Subj : Re: Out of the woodwork
To : Sean Dennis
From : Ward Dossche
Date : Thu Nov 08 2018 06:20 pm
Sean,
Cut-and-pasting from Wikipedia does not equal knowledge.
SD>BF> First of all: US copyright law does *not* apply outside of the USA.
SD> You're right, it doesn't, however, you've never heard of the Berne
SD> Convention then (of which all countries represented in this echo are
SD> members of)?
I hate to burst your bubble, but Bjorn is right all the way.
First of all, there is not a single country member of the Berne Convention
(1886 btw), simply because there are no membership provisions. Countries can
become a signatory and in itself that doesn't mean a thing. There's a tedious
process of transforming it into national law in each individual country which
has signed irrespective of what the convention stipulates. The convention does
not supercede national law.
Signing is not sufficient, proper ratification is.
In that ratification process the wording of the convention is not copied
verbatim but a transcription into local custom is made which will fit each
nation's legal system, will not be in conflict with each individual
constitution and may need approval by each individual supreme court as well as
appropriate lower level courts.
In the case of EU-countries, the EU deals with international treaties with one
voice for the 28 different countries (27 after Brexit) leading to a single
harmonized version. It translates into 11 different directives and 3
regulations. Those directives need to go through each country's legal system
again and transformed into national law.
Sending a posse to Sweden simply is not going to work, the posse has no
jurisdiction <period>.
SD> "Since almost all nations are members of the World Trade Organization,
SD> the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
SD> requires non-members to accept almost all of the conditions of the Berne
SD> Convention."
I would say 'dream on'. There are ample documented cases where the USA itself
has refused to deal with copyright cases which invoked the Berne Convention.
You can't have it both ways. Talk to China, talk to Russia �
SD> So pretty much, yes, there's common copyright law that applies in each
SD> signatory state, as well as further refinements in each state.
Nope. For the simple fact that a copyright infringement in one country may very
well be OK in another country. The plaintiff has no leg to stand on.
SD> So, yes, if Mr. Jennings wanted to push the issue, he could enforce both
SD> his copyright and trademark.
I doubt that very much.
The full name of the Berne-convention is:
"Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works"
The Tom Jennings trademark stuff does not involve a work with literary or
artistic merit. Full stop. It's not worth the paper it is written on. Probably
Americans just love the "All rights reserved" type of wording, but the fact is
in the case of Fidonet it is totally useless.
The copyright and trademark notifications of Tom Jennings have been removed
here over 20 years ago because they mean nothing. I have been vaguely
threatened and nothing more after that. He did so again 2 days ago, what a
farce this person is �
SD> But to avoid all of that, one could put what they publish under one of
SD> the many Creative Commons licenses.
If that makes the author happy and to keep the discussion going � by all means.
\%/@rd
--- D'Bridge 3.99 SR33
* Origin: A man's most proud moment is when he takes a shit (2:292/854)
