being geographically specific (Was: Re: web-publishing & copyright...)

[some fellow asked about copyright law, lots of people told him to register his copyright with the US Copyright Office, I pointed out that the fellow might have been asking about Canadian law given his Canadian email address and university affiliation.]

On 3/18/98, Juli Krute <juliann[_at_]people-are.strange.com> wrote:
>
> On 17/03/98, Carl Oppendahl <carl[_at_]oppedahl.com> wrote:
> >
> > I am sure that from time to time I, too, have assumed that some poster
> > is asking about US law when in fact it may be otherwise. Let's all
> > try to watch ourselves and make sure we do not make such assumptions.
>
> True, but perhaps we should also request that posters state the
> jurisdiction they're inquiring about. Of course, I find that even in
> the UK (where I am at present), most people want to know the law of the
> US, since we are the dominant player on the net, whether the rest of the
> world likes it or not. Thus in most cases, when someone asks the law
> on X issue without specifying a jurisdiction, they typically want to
> know the US law on that subject. I don't think it is unreasonable,
> therefore, if people leap to the conclusion that general questions are
> directed toward the US law. However it would still be helpful if we got
> into the habit of asking for a clarification before we throw random
> answers at them.

I understand your point, but I respectfully disagree in at least two particulars.

First, there is an automatic imbalance in this or any forum where there are "askers" and there are "answerers", an imbalance in knowledge of what's important to say and what can be left out. The person who *asks*, to take the example that started this thread, about copyright law may in all innocence not be aware that the law changes from one country to the next. His very status as an "asker" means that it's not necessarily reasonable to say that he knew or should have known that he should specify, in his question, what country's law he would like to know about.

The "answerers", on the other hand, know perfectly well that the law differs from country to country (or else they ought not to be posting answers). If, as you suggest, a question might be defective (due to failure to specify a particular country about which the inquiry is being made) then it is up to the would-be answerer to either remain silent (after all, the question is incomplete) or to ask for clarification. It is simply a mistake to assume that of the 180 countries or so that the "asker" might have meant, the undisclosed country of interest was the USA.

Many of the "answerers" in this group are in fact not laypersons but are professionals, admitted to practice by one or more jurisdictions. To be specific about this, I feel that if the "asker" had used a telephone instead of email to pose the same question, I would be negligent not to spend a moment or two taking whatever steps are required to make sure I know the geographic location and needs of the client. The client may, after all, be in some jurisdiction where I do not know the law at all. If I fail to ask about the geography, I run the risk of committing malpractice. I can't think of any reason why the presentation of the inquiry by email rather than by telephone or in person would relieve me of the duty to inquire about the geography if the questioner had failed to specify it.

Carl Oppedahl
<carl[_at_]oppedahl.com> Received on Thu Mar 19 1998 - 14:31:48 GMT