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Comment by rwmj | Hacker News Reader

Dangerous ... A default judgement could prevent them from selling Minecraft in the US, and could implicate other companies helping them who are based in the US (ie. Google & Appple because their stores are presumably located there).

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> selling Minecraft in the US

This I don't understand. Mojang sells Minecraft in Sweden. You come to them, not the other way around (unless they have a US-based webshop).

A person from the US can fly to Sweden and buy a bottle of Absolute Absinthe (made-up) and then bring it back to the US. She may not succeed getting it through the customs, but it will be the US customs who enforce the import restriction, not the Swedish liquor store. Similarly, Mojang is a liquor store, Minecraft is a bottle. Why should Mojang be enforcing US e-com restrictions? This doesn't make any sense.

They are legally obliged to for any sales to the US territories. So if you are in the US and buy Minecraft, then they are exporting software to the US and have to comply with relevant law and any trade agreements between Sweden and the US.

"legally obliged" as per which country's law? Also, depending on how one views it, it's not them exporting, but rather their customers importing bought software.

It is always both, not one perspective or the other. You can't export something without it being imported to somewhere.

Right. huhtenberg's analogy was flawed. His analogy to selling liquor only works if you remote-access a computer in Sweden and then buy Minecraft from that computer. Then when you copy Minecraft from the remote to your home system, you're the importer. If you buy from a US-based computer then it's Mojang acting as an importer to the US.

The liquor analogy would be if you ordered a bottle of liquor to be shipped to the US and the liquor store would be expected to comply with US import rules.

Neither your nor my interpretation of an online purchase is a correct one. An online purchase from a computer in one country at a web server in another can be treated as both an import (by a purchaser) and an export (by a seller). But since a sale is typically solicited by a purchaser (it's driven by those who purchase), I'd say it's an import rather than an export.

> liquor to be shipped to the US and the liquor store would be expected to comply with US import rules

It may want to comply with the rules, because the parcel will bounce at customs, but if there are no export restrictions, it has no other reason not to send a bottle into the US.

>it has no other reason not to send a bottle into the US

Except to serve it's customer, because if it doesn't meet import requirements then the customer's package will never arrive. I understand it may not be legally obligated so there's no repercussion except the shipment being confiscated, but it's in business to serve customers.

Generally under international law, a consumer cannot be the "importer" of record because there are all sorts of fun obligations that come with being an "importer".

Carrying stuff you bought on an overseas trip through customs is not "importation" for legal purposes.

Also, export restrictions are different from import laws. Export laws are applied by the seller's country. The buyer does not have to comply with export laws. Import laws are applied by the buyer's country. Both the buyer and seller must comply with import laws unless the buyer is an "importer of record" in which case only the buyer must comply with import laws.

First. A company in whatever country is legally obliged only to that country's law. Export means that company is selling something in his jurisdiction to somebody who is not. That somebody is importer. Importer has to comply with the law of the country he/she is importing. One can not expect that exporter burden is to know all UN members laws.

Second. There cannot be and there is none agreements between Sweden and US which would prevent swedish companies producing something that infringes US-only patents. Also any swedish company can produce anything that is banned in US. I guess absynthe is.

Third. Pay attention to the HTC & Apple cases. Apple is trying to prevent import of HTC phones. That is the key! Apple can not sue taiwanese company of US patent infringement, not in US, not in Taiwan. What they can do is complain to ITC and ban import and that is exactly what they ar doing: http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/12/apple-wins-itc-ruling-of-...

First, A country is legally obliged to follow the laws of all countries in which they do business. For legal purposes, "doing business" means actual physical operations in a country or knowingly and deliberately selling into a country. This is basic international law.

Second. That is not how import/export law works. I do not have time to explain how it applies, so Google it.

Third. Your second statement is correct.

Fourth. Your third statement is not correct. Apple can sue HTC in the U.S. b/c HTC does business in the U.S. Apple chose to pursue this case in the ITC b/c it is asignificantly faster way to achieve its business goals (namely, interfering with a competitor's sales of a product). Patent litigation through the court system is a very slow, years-long process, and could take long enough that Apple would be on the down-cycle again.

> Why should Mojang be enforcing US e-com restrictions?

They wouldn't be expected to enforce any restrictions. The US will simply demand that all US financial branches refuse Majong business---that is VISA/Mastercard and your bank will not send money into his account or process payments for transactiosn related to him.

In addition, if he has a .us or .com name, they may try to seize it.

It'll be a headache for Mojang to try and fight it, so might as well 'self regulate' rather than have the government and use the only tool it knows 'the club'.

How do you prevent sales in the US if it's only sold online? They can't order blocking using geolocation since the company is in Sweden... now I'm curious.

[I'm not saying any of this is right, just pointing out how it's done]

(1) You go after the companies collecting the money (Visa etc) and delivering the app (Google, Apple). These very much have physical offices and principals in the US.

(2) You arrest people who dare to fly through/over/near the US. See: legal UK gambling companies.

(3) You attempt to extradite anyone not caught by (1) or (2), if necessary pushing for one-sided extradition and IP laws to do so.

I don't know US law, but is this http://www.quizlaw.com/patents/what_are_the_penalties_for_pa... correct? You see, if there's only monetary penalties and company is sued then no individal is in danger of any sort. I mean (2) and (3) often came around in such discussions, so I have to ask: is anybody ever arrested in US and thrown in jail when that somebody's company potentially owns money to somebody. Because at least in Europe I'm not aware of cases even when some individual owns money to somebody and he can be arested - the only method of extracting money out of somebody is seizing the assets. Realistically (1) is the only thing you can do as patent owner. All you can do is try to prevent sales in US. But still, Swedish company can not break any US law.

The U.S. specifically forbids debtor's prison. You cannot be thrown in jail simply for owing money to someone. European countries copied this right from the U.S. when they got around to modernizing their legal systems.

Not American, but can't you be jailed for contempt of court?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jailed-for--280--the-return-of...

http://farquharlaw.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/debtors-prison-e...

Not paying a judgement against you is not contempt of court.

In the Yahoo Article, the woman arrested failed to show up to multiple court hearings, despite receive notice at the proper address. The fact that the court hearings related to a debt was incidental. Blame shoddy journalism.

The second one, is a blog post, which actually talks about something entirely different from a debtor's prison. It refers to a "debtor's exam", which is a fancy way of saying that your finances are examined to see if you can afford to pay the debt. No prison time involved. Intrusive maybe, but warranted if you haven't paid the debt at issue.

Plenty of Judges treat not paying a judgement against you as contempt of court. Even though it is not supposed to happen, it often does.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/opinion/06mon4.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/opinion/return-of-debtors-...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870439650457620...

Debtor's prison is alive and well in America.

In response...

1) Yes, also I guess they could order ISPs to block the website, but I don't know if there is any precedent for this.

2) No, patent infringement is not a crime

3) No, patent infringement is not a fellony (or crime).

If there was a Default Judgement against them then violating it may be a contempt of court, which may be a crime - anyone know if that's the case?

Edit: Wikipedia says "Contempt of court in a civil suit is generally not considered to be a criminal offense".

> How do you prevent sales in the US if it's only sold online?

Just preventing sales from customers in the US app store would be a lot of damage. Google and Apple already have different products available according to country of origin. Billing addresses can also be easily checked.

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