Internet Copyright Dispute Aired in Hong Kong

HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court has agreed to allow a local company to sue a California Internet provider for copyright violation in a case that could set worldwide precedents on jurisdiction over the network.

The lawsuit is probably the first cross-border case involving the Internet. It’s the first filed in Hong Kong, lawyers said.

Under the common-law system in effect in Hong Kong, the United States, Canada, Great Britain and other Commonwealth countries, past cases from any jurisdiction can establish precedents for all the others.

“What this really means is that if you put something onto the World Wide Web anywhere in the world, you better watch your back everywhere in the world,” said John Beukema, the Internet specialist at solicitors Oldan, Li & Nie, which is representing the plaintiff.

For reasons that illustrate the problems of trying to enforce conventional laws on the Internet, suing may not help the plaintiffs.

“Even if you get a judgment it’s going to be difficult to know what to do with it,” said Robert Arnold, a specialist in copyright law at Baker & McKenzie, which isn’t involved in the case.

The problem: the article in dispute can be read by Internet users in Hong Kong, yet the actions that make that possible took place in the United States.

A local court can make an order barring anyone from publishing copyright material here, but the U.S. courts won’t necessarily enforce that order against the defendants in California, Arnold said.

Hong Kong’s Supreme Court has just granted leave to sue and hasn’t yet heard the case itself or made any judgment for or against the defendants.

Action Asia publishes a magazine by the same name about action sports, distributed in Hong Kong and Asia.

In papers filed with the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, it charges that a California man scanned one-third of its first magazine issue--photographs and text--into an electronic “page” on the World Wide Web that can be viewed anywhere in the world.

The article in question was about diving in the Philippines and appeared in Action Asia’s first issue in the summer of 1992, which sold for HK$72 (US$9.30).

Action Asia is suing both the individual diver who scanned the story into his Web site and Best Internet Communications Inc., the Silicon Valley company that rented him the page.

Action Asia wants a Hong Kong court to require that the defendants remove the story from the Web site and pay up to HK$10 million in damages.

Hong Kong’s Supreme Court issued writs on April 18 that require the defendants to respond to the complaint within 28 days of receiving the documents. The writs were served in California this week.

Neither of the defendants could be reached for comment. The Web page appears to be mainly informative and doesn’t tout any services offered by either defendant.

Previous cases in the United States have already established that Internet service providers may be held responsible if they don’t act when informed of copyright violations on the electronic sites they in essence rent out.

In one such case in December 1993, Playboy Enterprises Inc. won an injunction against a service provider requiring it to remove material scanned in by a customer that violated copyright laws.

In Washington on Wednesday, a House Judiciary subcommittee indefinitely postponed a vote on a bill that would set more specific guidelines on enforcing copyrights on the Internet.

The delay, which could kill the bill this year, resulted from disagreement between copyright holders and equipment makers about whether equipment makers should be liable if their products are used to pirate material off the Internet.

Earlier negotiations had already established that service providers can be liable for information stored by customers on their systems.