[Foundation-l] EDP: US servers loophole?

[Ray Saintonge]

Delphine Ménard wrote:

>On 4/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>On 4/3/07, Nyenyec N wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>But one could say, that Hungarian copyright law doesn't make it
>>>illegal to upload these images to servers located in the United
>>>States. By doing so you're not breaking any laws.
>>>      
>>>
>>I'm reasonably confident that you will not find a single jurisdiction
>>with effective copyright law where the act of uploading to someone
>>elses website isn't considered a reserved right under copyright law
>>(in most places it will likely be consider just another form of
>>copying, although some laws may special case it in order to have extra
>>harshness for infringements created online).
>>    
>>
>Greg, i'm not sure I understand you here (Speaker of English as a
>foreign language ;-)) so let me try and rephrase what I understood and
>please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
>you seem to be saying that there is probably no juridiction that will
>allow the uploader to break the local copyright law by letting them
>argue that they're uploading on servers that are set under a different
>set of local laws and run in another jurisdiction.
>
>In clear, if you live in Hungary and are subject to Hungarian laws,
>uploading copyrighted material on an American server where it is
>allowed won't keep you from being sued in your own country. Is that
>right?
>
In theory, I think that Greg is correct.  In practice it is unlikely to 
be enforceable unless the Hungarian individual makes a big show of 
uploading this copyrighted Hungarian material.  If the Hungarian is 
posting under a pseudonym it is unimaginable that a US court would 
enforce a Hungarian court's order to reveal who was uploading Hungarian 
protected material when that material is not protected in the United States.

It's always important to keep in mind the distinction between a strict 
wording of the law, and situations which would require enormous efforts 
to prosecute over very little.  Cost-effectiveness matters.

Ec