Just a quick bit without getting into the meat of this discussion, but I would hate for all these minds to be spinning around the wrong issue.
A Choice of Venue clause has nothing to do with the Choice of Laws... they are different questions. Venue is whether the judge, jury, setting is best suited to which party. In the States there are all sorts of grounds to move an action from one court to another or one location to another. However, this does not change which laws are applicable. The laws that are applied are the place where the alleged violation occurred. If I break U.S. Copyright Law in Europe, there is no case. U.S. laws have no force in Europe. If I break U.S. Copyright Law in the United States with a some European court in the Choice of Venue clause, the European court would apply U.S. Law. If you find that a little bit off, you are beginning to see why Choice of Venue clauses are regularilly thrown out in an international setting (court's really don't like to interpret the laws of other sovereigns). And, to be clear, you cannot by contract pledge to be bound by laws that do not apply to you, nor can a software developer say their software is only governed by U.S. Copyright law if they chose to distribute it beyond the States. -Sean -- Sean Kellogg 2nd Year - University of Washington School of Law GPSS Senator - Student Bar Association Editor-at-Large - National ACS Blog [http://www.acsblog.org] c: 206.498.8207 e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
