COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IN THE INTERNET AGE—PRIMETIME FOR HARMONIZED CONFLICT-OF-LAWS RULES? By Anita B. Frohlich† TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 852 II. CHOICE OF LAW AND COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT: A PORTFOLIO OF APPROACHES ......................................................... 856 A. THE SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES ............................................. 856 1. The Ninth Circuit Approach ........................................................ 857 2. The Second Circuit Approach ..................................................... 861 3. Summary ..................................................................................... 863 B. THE SITUATION IN EUROPE ................................................................. 863 1. Great Britain ............................................................................... 864 a) Situation Before Introduction of the Private International Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1995 ..................................................................................... 864 b) The Private International Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1995 and Its Implementation by the British Courts ...................................................................... 866 2. Germany ...................................................................................... 869 3. France ......................................................................................... 872 4. Belgium ....................................................................................... 876 5. Summary ..................................................................................... 879 III. TOWARDS HARMONIZATION OF CONFLICT OF LAWS IN INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW .......... 879 A. ROME II—HARMONIZATION OF CHOICE-OF-LAW RULES RELATING TO TORTS ........................................................................... 880 © 2009 Anita B. Frohlich. † National University San Diego; LL.M. in Comparative Law (University of San Diego School of Law); Master‘s of Law (Université Aix-Marseille III School of Law, France); JD (University of Passau School of Law, Germany). The author would like to express her gratitude to Professor Lisa Ramsey, University of San Diego School of Law, for her helpful suggestions and comments, and to the staff of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal for excellent editing. The author maintains a weblog at www.comparelex.org. 852 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 24:851 1. Travaux Préparatoires ................................................................ 881 a) Article 3 Section 1: Lex loci delicti .................................... 883 b) Article 3 Section 2: Law of the habitual residence ............. 883 c) Article 3 Section 3: Law of the country of the substantially closer connection ........................................... 884 2. Analysis of the Current Version of Rome II ................................ 884 3. Evaluation of Article 8(1) of the Rome II Regulation ................. 886 4. Comparing Rome II to Itar-Tass ................................................. 887 B. ALI PRINCIPLES—HARMONIZATION OF CONFLICT-OF-LAWS RULES IN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW ON A GLOBAL LEVEL? ................................................................................................ 887 1. Nature of the ALI Principles ....................................................... 888 2. Analysis of the Final Draft of the ALI Principles ....................... 889 a) Party Autonomy Exception (section 302) ........................... 890 b) Ubiquitous Infringement Exception (section 321) .............. 891 c) Comparing Rome II and the ALI Principles ....................... 893 3. Will Courts Adopt the ALI Principles? ....................................... 893 IV. CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 895 I. INTRODUCTION The staggering quantity of copyright infringement on the Internet has exposed a fundamental limitation of current international copyright law. A single act of unauthorized uploading of copyrighted material can result in copyright infringements by numerous Internet users in various countries. The following hypothetical shows the legal difficulties that are raised in such situations: Bill, a United States citizen who resides in Great Britain, uploads digitalized copies of the work of Françoise from his residence to a server in Great Britain. Françoise, a French citizen who lives in Belgium, has published her work solely in France and holds a French copyright. Bill has not obtained permission to publish Françoise‘s work. The infringing material is then downloaded in Germany, the United States and Great Britain. Françoise sues Bill in Belgium for damages.1 Determining which law should apply in this situation is a difficult question. A court could apply French law because Françoise is a French citizen holding a French copyright for work published in France, Belgian 1. Inspired by Alexander Peinze, Internationales Urheberrecht in Deutschland und England 119 (2002). 2009] COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IN THE INTERNET AGE 853 law as Françoise lives in Belgium and sues Bill in a Belgian court, British law as the law of Bill‘s country of residence and of the place where Françoise‘s work was both uploaded without permission and subsequently downloaded by Internet users, United States‘ law because Bill is a U.S. citizen and the infringing work was downloaded in the United States, or even German law as the work was also downloaded there. International copyright law does not provide a satisfactory resolution for such an international case since the main pillar of intellectual property law—the principal of territoriality—implies nationally limited application of copyright law. Accordingly, the exclusive rights afforded to a copyright owner can only be exercised within the borders of a given country.2 This national limitation of copyrights is in pronounced contrast to the universal validity of other rights (e.g., contractual rights).3 In order to decide the above-described case, one must consider not on- ly copyright law, but also conflict-of-laws methods. Traditionally, howev- er, there has been little exchange between conflict-of-laws and intellectual property scholars.4 This mutual ignorance stems from the fact that intellec- tual property law used to reflect the prototypical expression of sovereign or national interests and therefore involves the exclusive application of domestic law. As a result of the growing distribution of copyrighted work over the Internet, however, intellectual property scholars must concern themselves increasingly with conflict-of-laws issues. This Article estab- lishes some common ground for the previously distinct fields of conflict- of-laws and international intellectual property law. Specifically, the Ar- ticle demonstrates how to apply conflict-of-laws theory to international copyright cases while making allowances for the special character of in- ternational intellectual property law. As the Bill-Françoise hypothetical above shows, there are many laws that could possibly apply to cases of internet copyright infringement. In this context, the following choice-of-law rules are available: lex fori, lex loci delicti, and lex protectionis rule. The lex fori rule postulates application of the law of the country where the court deciding the infringement case is situated (law of the forum).5 2. See Richard Fentiman, Choice of Law and Intellectual Property, in INTELLEC- TUAL PROPERTY AND PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW: HEADING FOR THE FUTURE 129, 137 (Josef Drexl & Annette Kur eds., 2005). 3. See JAN KROPHOLLER, INTERNATIONALES PRIVATRECHT 535 (2004); Fentiman, supra note 2, at 138. 4. See Graeme B. Dinwoodie, International Intellectual Property Litigation: A Vehicle for Resurgent Comparativist Thought?, 49 AM. J. COMP. L. 429, 429 (2001). 5. BLACK‘S LAW DICTIONARY 760 (abr. 8th ed. 2005). 854 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 24:851 Application of this rule inevitably leads to the court applying its own law.6 In contrast, the lex loci delicti rule provides for application of the law of the country where the infringing conduct has occurred (place of the wrong).7 Application of the lex loci delicti may require a court to apply foreign law in cases where courts assume international jurisdiction with regard to infringements of foreign rights.8 Finally, the lex protectionis rule applies the law of the country for which protection is sought.9 Contrary to the lex fori rule, the lex protectionis rule may give rise to the application of a foreign law.10 Although the lex loci delicti and the lex protectionis rules often result in the application of the same law, the lex protectionis rule generally tends to be broader, governing many different aspects of copyright law, not necessarily restricted to issues of infringement.11 In the Bill-Françoise hypothetical above, Françoise filed suit in a Bel- gian court. If the Belgian court applied the lex fori rule, the court would apply Belgian law to the dispute. If the court applied the lex loci delicti rule, it would have to apply foreign law since none of the downloads oc- curred in Belgium. Complicating matters further, application of the lex loci delicti may require application of laws from multiple countries if the court considered the location of the wrong to be the country where the in- fringing act had its effect (i.e., where the downloads actually occurred).