Quote:
Originally Posted by murraypaul
What legal responsibilities does an Australian entity, operating servers in Australia, have under US law?
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I will admit I'm not entirely certain. There is no international copyright law, and signatories to the Berne Convention don't always enact every last provision and may interpret it slightly differently. It's entirely plausible that the courts in the UK may decide that US copyrights do apply in the UK without that having any bearing on other nations. Clearly there are many situations where the law in one country cannot be applied against a citizen who is acting in another country.
That said, imagine the following purely hypothetical situation.
Let's say Canada legalizes marijuana for general use, and the US does not. I stand on the border of Canada and the US with an ounce of pot in my hand, and idly toss the bag across the border, near a US citizen. Perhaps the citizen asked me to do so, perhaps not, but picks it up anyway.
I'm in Canada, operating legally. The recipient is not.
• Legally, am I culpable under US law for my actions?
• Does that change based on whether or not someone arrests me?
• Although I have every reason to believe my actions are morally sound, am I at all ethically required to abide by or honor US laws when my actions affect US citizens?
• Does my intent matter -- e.g. what if the toss was an accident? What if I believed both I and the dropped bag were in Canada? What if I didn't see the US citizen, but assumed one would pick up the bag sooner or later? What if I made a conscious decision to flout US law?
• Would telling the US citizen "marijuana is not legal in the US" absolve me of any legal and/or ethical responsibilities?
• Should the US citizen telling me "marijuana is not legal in the US" change my behavior in the future?
• Is telling the US citizen "marijuana is not legal in the US" a recognition that my action may not be legal?
On an alternate but related point: Different principles are often invoked when we are discussing geographic restrictions on the sale of ebooks, and someone gets blocked from purchasing an ebook that is available abroad. The aggrieved party proudly proclaims that the Internet is a global network, and that national borders are either not valid or not relevant, or that local laws and copyright agreements should not necessarily apply, and that acting otherwise is backwards and outdated.
However, when it comes to the distribution of public domain books, the walls come right back up.
When an Australian wants to purchase an ebook, and cannot do so because of Australian copyrights, it doesn't matter that "Australia is Australia" and local contracts, agreements and laws apply. When another Australian wants to share a book that is legitimately PD in Australia but not elsewhere, and a demand is made to remedy the situation somehow,
now it matters that "Australia is Australia" and we invoke local copyright laws.
This is not to state that anyone specifically contradicts their own positions. Rather, people seem willing to invoke whatever principles are at hand to achieve the actual underlying (and laudable) goal, which is "broad distribution of digital goods." It's essentially coincidental that this goal requires the obliteration of national borders one minute, and the fierce defense of them the next.
