[LINK] Proposal for International Law Enforcement

[Stephen Wilson]

Craig Sanders wrote:

> it's legal there, so the US should mind their own business.

That's not a sound argument.  Sweat shops are also legal in some 
countries, but other countries feel it right to intervene and seek local 
law reform.  I am not arguing the merits of copyright enforcement, 
merely pointing out that you cannot argue point blank that the legality 
of an action in one jurisdiction kills the right of other jurisdictions 
to seek change.

> was Khomeini's fatwa calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie (for a
> book written and published in england) legitimate? his book would have
> been a crime in Iran, even though it was legal in the UK.

This 'argument' cuts both ways.  In the case of the fatwa, one response 
was that it should not have been legal in Iran!  So once again, the 
example doesn't help us understand what the *legal* issues are in 
establishing a uniform international approach to copyright laws.

Some people bemoan an ideological agenda where vested commercial 
interests are thought to be wielding influence on lawmakers.  Quite 
possibly.  But I suspect that the same people have their own ideological 
agenda in which copyright principles are arbitrarily rejected outright, 
and jurisdictions that don't enforce copyright are seen to be champions 
of some sort, where the west should butt out.  You might find that the 
Chinese are not in fact champions of a utopian anti-intellectual 
property philosophy.  Rather, they just haven't got around to 
legislating as yet.

Cheers,

Stephen Wilson.