mouth authenticity morphed into unreliable Chinese whispers, as many of the things criticised about the library’s plans turned out to be incorrect.