Extraterritorial Application of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998 to criminalize the circumvention of access controls to copyrighted works. Section 1201 provides: “No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.” Section 1203 allows a person injured by a violation of that provision to sue…
Continue ReadingFourth Circuit Affirms $42 Million Jury Verdict in Abu Ghraib Case
Editor’s Note: This article also appears in Just Security. Between October and December 2003, interrogators hired by CACI Premier Technology, Inc., along with members of the U.S. military, abused detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, subjecting them to sexual assault, forced nudity, dog threats and attacks, prolonged stress positions, and threats. In 2008, some…
Continue ReadingDistrict Court Grants Air Senegal Motion to Stay Parallel Suit
Sometimes you have to choose one court. In SASOF III (A2) Aviation Ireland DAC v. Air Senegal S.A., the plaintiffs, airline leasing companies, sued Air Senegal for non-payment of rent in Dakar, Senegal. Three months later, the plaintiffs filed a substantially similar suit in New York. On January 30, 2026, Magistrate Judge Stewart Aaron stayed…
Continue ReadingU.S. Copyright Transfer Termination Rights as a Choice-of-Law Problem
A transfer of copyright, such as an assignment of copyright or a license of copyright, is often executed with transnational scope. Business transactions in most types of copyrighted works are increasingly global, and it is not surprising that parties want to conduct transactions in copyright for multiple countries. Transfers of copyright, including those that arise…
Continue ReadingEnforcement of Arbitral Awards against Russia for Expropriation of Property in Crimea
The D.C. Circuit recently cleared the way for the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards against Russia for the expropriation of electricity and gas infrastructure in Crimea. Russia argued in the case, Stabil v. Russian Federation, that there was no jurisdiction because the arbitration exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) did not apply and…
Continue ReadingProduct Use Restrictions as a Bar to Personal Jurisdiction
Exploding lithium battery cases against Samsung SDI Company, a South Korean defendant, have raised interesting personal jurisdiction issues. Litigants have not always done a good job of advancing the strongest factual and legal arguments, as a recent decision from the Fifth Circuit, Ethridge v. Samsung, makes clear. The cases, including B.D. by & through Myers…
Continue ReadingA Narrow Interpretation of the FSIA’s Expropriation Exception
Introduction Three generations of the Herzog family have sought to recover some $100 million in artwork stolen by Hungarian government officials and Nazi collaborators during and following World War II. The looted works included pieces by the renowned artists El Greco, Renoir, and Monet. To the family’s disappointment, the Court of Appeals for the D.C….
Continue Reading“Waiving” the Hague Service Convention
Complying with the Hague Service Convention (HSC) is admittedly not always easy, quick, or even feasible. Not surprisingly, then, parties may want to work around the HSC through contractual language. John Coyle, Robin Effron, and I have previously explained how private parties can—and cannot—contract around the HSC. Unfortunately, the District of New Jersey (Judge Julian…
Continue ReadingEnforcing U.S. Judgments Against “Foreign” Assets of Foreign Sovereigns: a Rejoinder
On June 30, 2025, in Petersen Energia Inversora, S.A.U. v. Argentine Republic, a federal district court in New York ordered the Republic of Argentina to “(i) transfer its Class D shares of YPF to a global custody account at BNYM in New York within 14 days from the date of this order; and (ii) instruct…
Continue ReadingFifth Circuit Interprets Copyright Termination and Renewal Provisions to Apply Worldwide
In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has relied increasingly on the presumption against extraterritoriality to determine the geographic scope of federal statutes. This presumption seems particularly strong for intellectual property statutes. Most recently, the Court strictly applied the presumption against extraterritoriality to the Lanham Act (the federal trademark statute) in Abitron Austria GmbH v….
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