Pattern: Copyright Infringement With Copyright Infringement Becoming

¶ … Pattern: Copyright Infringement

With copyright infringement becoming an increasingly common issue in the wired world, it has become all the more important to discuss the situations where infringement occurs out of territory. According to U.S. copyright infringement laws, the courts can only decide a case where the infringement occurred within the U.S. territory and all other cases would be dismissed on grounds of forums non-conveniens. But in the world of Internet, we can no longer allow such strict territorial treatment in cases of copyright infringement because there is a good chance now more than ever before that infringement would occur abroad especially in the case of music and other creative arts. We shall now discuss a hypothetical case in the light of real precedents and apply our laws to see how such a case would be decided.

Bill is a U.S. citizen residing in Germany. He creates some tunes online and has them copyrighted in the U.S. When he publishes his work online on a German site, many people download his work without permission. He goes to a U.S. court and files a complaint against such blatant violation of copyright law. The problem that now occurs is that U.S. courts are not willing to decide the case since none of the downloads occurred in the U.S.

The first important consideration in this case would be choice of law. According to law, there can be several choices of law when a case involving foreign country appears. The first rule is that of lex fori, which postulates that, a court should choose the law of the country where the case is being heard and decided. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals adheres to this rule. The other important rule in our hypothetical case would be that of lex loci delicti which states that law of the country where infringement occurred should be chosen to decide such a case.

In our case, the court can either choose to decide according to the laws of the U.S. since Bill filed the case in his own country or they could choose German copyright law because all infringing activity occurred in that country.

The problem with such a case is the U.S. history with copyright infringement laws. While the country protects an artist's work with very stringent laws, it also holds that copyright laws would be strictly territorial. [

] As the result of this, courts are often hesitant to take on a case that involves around country when it comes to copyright infringement. This situation was further aggravated by U.S.'s hesitancy in acceding to the Berne Convention. U.S. believed that its laws were its own and hence did not require foreign regulation. However it did finally accede to the Berne Convention and regulation by international law, which allows countries to choose a law that is best, suited to the situation even if infringement was extra-territorial.