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Kazaa And Exportation of U.S. Copyright Laws
Mr. Vidster writes "Interesting article in the NYTimes about the potential issues the U.S. justice system must face when dealing with Sharman Networks and KaZaA. Apparently Sharman and KaZaA have servers in Denmark, source code in Estonia, and the developers live in the Netherlands. How far does the long arm of US copyright law reach?"
This will all take some time. Laws concerning information on the internet varies widely between nations, even preventing the United States from prosecuting or suing harmful virus writers in SouthEast Asia. With enough money and promises however, the United States may very well talk nations like Denmark and Thailand into more restrictive and reasonable laws concerning their cyber-space.
... stops at the doorsteps of the US elite.
Look a monkey!
Most of the countries in the world will accept our food and our military power, but none will be bought to change their laws. We can feed and protect a country till the end of time, but once we're paying them to punish their people to our wishes, we own them, and not a country on earth would allow that.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
The juristictional obstructions to the enforcement of the various entities involved in KaZaa, and others should provide a real sanity check for some of the more draconian copyright enforcement laws currently being enforced by the US at the behest of the RIAA.
Some copyright laws are respected internaltionally, more or less. By this I mean that if a CD pirate is burning copies of commercial CDs and distributing them, the US will ask and work with the sovereign state in which the pirates are operating. The fact that the sovereign state cooperates with the US demonstrates that there is a mutual respect for the given rule, even though the penalties may differ from state to state.
As the KaZaa example demonstrates, pursuing legal action against them will only work if their host states agree with the position of the US governmant. If they don't then there will be little to no assistance.
If the RIAA looks at this, they may realize that their lobbying efforts here have not worked as well in the international arena. They may need to rethink their strategy to one which relies less on using the government as their policman and more about providing a good product to the consumers and equitable share to their artists.
-tpg
At some point, a court somewhere is going to have to determine whether or not manufacturing software that allows the trade of copyrighted materials is legal. If they decide it's illegal, God help them to enforce it. The CDBTPA (or whatever..you know what I mean) is trying really hard to push this through, but it's impossible. As someone's
Let me halt my rant and play devil's advocate for a moment...restricting speech? This is something that is hurting the anti-DRM movement more than it's helping. A neutral person may likely be swayed over to our side until they hear everything referred to as a freedom of speech restriction. Most people don't consider source code a work of speech, just as they don't consider a music file or other audio source one either. Unless it's spoken (a speech) or written word (book), John Doe isn't going to consider the violation breaking the 1st amendment.
--trb
If a pretext like this is really enough to get a war off the ground, I wonder how long it will be before a US president makes speeches about how we must use force to break up cells of renegade programmers who are writing modern network protocols which result in programs that are "in confict with the interests of America." Or, maybe we will start bombing servers "suspected of sending illegal data to Freenet."
You don't think this could happen in your lifetime? Ha!
The US may indeed have a lot of implied power but don't mistake that for the ability to indoctrinate other countries with US law. They enjoy their freedom to have their own laws just as we do here in the US.
:-)
File sharing is not going anywhere folks.. Not with programs out there like Direct Connect, FileShare, Kazaa and need I mention the millions of ftp sites out there?
These arguments are SO old. I download movies and games.... if they are worth keeping, I buy them and if they are garbage I delete them and never bother again. If not for this process I would not bother to buy anything(as I have done for years because frankly I dont like blowing money on a game and or movie and then hating it).
What I also find hilarious about the copyright argument... The RIAA says music sales are down due to d/l's of mp3's and the various other formats of music; however, I guess our current state of the economy would have nothing to do with the decrease in sales? I wonder if they compared other times of poor economy with their sales trends if they would be comparable to the downside trend they have been noticing.
Just a thought.
Exactly my point..... Money seems to make everything ok and legal... The more money you bribe and pay off, the more things you can do!!
American Law only goes as far as their bombs, which in this world means anywhere...
Actually there's nothing in the law that says you have to buy a gun. If guns are given away, no problem, as long as the potential owners are filling out forms and waiting per the Brady Bill. If everything checks out, no problem.
Free guns argument= irrelevant.
Tools are tools. Don't think that Adobe gets sued because some kid Photoshops pictures of something he's auctioning on Ebay to get a better price. Don't think that Stanley tools get sued if someone gets bludgeoned to death with a Stanley hammer. Tools that can have multiple purposes are usually not privy to scrutiny. Password-cracking programs and network scanners aren't really considered illegal tools either, because they can be used for checking security leaks/holes.
You may not be able to punish the guy running the foreign server, but you can limit access to it from within our borders, thereby removing it as an offender.
In other words, we should implement our own version of "The Great Firewall of China." Except in America, it will "protect" the citizens from illegal IP rather than, say, Falun Gong websites.
Who gets to decide what makes it through the "Freedom Shield" or whatever newspeak you'd like to call it? Ashcroft? He won't even dance with his wife because he thinks dancing is immoral! The Copyright Holders of IP? They won't allow anything; the firewall will scan the page for "Ford" or "Friends" or "Star Wars" and deny access, just like BESS does at my girlfriend's school. The web will become useless. Utterly fucking useless.
Great plan, dipshit.
Remind me: Why is the government spending my money to protect Sony's IP again? Doesn't Sony have their own lawyers?
I wish you Europeans would gird up your loins and tell our president to go fuck himself.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Reading stories like this must make the last few europeans that still generally have sympathetic feelings towards the US 'defect'.
I recon myself to be one of those. And yes I do know that not every american is to blame for such arrogant and stupid behaviour, but still, I begin to understand why the USA are so much hated in many parts of the world.
The arrogance and one sidedness (unilateralism) is getting to the point that it is simply unacceptable, also to people who always felt that the US are our allies such as myself.
The US may think they don't need anyones sympathy, that they can 'rule the world' on their own. That laws of others don't apply to the US, but that US laws are somehow more just and apply anywhere in the world (and if not, such countries must be pressured into modifying their laws under threat of trade boycotts etc). I however think this is a big mistake and gets the US into deeper trouble.
I know some 'patriotic' people will qualify this as flamebait, but remember whether you agree or not, whether you like it or not, what I write still in very mild terms (coming from a european with over-average sympathetic feelings towards the US) what more than 90% of europeans are feeling by actions like this.
Criticising other peoples for such 'infidelity' (i.e. being arrogant in the eyes of people with constructive criticism) won't cause such feelings to go away, on the contrary. I don't think it is helpful for the US to loose its last remaining allies in the world.
The Germans tried, but your Chuck Norris-loving prez didn't quite enjoy that.
That being said, war on terrorism is widely seen as internationally divisive from a non-US perspective. We feel that the war has not been carried out according to intentions.
Still, world against the US of A would be in interesting spectacle. You would be severely limited in your options by your access to oil on a medium-term basis.
Stop the brainwash
What is with us Americans who are so eager to start these wars that have no end and no possible way of really winning. They just go on and on and on.
War on drugs.
War on terrorism.
War on people who break copyright laws.
What next? Instead of waging "war" on everything we don't like, why not try and be alittle more creative.
Since there is no way that the RIAA or MPAA is going to stop people from making copies of their shit, why not embrace the technology?
How many people would pay for music if the recording industry charged $9 a cd if you could download it off the net or $11 if you wanted a hardcopy along with the ability to download.
However they do it, if they just made music available to people in various formats on fast servers, people would buy it. Maybe not the average slashdotter, but the average consumer would.
I am disgusted that the US governement feels it is somehow their responsibility or right to fight these battles for corporate America. Our government is nothing more than an extension of corporate America and has little to do with representing the citizens or protecting freedom.
LoRider
United-States is every American's country, whether he or she agrees with the majority on anything at all or not. As such, every American has the right to see its country reflect values they hold dearest. Just because someone does not have enough cash to lobby Washignton does not make them any less deserving of having a country that fullfills their dream.
The same truth applies to every country. Every citizen has the right to demand from their country to be true to its wishes, even if those wishes are not those of lobby interests or of the political majority. You cannot demand that every person who doesn't agree with the majority leave the country for another one. This is their country too, even if they don't agree with you.
Besides, there's no telling whether an expatriate will be welcome elsewhere either. Relocation, while it can sometimes have hugely positive aspects, has its share of burdens, such as forever being the unwelcome foreigner who needs yet another work permit and who won't likely ever land citizenship, because he or she came from the wrong country in the first place.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
How does this get rated as 5?
Does anyone really believe that the US or US corporations have no legislative influence on other countries?
This is pathetic. Search through slashdot and you'll easily find dozens of articles showing otherwise. Human rights violations from oil companies, diamond industry, cobalt/mineral industry, etc. Don't forget all the countries we've invaded, NAFTA, MFN status etc. And then there's the more subtle influence our country has... CIA supporting anti russian activities in Afghanistan during the cold war, ensuring US friendly Saudi royalty support for oil even though they run despotic governments with countless human rights violations. tip o the ice berg.
you guys make me sick with your ignorance. blah.
Given the amount of oil the US imports from Saudi Arabia, it sounds like a good argument could be made for enforcing Saudi laws in the USA. We should expect US citizens to now face lengthy jail terms for possessing copies of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition, for possessing and consuming fermented beverages, etc. And don't forget the public executions for things like adultery.
If we can tell other countries what their laws must be regarding software, then they can expect us to enforce their laws about equally important moral sanctions.
Fair's fair, right?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
No, the issue of jurisdiction is whether a court has power to try someone. Assuming that they both applied the same rules, our courts probably would not have a problem with foreign courts claiming jurisdiction over Americans who had been operating businesses abroad.
Enforcing the outcome of a trial OTOH is trickier.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Politics, politics, politics, my friend.
The US can lean on countries using whatever power it has (it does/will do this). Fact is, the politics of the situation are not the savage, horrible thing that people are whining about, it seems like more of a political/diplomatic reality that has always gone on, that people are recently awaking to. (I'm going to go out on a limb here) It is a realization very similar to the US's young people lashing out because they discover that the "one man, one vote" mantra is bullshit -- its really "one man, one vote...but before that comes lots of campaign financing, handshaking, and lobbying". Its nothing new -- its the way its always worked...people just weren't completely aware...
The US will use any means at its disposal for leverage, be it foreign aid, tariffs on imports/exports, military power/placement, embargos, control of shipping channels & oil pipelines, land, as well as its powerful positions in the UN. The US is having a related (UN) problem right now with Russia and China. Russia and China have veto power in the UN Security Council, and if the politics aren't played right, they will certainly veto any UN-endorsed action against Iraq. The US was able to gain the support of Russia by negotiating the control and security of the Russian/Iraqi oil fields. Is it an insidous process? I don't think so...I think that its the way the game is played. It just happens that the US gets to play the game with a really good hand (and its not like that great hand was just given to the Americans for nothing, which is what the rest of the world seems to believe).
Look at any US foreign policy deal in the past two centuries. You will find that there was give and take on all sides, and each country used whatever pressure it could to negotiate whatever deal that was being made.
-Turkey
This is complete BS. There is no such thing as "cyber-space", at least where laws are concerned. All the wires and routers, all servers and everyone using the Internet (not to be confused with one of its services called WWW) are *very* real - they're located in the real world.
When you surf the 'Net, you aren't going someplace else, you're still sitting in front of your screen. When you watch pr0n, you don't use cyber-tissues. When you host MP3s via your DSL line and are located in a country which considers this breaking *local* copyright law, the jurisdiction won't probably see why the files should reside in some higher sphere, because they're right on your hard disk which can be located quite easily unless you decide to shove it up your ass to hide it away from curious investigators. (You might be disappointed though, that the X-Ray camera won't decide not to show the drive for your cyber-space theory either.)
Seriously, get real. Most of those people whining for "Internet jurisdiction" simply want to break some law or another, mostly copyright. They should rather spend their time using their rights to tell their representatives why the current copyright laws simply won't be able to withstand the possibility to copy anything, anytime. A lot of good thoughts on how a copyright law could feed the artists while making access to digital assets simple and inexpensive already exist. They're even discussed here on a regular basis, and if this isn't enough, Google is your friend (tm).
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
I wish you Europeans would gird up your loins and tell our president to go fuck himself.
If you vote for Democrat or Republican, you have no right to complain.
I never vote for either party. I personally vote Libertarian. I have the right to complain when the rest of the shit-wits in the US vote for "The lesser of two evils."
Now, when more people wake up and stop electing EVIL (lesser or not), maybe the rest of the world won't think we're all so evil.
When I voted, I was telling both Bush AND Gore to go fuck themselves. What were YOU telling them?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Mmm yeah, except the Libertarian party is economically conservative....meaning screw you as long as I've got mine, a.k.a. what poor people?
16% of the US population is living below the poverty line, that's the highest that number has been since 1970. And you want to vote Libertarian so we can elevate that number?
Nope, as far as the poor are concerned Libertarian and Republican are the same thing.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Actually, we have plenty of our own oil. We're just saving it for after we've used up everybody else's. Plus, it's cheaper to buy it overseas. They don't have any of those pesky enviornmental protection and worker safety laws to drag profits down.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
im a candian and i feel it's high time YOU (the american people) told YOUR OWN president to go fuck himself.
> Jursidiction is really not that complicated
> here. If you avail yourself of the benefits of
> doing business in America, then you are subject
> to the laws of America.
But this isn't quite the case. If I'm running a firm in the UK (for example), then I'm subject to the taxes and business laws of the UK. If I get orders from the US, it's harder - not easier - for me to ship them. Do I then have to be considered subject to US law simply because people from the US choose to use my product?
Or does the fact that I have an Internet presence automatically mean I just want to sell to the US? Ah yes, of course, they're the biggest Internet users so I must have an interest in them if I use the net. (Never mind that there are still more non-Americans using the Net than Americans - they just aren't all in the same country.)
Hey, how about some ISPs set up a ".nonus" domain which has no routers or hosts in the states?
The other problem is it's an aberration from standard law. In every other country, and for every other type of illegal material, there's a simple argument: if you import a product from a country where it's legal, but it's illegal in YOUR country, then customs swipe it and kick YOUR ass. That's reasonably fair.
The precedent followed by this law would imply further things - like, for example, many other countries suing US gun manufacture firms because the guns they make are being exported to countries where they're illegal.
If Americans don't know about their own DMCA and don't know that they can't legally download or use Kazaa, why should Dutch people be punished for giving them the option, when doing so isn't locally illegal for them?
I would, except I'd probably be arrested. I'd tell the rest of the American's that keep voting for our idiot leaders to go fuck themselves, but I'd probably be arrested too. So I'll continue to vote for the person that everyone wants to win, but no-one votes for because he/she won't win.
Okay. Fair enough. So your website then, the one generating money from adverts. Availing yourself of the french market? Enjoying coming to France and doing business in france? Right. You've lost your freedom to hold nazi views.
Enjoying coming to Germany and availing yourself of the German market? Excellent. You've lost your right to compare your product with others in adverts.
Website accessible from Zimbabwe? Sorry, lost your right to critisize the government there. Ditto in Burma and America.
Availing yourself of the japanese market by benefitting from showing them adverts? Congratulations, you can display child-porn there. Unfortunately, you're still doing business in America, France, Germany, Burma, and Zimbabwe, each of which prohibits it. Moreover, you're doing business in Saudi Arabia, where the penalty is beheading. As you yourself say, policemen in your own country have an obligation to enforce the laws of the country where you do business.
Any more? If your banner-ad statistics show that you get paid for chineese web-browsers accessing the adverts, you'd better take the christian literature off the site. And of course, any criticism of the chineese government.
Pretty much the only place you're safe is Russia, because the US police will protect you from Russian law, and Australia, because they're firewalled and can't access the internet.
Welcome to the free market. Aren't American legal ideas great?
I hope we (america) gets there hands slapped for this. Even though this is a technology issue - it's still a perfect example of how we push "our" views onto other countries.
I'm almost tempted to go off here about several topics, but I don't want to be a flamebaiter, so i'll end it this way.
Kazza doesn't physically exist in the US. It wasn't made in the US. If the US didn't want it being used they would block it similar to how China blocks some foreign sites. There is no good reason trying to hold a foreign countries product against our own copyright law.
Ave Molech Setting
According to the article and the US laws anything that contributes to Copyright violations intentionally or un-intentionally should be stopped. CD-Rom burners and DVD burners, contribute to Copyright violations but I don't see them stopping the production of them (could it be that Sony is one of the biggest manufacturer). If we follow the line down then the whole of the internet must go as it also contributes to Copyright violations and if we didn't have the internet then we wouldn't have file sharing and then the problem will go away. The true fact is that RIAA wants to shut down anything it cant make money from, it's got nothing to do with artists or copyright, it's all about money. If they were smart enough they would work out how to make money from it and all the huu harr would stop. One way I could think of is to let people send in a small amount of money for each song they have on a CD and for return they send out a holographic stick with serial number embedded in it and you stick it to the CD and then that CD is legal. They get their money and you get a CD that you actually want.
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Your not alone. I was thinking pretty much the same thing.
I don't read here nearly as much these days...the site is full of paranoid rantings and the political commentary of people who are very deeply indoctrinated in their views. The editors are pretty bad about it sometimes too.
Alot of folks here are truely "open minded" to those who agree with them. That's about it.
Don't much care whether I get modded up or down. Look at the garbage that gets modded as it is. I don't know if up or down is better anymore.
That's pretty naive. Do you trust politicians to tell the truth about the policies they will implement or support? Just because someone calls themselves "Libertarian", doesn't mean they really are.
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