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Harm From The Hague
wfrp01 writes: "Richard Stallman has posted a new essay entitled Harm from the Hague, which presents his take on international enforcement of extra-national court decisions. 'The Hague treaty is not actually about patents, or about copyrights, or about censorship, but it affects all of them. It is a treaty about jurisdiction, and how one country should treat the court decisions of another country. ... Or suppose you publish a parody. If it is read in Korea, you could be sued there, since Korea does not recognize a right to parody.'"
YOU GOTTA FIGHT...FOR YOUR RIGHT...TO PARODY!!!!
Enter cranked guitar effects as necessay...
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
Scenario:
.cx, .tv) pass laws such as justifiable homicide in response to corporate espionage, or maybe patenting the entire idea of the telephone, or making it illegal to register a domain name.
German company A patents process "bob" in Germany. American company B patents process "bob" in America. B sues A for patent infringement in America, and wins, enforcing it in Germany against B. B sues A in Germany for patent infrigment and wins, enforcing it in America against A.
The end result: no one can use process "bob", and they both go out of business.
This sounds like a great idea to me, bring it on.
I particularly like Stallman's idea of "shopping for laws", where corporations find countries who will sell anything (cough christmas island, tonga,
When the first American gets cained in Pancake Ohio in the town square because they were sued in Singapore for spitting gum on the sidewalk, the fit is gonna hit the shan.
I can't wait.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
It doesn't matter *why* the law gets written.
What matters is what gets codified into law by the treaty, and what the unexpected side-effects of that law may be.
Laws get applied according to the need of the lawyers. There are a lot of dramatic cases of this. For example, Operation Rescue (radical anti-abortion group) was prosecuted under RICO statutes -- a law created to control organized crime. Similarly, Blue Cross Health Insurance is being sued under RICO because they control how physicians deal out healthcare to their clients. Appropriate? Maybe (depends on your politics), but certainly not what was intended by the original authors in the '70s.
So yes, you should be worried.
bukra fil mish mish
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