Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
Raul Miller wrote:
>> On 2004-07-14 18:36:52 +0100 Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> wrote:
>>
>> > I wonder what happens when two copyrighted works are in question,
>> > where the parties involved each claim that their work has copyright
>> > and the other does not, and both have choice of law and/or choice of
>> > venue clauses.
>
> On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 07:22:30PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
>> I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "has copyright" here, but I
>> suspect it depends who is accusing who of infringement.
>
> Sorry, I wasn't clear.
>
> Party A has written work B.
> Party C has written work D.
>
> Party A holds the copyright on work B and claims D is an infringing copy.
> Party C holds the copyright on work D and claims that B is an infringing
> copy.
>
> In scenario 1, the works also have conflicting "choice of law" clauses.
> In scenario 2, the works also have conflicting "choice of venue" clauses.
>
> If we assume that choice of venue clauses have a material effect on
> the meaning of the copyright, then scenario 2 introduces some seemingly
> paradoxical results.
They have no effect on the copyright at all; if the issue is strictly one of
copyright, the license does not come into it and venue is determined by
other means. They have an effect on the *license*.
To make this scenario work, you have to do the following:
Party A has issued a license E to the public for work B
Party C has issued a license F to the public for work D
Party A claims that B is allowed by license F (C disagrees)
Party C claims that D is allowed by license E (A disagrees)
In scenario 1, the court will interpret license F by its laws, and license E
by its laws, and determine who's right.
Scenario 2 is admittedly problematic. However, you can't have B be a
derivative work of D, *and* have D be a derivative work of B. The court
who has venue for the copyright question will presumably rule on that.
Afterwards, one of the license questions becomes moot. I don't know
whether the copyright court would then send it to the venue for the other
license; maybe, but there may be some legal rules about not having too many
court cases for one problem which would cause the copyright court to decide
that on its own.
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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