Protecting State Secrets Through Copyright

An anonymous reader writes "The United States has pursued Bradley Manning with full force for his role in supplying classified documents to WikiLeaks, in part because of the substantial difficulty in going after the organization directly. Criminal statutes generally deployed against those who leak classified government documents — such as the Espionage Act of 1917 — are ill-equipped to prosecute third-party international distribution organizations like WikiLeaks. One potential tool that could be used to prosecute WikiLeaks is copyright law. The use of copyright law in this context has rarely been mentioned, and when it has, the approach has been largely derided by experts, who decry it as contrary to the purposes of copyright. But a paper just published in the Stanford Journal of International Law describes one novel way the U.S. could use copyright to go after WikiLeaks and similar leaking organizations directly--by bringing suit in foreign jurisdictions."

Been done.

[SuricouRaven]

The Church of Scientology started using this method years ago. It's worked exactly as well as any other means to prevent the dissemination of secrets on the internet.

Re:Public domain?

[buchner.johannes]

This Note will explore these difficulties, such as the government works issue, potential fair use or fair dealing defenses, as well as various non-legal obstacles to success, eventually reaching the conclusion that prosecuting WikiLeaks internationally for copyright violations is potentially more viable than any of the methods of criminal prosecution heretofore explored publicly by government attorneys and legal scholars.

Or, you can just not bring the case to court and hold people indefinitely without prosecution for several years. Then they don't have anything to defend against. A debtors' prison if you will.

Public Domain - RTFA

[Mattwolf7]

If you would download the article, there is an entire section addressing how the US Copyright Act actually addresses this issue:

"The prohibition on copyright protection for United States Government works is not intended to have any effect on protection of these works abroad. Works of the governments of most other countries are copyrighted. There are no valid policy reasons for denying such protection to United States Government works in foreign countries, or for precluding the Government from making licenses for the use of its works abroad."

Do you guys actually think this article would have been published in a legal journal missing such an obvious question?

Re:Public domain?

[the eric conspiracy]

This article is speculative; the US has not actually brought a copyright suit.

If it were to be brought it would happen in Sweden where copyright suits are difficult (as the article points out).

Re:That's just great

[harvey the nerd]

America needs to have Constitutional law reign in the abuse of political, economic and military power of the malignancy sprouting from Washington DC.