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?"

Comments

Wait until Sadaam gets A-bomb plans off KaZaa

[Hairy_Potter]

and then Special Forces can go get all the Netherlandish developers as accessories to terrorism. Yeah baby, nothing like a GPS-18 being laser guided onto a tent in Netherlandia to teach some lessons.

Damn,

[unicron]

That is a sensitive problem. On one hand, as an American I really want to shake the "world's bully" image we seem to fitting into, yet on the other hand I dont' see the problem with terminating access to outside Kazaa servers, then cracking down on the local ones. 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. That way, the government has accomplised it's goal(music/software no longer traded through that route) without having to flex nuts at the foreign government in question.

Do they have to show up?

[Lothar 0]

Is Sharman Networks oblidged to even show up to court in this country? If they refuse to even acknowledge a lawsuit or an injunction, does this mean that federal agents will be dispatched to Vanadu, Estonia, the Netherlands, and Australia? I think not.

If they say you're infringing copyright, Sharman, just ignore them.

You say you are a what?

[TamMan2000]

As a fellow american I am offended that you think we should be shuting down kazaa servers. It is an established principle of the US that we go after the people who break the law, not those that make the tools used to do so, especially if the tools have functions besides the ones that are illegal. When the US decides to ban civilian gun ownership (see also hell freezes over, pigs fly...) THEN we can start to talk about making kazaa illegal.

Re:You say you are a what?

[trotski]

No, but if 99% of the people that bought a Stanley hammer bludgeoned their wives, then we'd have something.

You're re-enforcing the original argument. Hand guns serve no other purpose but killing people (rifels and such can also be used for hunting, but no one hunts with a handgun). Most hand guns are purchased with the intent of killing someone. I mean even if someone purchases a handgun for self-defence, by self-defence they mean to kill someone trying to hurt them. The trouble is that most practical applications for handguns involve illegal activity, after all... self-defence with a handgun is often a crime (excessive force, etcetera.)

So it can be said that most people purchase a gun with the intent to kill or hurt a person, which in most cases is illegal. Therefore if you make kazaa illegal, you must make guns illegal to keep your argument concistant.

Theres plenty of examples like this, for example drug parafanelia (bongs, pipes, etc) which is used for illegal purposes 100% of the time but is still legal.

I guess the point is that it's not a question whether kazaa is used for illegal purposes is not. It's a question of money, and who has it. It has nothing to do with whether the purpose of kazaa is legal or not. If the record industry wasn't calling foul or screaming and crying (like Hilary Rosen for example) about lost profits, the gov't wouldn't waste it's time attacking kazaa.

Thats my $0.02, whats yours?

What if.........

[yokem_55]

What if the Internet itself had its own law, independent of the jusridiction of any other state? Would this be at all possible? It could be argued that the internet, since it recognizes no geographical boundaries, and exists in its own "cyber-space" could have its own soveriegnty. Computers connected to the internet would be subject to the "law of the internet" and their owners would be responsible for those computers under "internet law." Users of the Internet could have "citizenship," pay some taxes, vote in "internet-land" elections....why not?

Re:What if.........

[doorbot.com]

Users of the Internet could have "citizenship," pay some taxes, vote in "internet-land" elections....why not?

Do you really think that "VOTING BY 31337 Ha><oRs" is "teh win?"

How about those who actually own the pipes and routers decide?

Why not, indeed?

[PhxBlue]

Mostly because no existing government would give up their sovereignty willingly.

And consider that an internet government would be at least as crooked as any other - and who would it answer to when it ran amok with whatever powers it was given?

Re:As far as it wants to.

[WizardX]

I think this week's The Onion sums it all up: Bush Seeks U.N. Support For 'U.S. Does Whatever It Wants' Plan

Re:As far as it wants to.

[uradu]

> not to mention Dmitry

Well, he got nabbed when he set foot on US soil. That's different from US law reaching overseas. I don't know if Russia would have extradited him.

Re:To Hell with the US Govt

[Soko]

From the parent post:

Wait..!!! I know why, cause they get paid for every crappy law they make.. and we all know how corrupt and money hungry politicans are!!!!!!

From your post:

No, they attack P2P networks because the lobbyists (RIAA, MPAA, Lars Ulrich) have massive amounts of cash.

So, you say basically the same thing, and yet tell the guy to get off of his ass, stop whining and change the system, or move to a communist or a formerly communist country. IOW, you seem to be willing to accept the status quo of lobbyists buying laws since "that's capitalism - like it, change it or leave it."

Lesse, we have big media companies lobbying for and getting passed laws that are actually bad for consumers. In order to change this, we need to get the word out to as many voters as possible. Since it's "one person, one vote" as is proper, we need to convince lots and lots of people to fight this. OK, let's use TV air time, magazine ads, etc. In short, we need to use the, er, big media companies...

Hmmmmmm - how effective will that be ya think? You think big media will say "Sure, shoot me with my own gun, buddy!"?? Right.

So, what we need are ways to change the law outside of the prevue of those that make - or buy - the law. Hence, Kazaa et. al. are quite happy to allow USAians to choose to step outside the sphere of influence of the US Congress and violate a law of questionalble value to consumers. Seems like Capitalism at it's finest - consumers going to the best price for the best goods, regardless of what the US Congress thinks. As is proper.

Soko

Re:As far as it wants to.

[Jace of Fuse!]

Nope, as far as the poor are concerned Libertarian and Republican are the same thing.

There is certainly merit to that argument, and I won't deny that economically, a Libertarian president could do almost exactly the same damage a Republican will do, except there are major differences that matter to me...

A Libertarian wouldn't take every opportunity to bomb the shit out of other countries...

A Libertarian would oppose things like the DMCA...

A Libertarian would work on laws that punish real evil people without trying to take away every last civil right we have left.

If you don't like the Libertarians, don't don't have to vote for them. But if you can honestly say you LIKE this bullshit "Two Party" system we have, then I think it's safe to assume you don't mind having your rights slowly taken away.

More important than that, if you ever vote for any one candidate you don't like just to "take votes" from someone you like even less, you're just as guilty as the person who doesn't vote at all.

If everybody voted for the candidate they truely felt best represented their views, I highly doubt we'd ever see anyone like Bush in office again.