Americans following other countries laws on the internet

Do Americans need to obey another country’s laws on the internet?

If this is too general, maybe someone can answer this example:

Consider the case where a person ‘streamrips’ an American internet radio station. This would qualify as fair use according to:

Radio music ripping - Wikipedia.

But, if an EU citizen did it with an EU radio station it would be illegal:

Radio music ripping - Wikipedia.

Now what if the American ‘streamripped’ a radio station based in the EU?

What is the law here?

also, if you’re a lawyer please let me know.

You are only bound by laws of the jurisdictions you’re residing in. Otherwise, Wikipedia would never be allowed to have pictures of Muhammad in contravention of sharia law, we would not be allowed to mock that moronic asshole the king of Thailand in contravention of Thai law, and neo-Nazis wouldn’t be allowed to have their idiocy online in contravention of laws in force throughout Europe and especially in Germany.

This doesn’t stop people from making bizarre pseudo-legal arguments and wild threats to try and convince people to stop doing something they’re legally not prohibited from doing where they are. The Pirate Bay has a whole page full of legal threats it’s gotten from (mostly) American companies that think they can harass Swedes into complying with (mostly) American laws.

We’re Americans – we don’t even have to follow our own laws*, much less some foreigners!

  • for example, just look at the highway – the number of speeders, or drunk drivers, or drivers without a valid license, or valid insurance – that probably makes up close to a majority of the cars on the road!

Derleth’s right insofar as you can probably escape prosecution and extradition even if you break some other country’s laws while online. However, you may want to voluntarily comply with other countries’ laws in the case where you post something illegal to a foreign server and expect it to stay up. For example, if you want to start a neo-Nazi political party, and if that’s perfectly legal in your jurisdiction, then you would be well advised not to use a web hosting company based in Germany for your party’s website. Otherwise the German authorities will almost certainly shut it down; they won’t care that you’re located out of their jurisdiction, because your web server is in their jurisdiction. Furthermore, you shouldn’t try this if you plan on visiting Germany any time soon, nor any country with similar laws that has an extradition treaty with Germany, as you’re liable to be prosecuted. As long as you stay in a jurisdiction that doesn’t have anti-neo-Nazi laws, then you’re probably safe.

This was the business I was in and it is interesting that America hosts a lot of Japanese porn because of restrictions that country has. I personally know of three different hosting companies in San Francisco who do nothing but host Japanese porn but I can’t tell you exactly what the Japanese laws are which preclude them from hosting their own stuff. (And it makes me really curious where the extreme genki stuff is being hosted)

Alternately, the company I was with had its servers in Europe and Panama to host gambling sites because they are illegal in the states.

This is not always correct.

Sure it is. If that guy had tried the same thing on Ministry of Defence computers, he would have been charged with UK laws against unauthorized access to computers. Barring concerns about the accused’s health and expectation of a fair trial, the extradition seems entirely normal from a legal point of view. If you break a law in a foreign country, and your home country has a similar law and an extradition treaty with that foreign country, you can usually be extradited.

Not necessarily so. If you commit a crime in another country (which is very possible with the internet regardless of your place of residence), you can most certainly be prosecuted in this country.

Similarly, in many countries (not in the USA AFAIK), courts have juridiction for crimes commited by or against their citizens, regardless of where the crime was commited or where the culprit is residing.

Finally, if you want to offer your services in many countries, you’ll have to abide by the laws of each one of them either by having different sites for each country or by applying the most restrictive laws to everybody (for instance not selling nazi memorabilia anywhere). Even though you don’t reside there, you’re operating commercially in those countries and are bound by their laws like local companies.
Now, you can’t normally be extradited for something which isn’t a crime in your country, so as long as you stay where you are, you don’t risk much, apart from having your servers shut down and/or you sites blocked.

Which contradicts the statement “You are only bound by laws of the jurisdictions you’re residing in”. He didn’t break British law, he broke American law while in the UK. The extradition treaty means that he is in fact bound by the laws of the country in which he used the internet to break them - which he specifically wasn’t residing in at the time.

So with the internet, is it about your primary access point - what country the ISP is registered in? So if you’re using a French ISP you go off French law whenever you do something on the internet… is that how it goes?

Can anyone comment on the extradition treaty between Germany and the US? Can we draw a parallel from this case above?

I feel like I’m getting a lot of contradictory information here - would some lawyer commit to some pro bono work and please settle this matter here in this forum?

‘Genki’ means ‘enthusiastic’. I think you mean ‘guro’, which means ‘gory’, and is pretty far off the deep end.

As for extradition and being tried in absentia and so on, I am aware of that. I’m also aware that it’s mostly not an issue. Also, I wasn’t exactly wrong, either: Part of the laws you’re bound by are extradition laws and, if the country that wants you is acting insane, the American judge that conducts your extradition proceedings may not make you go. (‘Acting insane’ basically means ‘wants you for something that is not a crime here’, although I think we also take the likelihood of a fair trial and the severity of possible punishments into account.)

In short, Americans do stuff online that would get them imprisoned in Germany, caned in Singapore, and executed in Saudi Arabia, possibly in that order.

Well, since many US extradition treaties are horribly asymmetric, and the question applies to US citizens, not those from other countries, I guess they probably are safe. However, the answer is not universal, just applicable to the US.

Here’s what I could find about the latest amendment (1987) to the US/Germany treaty.