D R a F T Do Not Cite Or Distribute Without Permission of the Author. 1

D R A F T Do not cite or distribute without permission of the author. Marketa Trimble The Multiplicity of Copyright Laws on the Internet: Proposed Solutions, Objections to the Solutions, and the Realities of Cross-Border Copyright Enforcement From the early days of the Internet commentators have warned that it would be impossible for those who act on the Internet (“Internet actors”) to comply with the copyright laws of all Internet-connected countries if the national copyright laws of all those countries were to apply simultaneously to Internet activity. A multiplicity of applicable copyright laws seems plausible – at least when the Internet activity is ubiquitous, i.e. unrestricted by geoblocking or by other means – given the territoriality principle that governs in international copyright law and either the lex loci delicti or lex loci protectionis choice-of-law rules that countries typically use for copyright infringements. Commentators have submitted various proposals to eliminate this multiplicity of applicable national copyright laws. Some experts have called for a new and universal legal regime to govern the Internet that would be distinct from the legal regimes of individual countries; this proposal would result in a single global copyright law that would govern all Internet actors without regard to any particular national copyright laws. Other experts have suggested that the multiplicity be addressed by unifying national copyright laws generally and making the laws identical or almost identical; this suggestion is another way to make a single set of copyright law standards apply globally. Experts working at the intersection of intellectual property law and conflict of laws have proposed conflict-of-laws solutions to simplify the enforcement of copyright on the Internet; their solutions would not eliminate the differences among national copyright laws but would limit the number of national copyright laws that would apply to acts on the Internet in any given scenario. This article posits that the multiplicity of applicable national copyright laws on the Internet is not as significant a problem for law-abiding Internet actors as some commentators fear. What makes the multiplicity workable for Internet actors are the realities – or inefficiencies – of cross-border copyright enforcement that de facto limit the number of potentially applicable national copyright laws. This article reviews the solutions that have been proposed to address the multiplicity problem and examines the objections to the proposals that have already been or could be raised. The article then analyzes the current realities of copyright enforcement on the Internet and contrasts the realities with the workings of the proposed solutions. Marketa Trimble The Multiplicity of Copyright Laws on the Internet: Proposed Solutions, Objections to the Solutions, and the Realities of Cross-Border Copyright Enforcement Draft of July 24, 2014 1 D R A F T Do not cite or distribute without permission of the author. Marketa Trimble* The Multiplicity of Copyright Laws on the Internet: Proposed Solutions, Objections to the Solutions, and the Realities of Cross-Border Copyright Enforcement Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3 I. Global Copyright .................................................................................................................... 9 1. A Single Copyright Law for the Online Environment ......................................................... 9 2. Uniform National Copyright Laws .................................................................................... 12 II. Conflict-of-Laws Solutions ................................................................................................... 14 1. The Localization Approach ................................................................................................ 16 1.1 Localization in the Place of Origin of the Alleged Infringement ............................... 17 1.2 Localization in the Copyright Owner’s Domicile ...................................................... 23 2. Factors Approach ............................................................................................................... 28 3. Copyright Infringement as a Single-Place Tort ................................................................. 35 III. Realities Affecting the Multiplicity of Copyright Laws on the Internet ................................ 41 1. Limitations on Choice of Applicable Law ......................................................................... 42 2. Limitations on Personal Jurisdiction .................................................................................. 48 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 50 * Associate Professor of Law, William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The author thanks ... for comments and suggestions, and also thanks the participants of the 2014 International Intellectual Property Scholars Roundtable. The author would like to express her gratitude for research support to Chad Schatzle and Andrew Martineau at the Wiener-Rogers Law Library of the William S. Boyd School of Law, the library staff of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany, and the library staff of the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law in Munich, Germany. The author recognizes her colleagues in the International Law Association Committee on Intellectual Property and Private International Law for the continuing inspiration that they provide. The author thanks Gary A. Trimble for his valuable editing suggestions. Marketa Trimble The Multiplicity of Copyright Laws on the Internet: Proposed Solutions, Objections to the Solutions, and the Realities of Cross-Border Copyright Enforcement Draft of July 24, 2014 2 D R A F T Do not cite or distribute without permission of the author. Introduction From the beginnings of the Internet1 a number of commentators have warned that Internet actors – Internet service providers, website operators, content providers, and Internet users – cannot comply with copyright law on the global digital network (or can comply only with exorbitant costs) because of the large number of countries’ copyright laws (“multiple copyright laws”) that apply to the actors’ Internet activities.2 The multiplicity of potentially applicable national copyright laws (the “multiplicity problem”) is caused by the nature of copyright as an intangible right created by national laws and by the rules for choice of law applicable to copyright infringements and to other copyright-related acts and occurrences. To determine which country’s copyright law applies, national courts typically use (for infringement and often also for other copyright-related acts and occurrences)3 the choice-of-law rule that points to the law of the place of the tortious activity (lex loci delicti, lex loci protectionis).4 Unless Internet activities are limited geographically through geoblocking5 or some form of censorship that disables access to 1 The term “Internet” is used throughout this article as a generic term for any type of electronic communication, even if it is not based on the Internet protocol. On the definition of the term see Marketa Trimble, The Future of Cybertravel: Legal Implications of the Evasion of Geolocation, 22 FORDHAM INTELL. PROP. MEDIA & ENT. L.J. 567, 575, fn. 25 (2012). 2 E.g., Graeme B. Dinwoodie, A New Copyright Order: Why National Courts Should Create Global Norms, 149 U. Pa. L. Rev. 469, 480-481 (2000); Andreas P. Reindl, Choosing Law in Cyberspace: Copyright Conflicts on Global Networks, 19 Mich. J. Int’l L. 799, 800 and 807-808 (1998). 3 See, e.g., Graeme B. Dinwoodie, Developing A Private International Intellectual Property Law: The Demise of Territoriality, 51 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 711, 729-733 (2009) (reviewing the scope of application of the lex loci protectionis rule). 4 Most countries apply these rules to copyright infringement; countries’ rules for choice of law applicable to other copyright-related acts and occurrences vary. Some countries apply the rule of the law of the protecting country (lex loci protectionis). Whether the Berne Convention mandates the rule or not has been disputed. See, e.g., Jane C. Ginsburg, Global Use/Territorial Rights: Private International Law Questions of the Global Information Infrastructure, 42 L. Copyright Soc’y U.S.A. 318, 336-337 (1995) (advancing the theory that the law of the protecting country implies lex fori); Jane C. Ginsburg, Private International Law Aspects of the Protection of Works and Objects of Related Rights Transmitted Through Digital Networks, WIPO, GCPIC/2, November 30, 1998, p. 41; 2 SAM RICKETSON, JANE C. GINSBURG, INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT AND NEIGHBOURING RIGHTS: THE BERNE CONVENTION AND BEYOND §§ 20.17-20.28 (2d ed. 2005), § 20.01 (p. 1292) (“[D]eriving from the Berne text supranational choice of law rules is a delicate, if not improbable, operation.” Id.); PAUL GOLDSTEIN & BERNT HUGENHOLTZ, INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT: PRINCIPLES, LAW, AND PRACTICE 129 (2010) (arguing that Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention is not a choice of law provision but is “essentially no more than a rule barring discrimination against foreign right holders, which requires a country to apply the same law to works of foreign origin as

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