Juristiction?
Does a Danish court have any authority over a British website?
Save the Egg! A court in Denmark has ordered a British furniture company to block users with Danish IP addresses from visiting its website. In most of Europe, including Denmark, furniture designs are protected by copyright for 70 years from the death of the designer. However, in the UK, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act …
Does a Danish court have any authority over a British website?
Might as well do. Time was when we actually could say "You and whose army?"
But successive Right Cunts in Westminster (Cameron, Brown, Blair, I'm looking at you) have ensured that this expression no longer works. Not only are all the main UK political parties utterly servile to the wishes of Europe, but we don't even now have any worthwhile military because of a series of "strategic defence reviews". Which makes that arsehole Cameron's posturing over Ukraine particularly amusing.
I'm looking forward to a G8 meeting at which Putin gives Cameron a wedgie.
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I'll have you know Babs regularly used to give me piggy-backs down to the off-licence when we needed to top up on gin, Vimto and Capstan full-strength. Of course she was stronger, back in the day, when she was still combining the singing with the part-time hod-carrying. And, she was still a bloke then...
In England we have 70 years from the release date for music and 70 years from author's death for books - both a far too long, IMHO.
Whilst this example is clearly stupid, the conflict with the "single market" rules could be interesting, especially in light of the forthcoming disaster for small digital content providers in the UK who are below the UK VAT threshold, but who will be expected to account for VAT in every EU country they sell in from 1st Jan, with NO THRESHOLD! So they can either be prosecuted for refusing to sell outside the UK (single market rules) or for failing to register for every country's VAT (unlimited fine). Hmmm... difficult choice, but geo-blocking may be the only way to avoid an unlimited fine!
On the matter of the single market
As the ECJ ruled: Local bans can't "be justified either in light of the objective of protecting intellectual property rights or by the objective of encouraging the public to attend football stadiums"
Just another example of the stupidity of the so called single market.
Either everyone is able to retain their sovereignty thus being allowed to have different laws regarding (in this case) copyright which fragments aspects of the single market, or, there is no sovereignty in terms of any laws/regulations that may relate to anything that will fall under the influence of the single market, in which case members of the EU will only have sovereignty when it is convenient to the market.
Also the Danish gov' is not supporting the spirit of the single market in caving in to local lobbying, if they can't compete don't play.
If every nation goes the same route the EU will fragment which may be a good thing.
'Design' has always been a way of circumventing shorter patent laws, and 70 years after the designer's death is ridiculously long anyway.
Let's put this into perspective: Levi Strauss--the inventor (designer) of jeans as we know them today--lived from 1829 to 1902 (72), so if this ridiculously long copyright law was in force back in 1902 then the jeans revolution of the 1950s wouldn't have transpired! Just imagine, no manufacturer would have been able to clone 501-style jeans until at least 1972! [..And there'd be no rivets either!]
Now, today many people live well past 72. Let's say Strauss lived to 85 (1915) the jeans revolution couldn't have started until 1985. Frankly, such a notion is just absurd--the reasons are many: stifling innovation to begin with!
In a sensible world, the UK legislators should tell Danish and other like-minded European legislators to go and root themselves (and that's putting it too politely).
Yeah, and like all previous EU copyright harmonisation, whoever has the longest lasting protection racket rules gets to keep them and everyone else has to up their rules to match.
I always though harmonisation implied a bit of give and take? It all seems more dictatorial rather than harmonious.
"According to Danish digital rights group IT-Pol, the next step could be the furniture industry taking on Danish internet service providers in court to secure a blocking injunction. The industry is certainly going all out here – it also sought, and was awarded, an order for Voga to block even pictures of replica furniture."
Uuuh... This already happened: http://jyllands-posten.dk/livsstil/ECE7278991/Slut-med-adgang-til-netsider-med-kopimøbler/ (in Danish). Granted it was for other sites, but same issue entirely.
Note that in this case the british websites had been court ordered in May to do what Voga.com has now been ordered to do.
So by all means continue with the indignation, but fast-forward it a bit please.
"Note that in this case the british websites had been court ordered in May to do what Voga.com has now been ordered to do."
Danish courts have no jurisdiction over UK websites unless they get a UK enforcement order - which a judge wouldn't allow if not covered by local laws.
In other news, voga.com sales to danish addresses triple, as Danes become aware of it.
Except the sites that had this done in May have just now been blocked at an ISP level.
I mentioned it because this article seemed to imply that "if something like that were to happen", despite the fact that it happened literally a day before this article came out.
Glad to know we Brits aren't the only ones that get shafted by business!
I bet the Danish furniture industry is happy to get cheap labour from anywhere in Europe it can but bribes, sorry, lobbies, judges & politicians to stop consumers doing the same
So if we in the UK are down at the mucky end of the commercial stick (viz baccy tax etc) then we have to just put up with it and get ripped off. However, when we finally get a break under EU diktats, we ..... don't.
Single market huh .... Harmonisation my fat hairy arm !!
The sooner we get ourselves untangled from this ugly EU monster the better we will all be.
That is all.