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AOL Germany Found Guilty of Piracy
LordArathres writes "It seems that an German appeals court has ruled that America Online is responsible if its users trade copyrighted music online. The story does not go into much detail of what ramifications this might/will have on other courts around the world. The (short) article can be found on Yahoo!" When the story was written, not much detail was known - this will be an interesting case to follow.
This treaty is called the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgements in Civil and Commercial Matters.
The Hague Convention involves some 47+ member nations, including the U.S., EU and China. The object of the convention is twofold:
1. To make foreign judgements recognizable,
and 2. To make foreign judgements enforceable.
This is extremely significant to the techie community, and anyone concerned with the application of law over the internet. Remember the Godfrey v. Dolenga and related cases, where a British physicist sued foreign nationals under the UK's draconian libel laws (where the burden of proof is, paradoxically, on the defendent to prove his innocence)? Godfrey obtained several favorable verdicts against citizens in the US and Canada, but was (at the time) unable to have those verdicts enforced.
Under the Hague Convention, Godfrey might have been able to not only secure favorable verdicts in the UK, but able to enforce those verdicts on others not ordinarily subject to UK libel law.
That's just one example. The Hague Convention does have one loophole (a fundamental public policy exemption) that nations could use to escape the enforcement of onerous verdicts. Libel cases may be an extreme example.
However, factor in Intellectual Property -- such as the precendence laid down in Germany concerning ISPs and Copyright. The Hague Convention would make it much, much easier to corporations to take advantage of disparities between the intellectual property regimes of different nations, secure favorable verdicts by picking and choosing courts to their advantage, and then enforcing such verdicts in other nations.
Imagine what will happen if the Hague Convention is passed (it's in draft-stage negotiations now) and free-software developers in EU countries which don't currently recognize software/business method patents are suddenly liable for patent infringement due to crappy US-PTO issued patents.
I think it is time that the geek community sat up and started paying attention to international legal developments such as the Hague Convention -- the corporations and industry associations (RIAA, MPAA) sure are. If you want to see what they have to say, check these comments recently submitted to the USPTO about the intellectual property aspects of the Hague Convention.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell
Insects and Grafitti Photos
If AOL in Germany is the only branch that can be linked to this activity...hmmm...AOL==AOL/Time Warner == Warner Records == major record company going after napster. I see a double standard forming...
How Jaded Are You?
"You've got lawsuit!"
AOL should just pull out of Germany. Send letters to their customers saying, "Sorry, but your government has rules our business model to be illegal. We have no choice but to discontinue our service in your nation." All other ISP's should follow suit. Then when the entire country is left without internet access, maybe the court will see how stupid its ruling was.
Of course, this is unrealistic. But I can't imagine what else will work. I mean, they might as well have ruled that Microsoft is responsible if users of Windows use xcopy32.exe to "pirate" music.
MoNsTeR