When Free Speech and Foreign IP Law Collide

segphault writes "Ars Technica has an interesting look at a recent intellectual property case where foreign copyright law conflicts with American freedom of speech rights. In this particular case, Sarl Louis Feraud International v. Viewfinder Inc., American enforcement of the French court's judgement on the basis of comity could establish a dangerous legal precedent that could lead to extensive censorship of the Internet. The article includes analysis of a relevant friend of the court brief filed by the EFF."

Comments

What about the reverse?

[k98sven]

American copyright conflicting with foreign freedom of speech laws? That's happened too.

For instance in the Zenon Panoussis case, where the US government officially lobbied Sweden to amend their constitution just to protect some copyrighted Scientology documents.

Re:How wonderful

[arivanov]

I hate to say this but this is never going to happen.

It is a founding principle of American judiciary and politics that "the only law that applies is American". The US position on the World Criminal Court and the extraction of the dickhead who murdered 20+ civilians in Italy so that he does not go to trial in Italy for this one are just two examples off the top of my head. Plenty of others.

Re:Not about "free speech"

[Dave_M_26]

>If I wish to discuss fashion designs the only real effective dialog to do so would be in pictures of the fashion designs

Picture =! Photo

You could make a pencil drawing of the subject and that is free, as in artistic impression.

That court photo ban isn't considered a violation of the 1st amendment

That's not a great analogy. In courts the ban is on taking the photos. This case is about publishing them. If the company had wanted to stop photos being taken at its fashion show, then I would have no problem with that, but they are allowing photos and want to stop anyone publishing then without a license.

Dave

Re:How wonderful

[cayenne8]

"If you think you have freedom of speech, go start a rally to recruit terrorists or shout racist propaganda in front of a nearby police station."

Well, there are some few forms of speech that have been ruled not to be protected...the old "you can't yell fire in a crowded movie house" comes to mind. I think the the terrorists example you gave would fall in to one of these few areas...while speech supporting terrorist activities would be protected, actively recruiting for them to lead to violence agains Americans, etc, would not be.

You can shout out racial slurs all you want, the govt. cannot arrest you for that here...you are mistaken. They do still have KKK rallies around here, and white suprememast (sp?) rallies quite often in public around the states. As long as you aren't actively inciting a riot, but, only expressing a view or opinion, you are perfectly free from govt. repression to do so.

However, reactions to your speech from other private groups, citizens,etc...well, that goes with freedom of speech. You can say stuff like that all you want, but, people that disagree with you also have the right to organize to boycott you, etc....