Cut-and-pasting from Wikipedia does not equal knowledge.
SD>BF> First of all: US copyright law does *not* apply outside of the USA.
SD> You're right, it doesn't, however, you've never heard of the Berne SD> Convention then (of which all countries represented in this echo are SD> members of)?
I hate to burst your bubble, but Bjorn is right all the way.
First of all, there is not a single country member of the Berne Convention (1886 btw), simply because there are no membership provisions. Countries can become a signatory and in itself that doesn't mean a thing. There's a tedious process of transforming it into national law in each individual country which has signed irrespective of what the convention stipulates. The convention does not supercede national law.
Signing is not sufficient, proper ratification is.
In that ratification process the wording of the convention is not copied verbatim but a transcription into local custom is made which will fit each nation's legal system, will not be in conflict with each individual constitution and may need approval by each individual supreme court as well as appropriate lower level courts.
In the case of EU-countries, the EU deals with international treaties with one voice for the 28 different countries (27 after Brexit) leading to a single harmonized version. It translates into 11 different directives and 3 regulations. Those directives need to go through each country's legal system again and transformed into national law.
Sending a posse to Sweden simply is not going to work, the posse has no jurisdiction <period>.
SD> "Since almost all nations are members of the World Trade Organization, SD> the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights SD> requires non-members to accept almost all of the conditions of the Berne SD> Convention."
I would say 'dream on'. There are ample documented cases where the USA itself has refused to deal with copyright cases which invoked the Berne Convention. You can't have it both ways. Talk to China, talk to Russia …
SD> So pretty much, yes, there's common copyright law that applies in each SD> signatory state, as well as further refinements in each state.
Nope. For the simple fact that a copyright infringement in one country may very well be OK in another country. The plaintiff has no leg to stand on.
SD> So, yes, if Mr. Jennings wanted to push the issue, he could enforce both SD> his copyright and trademark.
I doubt that very much.
The full name of the Berne-convention is:
"Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works"
The Tom Jennings trademark stuff does not involve a work with literary or artistic merit. Full stop. It's not worth the paper it is written on. Probably Americans just love the "All rights reserved" type of wording, but the fact is in the case of Fidonet it is totally useless.
The copyright and trademark notifications of Tom Jennings have been removed here over 20 years ago because they mean nothing. I have been vaguely threatened and nothing more after that. He did so again 2 days ago, what a farce this person is …
SD> But to avoid all of that, one could put what they publish under one of SD> the many Creative Commons licenses.
If that makes the author happy and to keep the discussion going … by all means.
\%/@rd
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