Re: question about Governing Law

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com>]

John Cox is such an expert (as well as a lawyer) that I hesitate to
disagree but if I was advising a small publisher I would go for the
"silent" approach rather than committing myself to an alien jurisdiction.
In practice of course how often do disagreements over licenses of this
type actually get to the law courts? Does anyone have any experiences of
cases?

Anthony

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cox" <John.E.Cox@btinternet.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 3:28 AM
Subject: RE: question about Governing Law

> Like most of these standard provisions, the "governing law" or
> jurisdiction clause is important where things go wrong.  If an agreement
> does not specify the jurisdiction in which a case is to be heard and the
> law by which the agreement is to be interpreted, there will be a
> preliminary hearing to decide which jurisdiction applies to the dispute.
> There is a complex set of rules under Private International Law that is
> brought to bear.  So omitting the jurisdiction clause introduces a new -
> and very costly - layer of legal hearings before the substantive case
> gets to court.
>
> At a more mundane level, jurisdiction is important so that both parties
> know which rules to apply - e.g. fair use under copyright law.
>
> Most publishers will accept the jurisdiction of the customer.  But
> insisting on omitting a jurisdiction clause is deeply stupid!  The only
> publishers that cannot accept any individual national or state
> jurisdiction are international organizations established by treaty -
> e.g. UN, OECD.  In those cases, ask for an arbitration clause.
>
> John Cox
>
> Managing Director
> John Cox Associates Ltd
> United Kingdom
> Tel: +44 (0) 1327 860949
> Fax: +44 (0) 1327 861184
> E-mail: John.E.Cox@btinternet.com
> Web: www.johncoxassociates.com