Intellectual Property Law

Mygazines is a website that grants a surfer of the internet easy access to well-known magazines covering a wide range of subjects, which are normally only available for purchase on the high street. Users of the site can copy and download or simply read in their entirety high quality digital versions of the latest editions of US magazines such as People, The Economist or Men's Health. Can the owners of the copyrighted works do anything at all? Normally the answer is a clear yes given the clear infringement of copyright by the Mygazine website. However on this occasion jurisdictional issues complicate the position.

The website is registered in the Caribbean Island nation of Anguilla by a registrant ingeniously called "John Smith" and outside the jurisdiction of American copyright law. Potentially, the copyright owners can sue for damages in a US court because the content of the website is available over the internet to American nationals. However, a US court could not oblige Anguillan Mygazine officials to turn up as the defending party at court nor allow the copyright owners to collect any damages for any ruling which was made in the absence of those officials.

As US giants such as Time Warner (the owner of People and Sports Illustrated) and The Economist try their hardest to find a way of stopping Mr Smith and his rogue outfit, the copyright infringement continues. To infuriate these giants further, Mygazine has told the world that its business is bona fide and likened it to a doctor's waiting area, where the public can read magazines which they have not bought. This may be a perfectly valid argument in a parallel IP universe, but doesn???t really bear the same fruit in the real world.