Thread: Websites seized/closed for Copyright
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Old 12-01-2010, 02:58 PM   #65
DMSmillie
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: London, UK
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc View Post
That's not really true Harry. The book may be out of copyright in one country but not another and that makes it a violation of copyright to that country. You are trying to push the onus on the user instead of complying with the law.
What law? That's the heart of this issue. According to Harry, MR is complying with "the law". It just happens to be the law in Canada, where the servers are located. No different to what Project Gutenberg does, except that they are located in the US, I believe, so they try to ensure that they are in compliance with US law.

You appear to be arguing in favour of websites being subject to laws in countries other than the one in which they are physically located, which opens a real can of worms. I doubt many in the US or the UK would be in favour of the Chinese or Russian legal systems having jurisdiction over websites located in the US or the UK.

An alternative might be to do a location check based on a visitor's IP address, but as we all know from the many discussions on these boards, it's easy to fake that using proxies.

It seems to me that all one can be expected to do is ensure that a website is fully compliant with the laws of the country in which it is based, and make it clear to visitors that it's up to them to ensure that they are not breaking the laws of the country where they are located if they download specific material.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc View Post
If what you are claiming is true then any ol' pirate site could put up a disclaimer and be in the clear as well.
Strictly speaking, if the material the site contains is legal according to the laws of the country where it is based, then, other than blocking access to the site for all IP addresses based in one's own country, where the material is not legal, and making official complaints to the legislators/politicians in the hosting country, I'm not sure what else can legally be done about it. Different, of course, if the site is located in the US, for example - then it comes under the jurisdiction of US law.

- Donna
Last edited by DMSmillie; 12-01-2010 at 03:00 PM. Reason: minor typo
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