Re: Why is choice of venue non-free ?
Just a quick bit without getting into the meat of this discussion, but I would
hate for all these minds to be spinning around the wrong issue.
A Choice of Venue clause has nothing to do with the Choice of Laws... they
are different questions. Venue is whether the judge, jury, setting is best
suited to which party. In the States there are all sorts of grounds to move
an action from one court to another or one location to another. However,
this does not change which laws are applicable.
The laws that are applied are the place where the alleged violation occurred.
If I break U.S. Copyright Law in Europe, there is no case. U.S. laws have no
force in Europe. If I break U.S. Copyright Law in the United States with a
some European court in the Choice of Venue clause, the European court would
apply U.S. Law. If you find that a little bit off, you are beginning to see
why Choice of Venue clauses are regularilly thrown out in an international
setting (court's really don't like to interpret the laws of other
sovereigns).
And, to be clear, you cannot by contract pledge to be bound by laws that do
not apply to you, nor can a software developer say their software is only
governed by U.S. Copyright law if they chose to distribute it beyond the
States.
-Sean
--
Sean Kellogg
2nd Year - University of Washington School of Law
GPSS Senator - Student Bar Association
Editor-at-Large - National ACS Blog [http://www.acsblog.org]
c: 206.498.8207 e: skellogg@u.washington.edu
So, let go
...Jump in
...Oh well, what you waiting for?
...it's all right
...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
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