All .COM domains now subject to US Law

Post » Mon May 14, 2012 5:24 am

If you're entering a business that is illegal in some areas of the world, and you are going to market to the world, isn't it YOUR responsibility to know and understand the laws effecting that?
No, because you're not housing your business in those parts of the world.

There's numerous weapons that are illegal for me to own In California, but I can buy them online. If I do, the law comes down on me for owning illegal weapons. I'm the one who instigated the business transaction, not the business.
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stevie trent
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 7:19 am

But they are doing business in those parts of the world. And if I ship my booze to a place where it's illegal, I'm doing business in that part of the world.

If my product or service is being shipped or received somewhere, I should be held to the law of that land, no?

(I think the buyer shares equal responsibility, however.)
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Genocidal Cry
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 6:31 pm

If I am from China and run a red light in the US and claim not to know the law it is no defense. The website in question is operating in the US by allowing US users to use it. It's likely that the website was contacted by Maryland already and asked to pull its services for state residents.

States also reserve the right to prosecute people who make illegal materials available to people who live within their jurisdiction. In my silly Sealand example, any state where an end user accessed the CP could attempt to prosecute me. They'd have a hard time hauling me in for trial (unless someone sent in the Marines) but they have the authority to.

There's numerous weapons that are illegal for me to own In California, but I can buy them online. If I do, the law comes down on me for owning illegal weapons. I'm the one who instigated the business transaction, not the business.

If I routinely ship weapons into CA that are illegal in CA I can be prosecuted. I believe several Southern states sued CA companies for distributing obscene materials to buyers in their respective states.
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Jennifer Rose
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 10:44 pm

If I am from China and run a red light in the US and claim not to know the law it is no defense. The website in question is operating in the US by allowing US users to use it. It's likely that the website was contacted by Maryland already and asked to pull its services for state residents.

States also reserve the right to prosecute people who make illegal materials available to people who live within their jurisdiction. In my silly Sealand example, any state where an end user accessed the CP could attempt to prosecute me.
If you are driving in California, you are currently IN California. The site in question ISN'T operating in the US, it's operating in Canada. This is the same reason why TigerDirect doesn't collect taxes from me, because it isn't operating in California, even though it is doing business with a Californian.


If I routinely ship weapons into CA that are illegal in CA I can be prosecuted. I believe several Southern states sued CA companies for distributing obscene materials to buyers in their respective states.
Operant word is routinely and making significant profits doing so. What we're talking about here, though, is no different than the fact that TigerDirect doesn't collect taxes when I buy from them. I'm supposed to pay those taxes in my state income tax filing.

Interstate lawsuits are a federal case as well, were talking about an out-of-country company being upheld by a local state law.

The whole reason for the not needing to collect taxes by online retailers is exactly the same as this: the different laws on retail tax collection are too great of a burden for any company to keep track of them. Likewise the different laws on gambling are too burdensome for any company to keep track of them all.
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Anna Krzyzanowska
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 3:46 am

If I only did one transaction, the odds of my prosecution go down, but I could still be prosecuted. Operated = service is available in xxx. Doesn't matter where you're hosted or where your server is based. You are affecting people in MD by allowing them to make bets which is illegal under MD law.

If I, based in China, ship poison toothpaste to you in CA, you can try to sue me in a US court. Doesn't matter that my company is based in China. How is this different? Granted, no product needs to be shipped, but I am making a digital product available to you.

I haven't read the pleadings. I'm not sure what exactly they're charged with beyond money laundering which is a federal offense. How that interacts with MD's gambling laws I couldn't tell you.

I appreciate the friendly debate though. :hehe:
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Tracey Duncan
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 3:55 pm

It is a bit crap, but the US throwing its weight around isn't exactly news. :(

Yup, and i'm really becoming ashamed to say that i'm an American. This goes right up there with those idiots demanding the pledge of allegiance be removed and PETA suing Sea World to release their killer whales/orcas because the creatures are "enslaved."
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Chris BEvan
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 4:19 pm

Wow. I guess it's a good thing I use .NET for my dead site.
I Really don't understand why the US is wasting time going after these sites when there are bigger problems out there to deal with, like Iran as one example.

Or you know, our own damn problems.
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Farrah Barry
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 6:51 pm

Yup, and i'm really becoming ashamed to say that i'm an American.

I should be clear that my comment wasn't aimed at ordinary Americans, just for the record; just that certain US legislators (and not all of them, either) have developed some bad habits...
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C.L.U.T.C.H
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 3:38 pm

If I only did one transaction, the odds of my prosecution go down, but I could still be prosecuted. Operated = service is available in xxx. Doesn't matter where you're hosted or where your server is based. You are affecting people in MD by allowing them to make bets which is illegal under MD law.

If I, based in China, ship poison toothpaste to you in CA, you can try to sue me in a US court. Doesn't matter that my company is based in China. How is this different? Granted, no product needs to be shipped, but I am making a digital product available to you.
Again with the reductio ad absurdum....

I haven't read the pleadings. I'm not sure what exactly they're charged with beyond money laundering which is a federal offense. How that interacts with MD's gambling laws I couldn't tell you.

I appreciate the friendly debate though. :hehe:
Like I've said, it's mainly the maryland part I'm miffed about. They need to prove knowledge of the law before jurisdiction can be established as they are operating outside of it. It's completely impossible for every company to have a working knowledge of every part of every places law. You can say that it's the US, so of course they should have knowledge of the US law, but that incredibly Amero-centric of you not to mention for that to even apply you'd have to first prove that they make a considerable chunk of their income from doing business with US customers (which is why I see it as ridiculous that maryland is brought up in the indictment at all, since I highly doubt any considerable chunk of profits comes specifically from Maryland, it seems to have only been brought up to make the case's jurisdiction fall in the federal court district Maryland resides in, which is highly anti-gambling and basically stacking the deck against the accused).
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john page
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 7:53 pm

Again with the reductio ad absurdum....

Hehe. I'm an attorney. I'm paid to do that. :tongue:

Edit: Regarding Maryland. It may have been cherry-picked, but the prosecution is, apparently, based on that federal law I mentioned earlier. http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/indicts+Bodog+founder+online+gambling+business/6226001/story.html. Maryland is just the fed's "hook" state. The website owners also seem to have known what they were doing, if the indictment is to be believed.
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Nicholas C
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 5:42 pm

What? Seriously? Even non-US registrars? :huh:

i believe this is what they mean when they say; america, world police.

this is bending my mind though, maybe its just because how the article worded it but it pretty much seemed to me like it was saying that... i can't even find a way finish this sentence co-herently.
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Janine Rose
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 5:25 am

I Really don't understand why the US is wasting time going after these sites when there are bigger problems out there to deal with.
It's always about money.
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Yonah
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 8:13 pm

I was under the impression that most people, who are in the casino/gambling business - know that gambling, even online, is illegal in most states. That would mean they willfully made a way for those people to gamble illegally using their site.
I live in Australia. If I started up an international site of some sort, would you really expect me to know the laws of 52 states in the USA, 35 Indian states and territories, the EU, the 27 nations in the EU (and whatever relevant subdivisions within those), 47 countries on the African continent (and whatever relevant subdivisions within those)... that's over 161, and just covering the EU and the USA would be 80 or more. If I'm running a small business, how, exactly, am I supposed to afford that many lawyers?

Sealand isn't a recognized country, and the owners would arrest you first just for the publicity. Sorry, I don't fall for reductio ad absurdum
Not to mention that pretty much anyone with access to the internet would have enough knowledge of the world to realise that child porm is illegal in 'bout every country that's developed enough to be worried about more than who's committing genocide today. Which would be, I'm pretty sure, sufficient grounds to argue that ignorance would be virtually impossible.

If I, based in China, ship poison toothpaste to you in CA, you can try to sue me in a US court. Doesn't matter that my company is based in China. How is this different? Granted, no product needs to be shipped, but I am making a digital product available to you.
I don't claim to have any legal knowledge, but I would expect the importer or distributor to be sued locally, rather than the manufacturer. And if you bought it directly from China, well, I imagine you'd be learning about China's legal system.
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Siobhan Wallis-McRobert
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 10:56 pm

Snip


Whether gambling is legal or illegal in a given country and /or state is pretty simple to discern. That’s why companies have lawyers. That's why commercials say "not valid in X" and void where prohibited. Why would the law encourage you to be lazy and not to bother looking up the law?

You could sue a Chinese manufacturer where the product was made, received, or sold. If you’re going to ship an item into country A, how can you expect to be immune from Country A’s laws? How is a digitized ‘product’ different than a physical widget?

EDIT: This isn't just an American concept either. France sued ebay for facilitating the sale of Nazi memorabilia to French citizens as such was illegal under French law.
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Farrah Lee
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 4:13 pm

Whether gambling is legal or illegal in a given country and /or state is pretty simple to discern. That’s why companies have lawyers. That's why commercials say "not valid in X" and void where prohibited. Why would the law encourage you to be lazy and not to bother looking up the law?
It may be simple to discern for a lawyer, but I wouldn't know where to start with finding reliable info about Hungarian law that's also written in English. I also couldn't be certain I had found everything related to whatever my business is doing. So I'd pretty much have to pay locals to do it for me. I think it's reasonable to assume about 200 locations around the world, and I'll be optimistic and assume the consultations cost an average of $100 a pop, which comes to $20,000. Twenty grand is not a big deal for for an established business, but a few expenses like that can kill a startup.

Also note that I'm thinking in general terms, rather than limiting this to gambling. If this case is successful, it sets a precedent -whether in law or not- of prosecuting international businesses for allowing people to break local laws that the business does not know about.

You could sue a Chinese manufacturer where the product was made, received, or sold. If you’re going to ship an item into country A, how can you expect to be immune from Country A’s laws? How is a digitized ‘product’ different than a physical widget?
As I said before, I would expect them to be held to the laws where they are operating from. Wherever it is they're getting taxed, basically.

Another anology would be banking. There are countries where few details are required by law from the account holder, or/and banks are very protective of customer information (and are backed up by law). The service they provide breaches no international law, nor is it against their local laws. But there are people who take advantage of it to hide their money from scrutiny or taxes, which may be illegal in their country. Should the bank be prosecutable for not following US laws?

Digital products are very different from physical products. Take books, for example. Grab a physical book without paying for it, and the owner is down one saleable item and has to physically print a replacement. Grab an ebook without paying for it, and the owner has nothing less than they would have if you hadn't (assuming you wouldn't have paid for it in any case). The former is clearly theft, while the latter is closer to counterfeiting, though even that doesn't quite fit. And once you've been a good boy and bought the book, there are still plenty of differences, too: with the physical book, you clearly have ownership over that object (though not the words) and a pretty irrevocable ability to read it, whereas ebooks are generally not sold; licences to ebooks are sold, and it's not uncommon for those licences to include clauses that allow the seller to revoke them.

The digital world is a new and fundamentally different one. Laws are still catching up, and I suspect they won't until my generation (born in the eighties) starts getting old enough to be making the legislation. Content providers are also in the process of figuring out how to handle it, with the old giants struggling to maintain the status quo, and new startups experimenting and exploring.

EDIT:
EDIT: This isn't just an American concept either. France sued ebay for facilitating the sale of Nazi memorabilia to French citizens as such was illegal under French law.
Was this before or after they got themselves a http://www.ebay.fr/?
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Cagla Cali
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 4:14 am

Exorince, why are you surprised? .com has always been American property.
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Assumptah George
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 5:54 pm

Snip

I've been a bit clumsy in this thread. First off, this is a criminal action. Not a lawsuit.

Maryland has a law that says it's illegal to gamble or run a gambling operation. The US Federal Government has a law that says you cannot use "the wires" to bet on sporting events.

Bodog broke federal law. The federal government needed to pick somewhere as the situ of the case and they chose Maryland. The case isn't about applying local laws to Bodog, its whether Bodog violated federal law in Maryland.

Most commercial transactions are governed by contract law and the Uniform Commercial Code which has a default position as to where the suit would be tried and which country's law applies. If you buy an ebook with DRM you are agreeing to surrender certain rights. But this is about contractual agreements and expectations, not about criminal law.

That said, the questions you raised are interesting and unsettled.
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Suzie Dalziel
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 7:12 am

I've been a bit clumsy in this thread. First off, this is a criminal action. Not a lawsuit.

Maryland has a law that says it's illegal to gamble or run a gambling operation. The US Federal Government has a law that says you cannot use "the wires" to bet on sporting events.

Bodog broke federal law. The federal government needed to pick somewhere as the situ of the case and they chose Maryland. The case isn't about applying local laws to Bodog, its whether Bodog violated federal law in Maryland.

Most commercial transactions are governed by contract law and the Uniform Commercial Code which has a default position as to where the suit would be tried and which country's law applies.
An internationally binding thingy, I presume? In that case, I 'spose that's settled :shrug:. But it may need adjusting for the way the internet changes the game... I'm obviously not familiar with it :hehe:.

And I realise the Bodog case is criminal. The talk of suing over toothpaste complicated the discussion, maybe muddying the water a little.

If you buy an ebook with DRM you are agreeing to surrender certain rights. But this is about contractual agreements and expectations, not about criminal law.
Yup. That's why it's so different from a physical book; it's a lasting contract, not a traditional transaction. Instead of the agreement being that you pay a specified amount and in return receive the product, with everything else (copyright protection, etc.) being covered by laws, the agreement is that you pay as specified amount for permission to read the text, with conditions additional to the law.
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OnlyDumazzapplyhere
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 1:34 am

Snip

I did muddy things. I just really like hypotheticals. Wild hypotheticals.

What gets me are binding arbitration clauses - you get them on every PS or xbox update. You have to agree that any lawsuit must be heard by a private court of the corporation's choosing. A private court that makes money off hearing such cases. Hmmm. . .

That or never have a current system again. :sadvaultboy:
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NIloufar Emporio
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 10:00 pm

I did muddy things. I just really like hypotheticals. Wild hypotheticals.

What gets me are binding arbitration clauses - you get them on every PS or xbox update. You have to agree that any lawsuit must be heard by a private court of the corporation's choosing. A private court that makes money off hearing such cases. Hmmm. . .

That or never have a current system again. :sadvaultboy:
Yeah, that's one of those things that is just dodgy, regardless of legality. Another is forbidding class action suits, which basically means they won't be sued... there are very, very few individuals who could match the resources of a massive corporation. And, sadly, (major) modern cases tend to be wars of attrition.
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Misty lt
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 6:17 am

Honestly, People say that America is the best country in the world, but when we pretend to be the world police, have poor financial planning, and we flaunt our military like a bank robber's gun, I only see us posing as a shell of what we were founded upon. If it were up to me, I would return the US to pre-WWI isolationism and focus on getting our act together.
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Jerry Jr. Ortiz
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 2:31 am

People say that America is the best country in the world.

:confused: and/or :blink:
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BlackaneseB
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 4:20 pm

Can't wait for alternatives to ICANN/Verisign -- when that reality comes (i.e. a DNS root zone implemented in mass), I'll throw a party.
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Silencio
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 3:56 pm

If I created a website accessible by the world I'm not going to care for any other countries laws besides my own - If my site breaks the law of another then it's their job to prevent access to my site, not me changing how I set up when I'm not based in said country.
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Mrs shelly Sugarplum
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 1:41 am

Whoa..deja vu, and this time I DO remember being in a topic exactly like this 11 yrs ago -.-.
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BRAD MONTGOMERY
 
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