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Austin, Graeme W. --- "Global networks and domestic laws: some private international law issues arising from Australian and US liability theories" [2009] ELECD 333; in Strowel, Alain (ed), "Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Secondary Liability in Copyright Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Secondary Liability in Copyright Law

Editor(s): Strowel, Alain

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847205629

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Global networks and domestic laws: some private international law issues arising from Australian and US liability theories

Author(s): Austin, Graeme W.

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

5. Global networks and domestic laws:
some private international law issues
arising from Australian and US
liability theories
Graeme W. Austin

INTRODUCTION
`[S]ervices that employ peer-to-peer technology create vast, global networks of
copyright infringement',1 observed the United States Register of Copyrights in a
recent Congressional hearing on copyright law. While the networks are global,
the law applicable to P2P networks remains tethered within domestic borders.
Even so, the application of the law may have significant extraterritorial effects.
This chapter explores the international character of the emerging law on
P2P networks in two common law jurisdictions: Australia and the United
States. P2P networks are `global' in many respects. Users of P2P products and
services are present in many different jurisdictions. Technology entrepreneurs
and their business partners are often geographically dispersed, and business
structures can be `split' to leverage advantages provided by different national
legal systems. And the digital content, whose `sharing' is facilitated by these
products and services, regularly traverses back and forth across international
borders. The global character of P2P networks makes it helpful to consider
some of the private international law issues that may be raised by liability
theories that are emerging in the P2P context.
The discussion in this chapter focuses on three recent cases: two from the
Federal Court of Australia, the 2005 decision in Universal Music Australia Pty
Ltd v Sharman License Holdings Ltd,2 and the 2006 decision of the Full


1 `Protecting Innovation and Art While Preventing Piracy: Hearing on ...