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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."
Don't jump to conclusions about this just because this is about France! This isn't really about free speech, it's about definitions of intellectual property. Under French law, fashion designs are considered to be protected intellectual property, but not under American law.
Personally, given the current intellectual property landscape, I don't think the French case is unreasonable - no less unreasonable than much of the intellectual property law the USA is trying to force the rest of the world to agree to.
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.
Under the current legal system, no. Harry Potter falls clearly under US copyright law, and the radio reading would be considered a public performance. (My thoughts on how that -should- be are not really on-topic here.)
It does mean that if you put up a website with information a foreign government finds objectionable, they cannot stop you unless what you're doing would also be illegal under US law. This is where the right to free speech is implicated-since websites are by definition viewable worldwide, if it's decided here that foreign judgments are applicable against US site owners, the most repressive governments in the world could submit a judgment against a US site owner, pass it along, and force them to shut down their website exposing, say, the atrocities that government has committed (since of course it is illegal to do so in many countries.) The French would raise hell if we tried to exercise a US law against a French citizen, and rightfully so. Similarly, French law does not and should not apply to those outside France's borders.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Apparently you cannot take and publish a picture you take of certain Chicago buildings either because the designers of the buildings have a copyright on the design. So the French law is not that crazy compared to Amerikan Copyright law. http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/06/chicagos_publ ic_scul.html
By your reasoning you could just as easily say an internationally accessible server with web sites about democracy should be subject to Chinese censorship laws even if the server is physically in America and operated by an American company. Do you seriously want to see the censorship laws of oppressive nations applied universally to the Internet? And do you really think that every American company should be personally responsible for filtering and censoring their own content so that it meets the legal requirements of countless nations each with a highly diverse and dynamic set of laws?
That kind of reasoning is exactly what the EFF is concerned about. If you read the article, you will see that applying foreign legislation that infringes on first amendment rights is fundamentally unconstitutional. The additional risks to civil liberties are all clearly spelled out in the EFF brief, which you might want to read before leaping to conclusions.
The French would raise hell if we tried to exercise a US law against a French citizen, and rightfully so. Similarly, French law does not and should not apply to those outside France's borders
Correct me if I'm wrong - but isn't this the other side of the coin that everybody got so pissy about just a few weeks ago, when yahoo co-operated with the Chinese government regarding activities taking place in China?
The US government has historically tried to use laws regarding the behaviour of FOREIGN companies (owned wholey or partially by American companies) to extend it's foreign policy abroad.
I can't remember the number of times the American government has passed laws like that to try to affect the behaviour of CANADIAN companies who have the *temerity* to try to do business with Cuba, for example.
That being said, inter-governmental agreements and/or treaties between governements agreeing to respect each other's laws in specific areas is no more an abridgement of free speech than *american* copyright laws are.