What is it that distinguishes a web site from an international web site?
Do you feel that laws on web site content passed in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Vietnam should apply to web sites created or operated by you or posts made by you on line? Would you expect yourself and other global posters and journalists to be bound, for example, by Thailand’s Lese Majeste laws on criticism or comment related to their king?
gutenberg.org has a link to view it in German on the front page. I guess if you provide several translations and use a top level domain like .org, you are more likely an international web site than an English-only .us web site.
German is spoken in countries other than Germany: looking at only countries where the German language enjoys some form of official or co-official status, we have Germany (of course), Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Denmark, Hungary, Italy, and Poland also formally recognise German as a minority language.
That's not to mention the countless expats/second language speakers around the world.
Having a German language version of your website/product is by no means equivalent to being subject to the jurisdiction of Germany the country.
All websites that are not intentionally blocked from specific regions by the website operator, a government or internet service providers are available everywhere in the world. English is the world's most spoken language. In effect, most websites are international websites.
That doesn't make them subject to the laws of every country. Most legal systems do not accept the standard the German court used and require a more significant physical, legal or economic connection to a country before a website may be subject to its laws.
But it did not use reasoning that courts in most other parts of the world accept, including the US coults it would have to ask to enforce its judgement in the absence of voluntary compliance.
PGLAF appears to be complying because it wants to win an appeal in German court, which might be compromised by ignoring the ruling of a lower German court. If PGLAF decided to ignore the ruling, there would likely be no consequences.
Do you feel that laws on web site content passed in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Vietnam should apply to web sites created or operated by you or posts made by you on line? Would you expect yourself and other global posters and journalists to be bound, for example, by Thailand’s Lese Majeste laws on criticism or comment related to their king?