Good point, Ovid! Here in Europe most people have the impression that in the US, anyone can sue anyone about anything, however unimportant the issue may seem. Living in Switzerland, I don't think I can really judge the truth-value of such a statement.

I can see the point of defending your property when someone else gains profit from it without really doing anything to it. I am partly a freelance worker, and thus I can understand the arguments in this node very well. same goes for this thread here. Still, I think we should always keep an eye on the appropriateness of legal action.

Of course this goes only for cases where we are at the "right" end. Things look radically different when we are at the wrong end of legal action, especially if the prosecution (is that the right word?) is a huge company with seemingly unlimited financial possibilities.

The only thing that I can't quite see is how things work out on an international community site like this one here. As tachyon says, being an Australian he didn't know about the DMCA - and being Swiss, neither did I. So does it apply to this site? And if so, on what grounds? Is it the palce where the site is hosted that counts, or is it the nationality of the monks the contribte to th discussion?

I think this is one of the major problems with any such case on the internet. Laws usually are just not made for such a high grade of itnernationality (except for international laws and treatises, obviously).

--cs