German Constitutional Court Blocks Napster Suit

djmutex writes "In an urgent ruling, the German Constitutional Court has temporarily blocked the Napster copyright violations class action of several American recording companies and artists against Bertelsmann. The court decided that the German court in Düsseldorf, which was, according to international conventions, required to serve the writ, may not do so until the Constitutional Court has checked that the suit does not violate Bertelsmann's rights granted by the German constitution. Since, according to those agreements, the service is a precondition for both the suit to proceed in the U.S. as well as the later acceptance of the U.S. ruling in Germany, the lawsuit is for now halted. It is unclear when the Constitutional Court will definitely decide, but it is not generally famed for its tempo on final rulings, and it also stated in the press release (in German) that constitutional rights could possibly be violated if "proceedings before state courts are obviously abused to discipline competitors through public media pressure and the risk of a conviction"." Reuters has a summary.

Comments

WOW

[rkz]

Who would have thought that the German constitution has had this law suit thrown out of court and protect a company while blatantly created a program for copyright violation, while the US constitution allows a collage student to be sued for his life savings by the RIAA for simply creating a search engine.

Another country to "deliver"?

[christophe]

I hope we'll see such rulings (even not yet definitive) more often. Media conglomerates may have bought half of America and a third of the European Parlement, they are still some people left whose jobs are to be sure that laws have to be in sync with the higest values of the constitution of their country. They is only one Supreme Court in the US, there are one in EACH country of the EU that could be a counter-power to each stupid law.

how can you sue a shareholder?

[Comsn]

thats like suing people who owned stock/bought service from enron/worldcom.

here is the company that funded the program, that shared the file, that stole money from the artist who is now eating from the gutter. ;p

Insightful?

[Niadh]

Who would have thought that the German constitution has had this law suit thrown out of court and protect a company while blatantly created a program for copyright violation, while the US constitution allows a collage student to be sued for his life savings by the RIAA for simply creating a search engine.

The US Constitution had nothing to do with that guy. He caved at the pressure and offered the RIAA everything in return. I bet the EFF would have backed him legally and the RIAA would have dropped the case or settled for a slap on the wrist and filtering of the search engine instead of all the guy's gil.

Also, lets not warp things out of perspective. His search engine wasn't without sin. A search engine to catalog shared files across a college campus. Yea, that has a lot more practical applications then simply warez, mp3z, and pr0n doesn't it?

I don't agree with the RIAA in their argument he was responsible for what others shared. I also don't agree with him caving in and then complaining. I doubt it would have held up in court. But we'll never know will we?

BTW. That last question was rhetorical incase you felt like answering it.

You can't,, that's what it means to be a corp

[MichaelCrawford]

The whole purpose of a corporation, extending back in history to the very first corporations, is to allow a group of investors to pool their money for the purpose of pursuing some joint venture while at the same time limiting their liability to the amount they invested by purchasing stock.

The very fact that shareholders cannot be sued for investing in a company is one of the cornerstones of the entire world's economy.

The worst you can do to the shareholders is to sue the corporation so that it has to dissolve in bankrupcy, so that the shareholders lose their investment.

There are only a few ways to "pierce the corporate veil". One of those is for the corporation to not pay its taxes. If the corporation does that, the tax authorities can levy the money from the personal assets of anyone with a fiduciary interest in the corporation.

There are other ways the corporate veil can be pierced, which all more or less involve the attempt to use the corporation as an attempt to protect yourself from being prosecuted for illegal activity.

IANAL, but I own a corporation, and I'm pretty sure no form of civil tort provides for piercing the corporate veil.