Re: ICRAVETV

["Douglas J. Broda" <djbroda@mindspring.com>]

At 04:11 PM 1/25/00 -0500, TC Cheever wrote:

>Essentially, Canadian copyright law allows for the _unaltered_
>retransmission of broadcast signals, with no liability for copyright
>infringement. There's no need for the retransmitting party to pay any
>fees or even ask the original broadcaster's permission-- which is why
>the channels available for viewing via ICraveTV.com are only those
>available to, say the average person with a television set (not a
>cable-ready one, of course) in downtown Toronto.
>

Actually, that interpretation of Canadian law is debatable and is being
debated in Canada. (But you know lawyers, to us *everything* is debatable.)

>Meanwhile, a separate legal action was taken just last week in the US. A
>consortium of ten US movie companies and three US broadcasters are suing
>in Federal court in Pittsburgh, charging the practice violates US
>copyright laws-- which I don't believe anyone is denying; the ICraveTV
>party line is that they aren't required to comply with the US laws,
>since they're a Canadian company. The justification for filing a lawsuit
>in US court is that the domain ICraveTV.com was originally registered to
>the CEO of the company at his Pittsburgh, PA mailing address, before he
>moved to Canada to actually build up the company.
>
>Should be interesting. Maybe one of the attorneys on list could venture
>a guess to this: what authority, if any, would a decision in a US
>Federal court carry against a Canadian corporation?

I think it'd likely be enforceable - assuming it stays within the Court's
jurisdction. The concept of comity (and I believe there is a treaty or
agreement on the issue) allows enforcement of foreign judgments in other
nations (in practice, at least friendly ones -- don't try this with a U.S.
judgment in Havana).

So let's say that the US Court found jurisdiction -- and without getting
into the complexities, and understanding I may not have all the facts that
the Court would have, we probably have what's called "long-arm"
jurisdiction here -- and issued injunctive relief against ICrave. (One
possible, probably-within-subject-matter-jurisdiction might be "don't
transmit to US customers, and use a real, at least partly reliable method
of verification.) That judgment could be trotted up to a Canadian court,
and assuming the Canadian court agrees that the US court had jurisdiction
(and found fundamental due process of law, which it would), it would be
able to enforce the judgment.

I may be missing a step or requirement or two, but that's the
two-cents-from-recall-no-research-no promises-I'm-right thoughts. (Lawyers
like disclaimers, too....)

------------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas J. Broda
Broda and Burnett
Attorneys at Law
80 Ferry Street, Troy, NY 12180 USA
(518) 272-0580
djbroda@mindspring.com