The Pirate Bay deep-sixed

Angela Adrian, The Robert Gordon University, Scotland

Abstract

While some of these liability theories, particularly those that reach communications from one nation that are to be received in other nations, may seem an affront to the traditional territoriality principle, so too is massive unlicensed distribution of copyright protected material by parties who are themselves indifferent to territorial boundaries. As Grokster and Kazaa demonstrate, for some legal actors, attempting to stop the flow of massive amounts of unlicensed distribution of copyright protected material may prove to be more important than the niceties of copyright's territoriality principle. The difficulty with this approach is that it has the potential to impose on every other nation a ‘balance’ struck with US economic and technological conditions in mind. This policy would seem to lead to greater freedom on the part of the developers of dual-use technologies to act in ways that facilitate greater circulation of copyright protected works. Without geographical filtering, such works are likely to reach nations that see the balance between technological freedom and copyright protection differently.