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Comment by vortico | Hacker News Reader

I am completely confused by how this court order even works.

I am assuming that PGLAF is owned and operated in the US. "PGLAF has no actual presence or activity in Germany".

I suppose the Berne Convention allows US police to honor international court orders for copyright violation, but what's to stop a country from making a ridiculous law that extends the copyright length to 2100 years, creating court orders for the 1 billion people who own a Bible or other old text without paying license fees, and collecting all the money in the world?

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> law that extends the copyright length to 2100 years, creating court orders for the 1 billion people who own a Bible or other old text without paying license fees, and collecting all the money in the world?

Generally speaking: Nothing. Practically speaking: Impossibility to enforce unless you’re a major power. Look how american laws often get enforced world wide while North Korean law doesn’t practically matter.

This is a sincere question. What American laws are enforced outside the US?

DMCA, computer fraud have been and are used to extradite non-US citizens to put them in front of a US court for crimes under US law. Regardless of it being a crime in the country where the suspect lives/did the hack.

I feel if the countries of the parties involved were reversed, it would be a much different situation. Although the content could be hosted in Germany, and aimed at a German audience, other parts of your infrastructure (e.g. domain names, SSL certificates, CDNs) are most likely controlled by US companies, so you do not have much choice in whether you follow US law.

FACTA, the dreaded E-8BEN form that I get to fill in every time I happen to have a US customer, copyright, see Kim Dotcom, access to emails stored by Microsoft Europe (though MS is fighting that).

Honestly, laws have always been enforced internationally, that’s why extradition treaties exist. The internet just makes it much much simpler to commit a crime on foreign soil.

It's pretty common for US copyright law to be enforced outside in the EU as the term can be longer (the US term can occasionally be longer if the author died at the correct time).

as a first example that pops up in my head, google for Kim Dotcom

>what's to stop a country from making a ridiculous law that extends the copyright length to 2100 years, creating court orders for the 1 billion people who own a Bible or other old text without paying license fees, and collecting all the money in the world?

So, similarly of how nothing stopped the BS Copyright Term Extension Act itself -- and firms are policing and collecting money all around the world based on it?

You said it yourself: the Berne Convention allows US police to honor international court orders. US still has soveriegnty over people residing in its jurisdiciton.

The Berne Convention is a treaty and doesn't work that way. (IIRC, it defines the periods in question; by putting the treaty, Germany is obligated to honor the (BC) copyrights on US-copyrighted works, but can apply its own to German copyrighted works.)

The US would not ratify a treaty that works the way you describe. One hopes.

Isn’t publishing content over web to the public “activity in this country”? I think it is. The magical Internet allows actions in other countries without physical presence.

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