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Question regarding law when it comes to servers usage
When someone rents a server from a company situated in another country which laws do apply?
1) The law from the country where hosting company is registered + their ToS
2) The law from the country where hosting company is registered + ToS + Law from Country where the server is physically situated.
3.) The law from the country where hosting company is registered + ToS + Law from Country where the server is physically situated + the Country where the client is from?
Or in short: When client sticks to providers ToS and law of the country the provider is situated in he will be fine?
Hope someone knows this :P Don't hate.
Thanked by 1mailcheap
Comments
Although these are excellent questions. Unfortunately many users here are prone to stating their opinions based on their skewed world views rather than legal facts. If this is of critical importance to you (for whatever reason - sometimes these things can be very important), I would suggest contacting qualified legal representation in the countries involved. It is doubtful the lowendlawyers here will provide you with any actionable, prudent, correct, legal advice as most of their expertise is technical not legal
Haha this is most likely what I will end up doing however maybe we have some Saul Goodman here eh?
I agree.
yet there most probably will be no correct general legal advice to this question. in almost all cases you first will have to see what is the real legal concern, before you can check which laws may apply... so all of 1 to 3 may be correct for different legal matters or even none.
It's pretty grey area.. Initially you'd want to follow the laws of the country where you are hosting the server at. If you are doing something illegal which targets the users of your own country, then I suppose the laws of your country comes in. If your customer is doing something illegal that targets his own countrymen, then the laws of the customer's country will come in as you'll get abuse mail.
Overall the worst thing I'll imagine that can happen is that you get suspended by your provider.
Option 3 is the right answer. Our ToS reflects this.
Pavin.
??? Dont know the countries involved, dont have legal training, dont know what is being done that spawned the question in the first place - yet conclude the worst that can happen is get suspended? Hence my original statement stands - OP needs prudent, educated, rational, experienced legal help based on facts not suppositions.
@William was prosecuted under his own countries laws even though the servers he was using were hosted in another country. It's safe to assume that even if what he was charged with was legal in the provider's country, he would have still be prosecuted in his own country.
You are always liable, i.e. number 3. It would have been amazingly silly otherwise.
Suppose you're doing distributing content without license, and that's unlawful in your country but allowed in the host/servers country. They'll sue you in your country - good luck proving that your content was shared only in the host's country.
Suppose you're breaking the laws of the country that the servers reside but not your country's laws. If it's something non-trivial, you risk getting extradited. Not a simple process and certainly not everyone is Kim Dotcom but that's a risk you'll have to weigh.
All of them apply. Server hosted, your location, host company registration location, host staff location
The ultimate answer is, if a country can find a means to enforce their laws, then their law applies. They have the means to target the hosting company's assets in their own country, be it the base of the company's operations or the server assets, and they have the ability to target the assets of the client.
Thanks for all the feedback guys
I acctually will contact a legal consultant though. All your answers have been and will be greatly appreciated but I need to be as sure as I can get. Keep your replies coming though!
If its big enough for you to contact an attorney over, then yes, you do need one.
It always depends on who cares about what youre doing. If youre doing some torrenting on a server in a country that allows it then youre unlikely to have anybody contact you over it. (unless of course youre the pirate bay, but thats where the caring comes in).
If you share child porn in a country that allows it (no idea if there is such a country), then youre likely going to be in trouble either way.
Not a lawyer but no. 3 sounds sensible.
Hire a lawyer.
Seriously. If you have to ask this question, you need to hire a lawyer. It depends on so many things, including the countries where each of the mentioned things are located.
For example, consumer law? If you're "targeting EU customers" - which can mean a lot of things, including "has a domain with an EU country TLD" - you may be considered to fall under the jurisdiction of said country.
Even two instances of the same situation can end up being a different scenario; for example, while most of the LulzSec-related prosecutions of UK residents were carried out in the UK (despite the complainants being in the US), Lauri Love is now being threatened with extradition to the US to stand trial there, for a very similar set of accusations.
Again. Hire a lawyer.
It's worse.
You basically have three legal factors: The 2 legal entities (customer and provider) plus the server.
Obviously, the server is under the law of the providers country. As for the two involved entities, they both must meet the legal requirements of their jurisdiction, which comes down to:
And then there are the practical issues. Things like countries de jure or de facto caring or not caring about anothers countries laws.