First, there is no such thing as international copyright law. Oh no. That would make it too easy. Instead, there is a whole conglomeration of international treaties, unions, and conventions. If it weren't for these international treaties and conventions, there would be no way for copyright holders to enforce their rights in other countries. visit this ; drow last names

Because of the rise of global commerce and the increasing importance of intellectual property, most nations of the world have entered into a series of treaties, unions and conventions. For the over-achievers, I am linking to a list of countries and the various copyright treaties/conventions they have entered into. For example, the U.S. has entered into the following treaties: the Berne Union, the Paris revision of the Berne treaty, NAFTA, the UCC, the Paris revision of the UCC, the WIPO Copyright Treaty, and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, blah blah blah etc. etc. These treaties often have different levels of copyright protection and jurisdiction rules. This is part of the reason that the short answer to Mr. Critchlow's question is "it depends." I'm not just being coy.

I'm going to give you some general principles and trends to try and make international copyright not seem so complicated. Then I'm going to ruin your new-found confidence by throwing several wrenches into the mix. Sounds like fun, right?

Where will my international copyright case be heard?

Very generally speaking, a copyright infringement case with international components (what I'm calling an "international copyright case" will be brought where the infringement took place. Lawyers refer to this principle as the “territoriality” of copyright law. Of course, this begs the question, “How do you determine where the infringement took place when dealing with infringements on the internet?”

Courts around the world have grappled with this question, the same way philosophers have grappled with the mind/body problem. Is the infringement location determined by the location of the server? By the residence of the person authorizing the infringement? The residence of the copyright holder resides? Where the defendant resides? What about where the harm from the infringement occurred? After laboring over this issue, most courts in most of the world have given up trying to use a simple, one-factor test. It’s just not that simple. Instead, judges are doing what judges love to do: considering all the factors and then going with their gut instincts. It’s similar to Justice Stewart’s famous definition of hard-core pornography: “I know it when I see it.”

Despite the difficulty of determining the location of infringement on the internet, there are certain things courts all over the world agree on. First, the mere fact that you can view a website with infringing content in Country A does not give Country A jurisdiction. Now, if you can purchase infringing content, such as a book or a song from that website in Country A, then that may be different story. Second, the mere fact that a host server is located in Country B, without more, does not give Country B jurisdiction. If the connection is that minimal, it is not enough to establish jurisdiction.

Because of the many factors to be considered, there may be more than one right answer in determining where your international copyright case should be heard. It is increasingly common in the global marketplace that two or more countries have jurisdiction to hear the dispute.

For example, assume that the copyright holder lives in the U.K., the infringer lives in the U.K., but the host server and the target market for the infringing website is in Russia. It is likely that the case could be brought in either Britain or Russia because both countries have substantial connections to the dispute.

Don’t you just love multiple choice questions where the answer can be all of the above?

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Sadly, this week marked the 3rd time we've been threatened with legal suit over content in the blog. However, it was the first time that the post in question was created by a guest blogger, rather than someone from SEOmoz.

To help with this situation and to prevent problems in the future, I thought some public guidelines and a full acounting was in order. visit this ; drow last names

This specific incident occured in regards to G-man's post about a Kimberly Williams, the dean of the Boston School of Electrolysis (located in Arizona). As a blackhat, G-man regularly scrapes content from the SERPs at Google and repurposes that data for low quality pages that display advertising. It's up to each of us individually to decide where this action fits on the ethics scale (as it is legal at this time). My personal feeling is that taking advantage of a gap in the technology of the search engines' ranking systems is a gray area, but a fascinating one. G-man is one of my very favorite bloggers at this site and his contributions to date have been terrific, including this latest post.
In this specific case, Ms. Williams noticed G-man's scraped results ranking in front of her site at Google and sent correspondence indicating such. G-man posted this correspondence and the story on the SEOmoz blog - some found it humorous and informative, others thought it was too negative, but in general, I won't let public opinion influence the blog's content. However, the emails posted were technically private and Ms. Williams had the right to be notified before they were posted publicly (not my opinion, but federal law). For this reason, I've had to remove the post.
In the future, it would be very wise for all of our bloggers to familiarize themselves with the rights of bloggers and online journalists available here. In addition, we should all keep in line with the following rules:
• Keep blog posts free from derision and insult, particularly as it relates to a single individual (calling out Amazon for having bad search results doesn't apply)
• Refrain from violating any laws or posting any obviously false information (a bit obvious, but worth mentioning)
• When describing incidents that could incite conflict, be sure to contact the parties involved beforehand. Though their permission is not necessary (for public data), this professional courtesy will always serve us well. For example, I contacted the US Dept of Justice's Cybercrime division upon Matt's posting of this entry to be sure of its legality.
Bloggers are always free to contact me with any questions or concerns they have about a post. You can leave it in "draft" mode and ask for a review, as well.
I hope this helps to prevent future incidents and serves as a positive step forward for the SEOmoz blog. Comments are welcome - even if they're to rail me for squelching free speech
UPDATE: The reason that particular post was pulled is that it is a violation of the law to post an email without first obtaining the permission of the sending party. In that particular case, we were without choice - we could do it ourselves, or let legal proceedings go forward, lose and have it forced upon us (along with the accrued legal expenses). I know it sucks to have information evaporate, but I feel we were without choice on this one.
 
 
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Invitationsgirl at SEOChat asks - Can I get out of my SEO Contract?

There's quite a bit of good advice about contracts in general and SEO specifically in this thread, but mostly what we're seeing here is the forums serving as a business refuge and tool. visit this ; drow last names

There's several individuals in the thread who are privately helping this company get back on its feet after what sounds like a serious rip-off, despite being under contract.
This can help serve as a warning to companies in any industry - before you contract someone to do a job, make sure you have a working knowledge of the subject or good recommendations from those who do. If you're missing these key elements, you're making yourself and easy target to be scammed.
 
 
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