Re: Web publishing: which laws apply?

On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Paul F. Schaffner <pfs[_at_]umich.edu> wrote:
>
> If a U.S. publisher sells access (via the web to a worldwide readership)
> to e-texts of PD works, which laws is the publisher obliged to consider
> when deciding whether the work is PD?
>
> 1. U.S. law only, under the principle of national treatment?
> 2. The laws of the countries in which the works were originally
> published (say, UK and Germany)?
> 3. The laws of the countries in which it has paid subscribers to
> its web distribution service?
> 4. The laws of the countries in which it has affiliates or subsidiaries?

Surely the correct law to apply is the law of the country where the copies are made.

Let's assume I am a paying subscriber to your site. You authorize me to make copies of those works in Australia. I see no reason why an Australian copyright owner (or any other copyright owner in a country where the copyright had not yet expired) could not sue you for contributory infringement providing copyright had not expired in Australia (regardless of whether it had expired in the US).

In which case I would say 3 (and the country in which the web site is hosted if it is not included in 3).

-- 
| Tim Arnold-Moore, Ph.D., LL.B., B.Sc. (Hons)
| Postal address:  Multimedia Database Systems, RMIT
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