CHOICE OF LAW

Hi Jeff,

Apologies for the request, seemed important, seemed like you're the agent.

*BACKGROUND*
I came-across an issue about posting information i sourced from news, about
a patent lodged by a US company, and in-turn, unwittingly, a thread
developed which i feel was rather unfortunate.  Apparently US law has an
array of legal circumstance around providing links to US patents, that are
bad for US innovators.

Whilst i am not fully-aware of the circumstances, locals have not suggested
that the same rules apply.  Therein, by addressing the circumstances for a
particular jurisdiction, the implication is that this rule may apply to all
jurisdictions - as such - why not choose a global rule of law - say -
Californian 'choice of law'.


Underlying the experience was one of the reality that US law is different
to the 'rule of law' in other lands. Therein, participants may unwittingly
act in a manner that is not in accordance with the rules of USA and
therefore pose a threat, not simply due to an unreasonable circumstance,
but rather, due to disparity between systems of law and the means in which
sociological, legal or 'webizen' / 'web-science' concepts are considered on
a global basis.

I assume we all believe in the rule of law of all countries and/or their
jurisdictions for the purposes of developing global standards for our
global communications methods. One of the possible alternatives is that
this is not the case, and in-fact the rule of 'internet law' is ideally 'US
Centric', if related to standards (therein, Californian law appears to be
the pre-eminent choice).

Yet if this is the case, the means in which the decision has been made, may
be likened to 'licensing' 'english' with different words to different
regions due to political circumstance, a situation we have evolved from,
many years before internet. thankfully, 'american' vs. 'Australian' is
in-part differentiated by it's z's, without criminal conviction.

Does an underlying issue exist about whether we're able to work
collaboratively towards global standards, due to sovereignty related
issues? if so, given the field of study, and capability surrounding RDF,
why does a circumstance in which participation seemingly pursuant to the
rule of law of one jurisdiction, be deemed threatening to another, when the
objective is to globally collaborate towards a particular global standard,
that ideally, does not prefer any particular jurisdiction... particularly
where, we're all trying to 'connect' the rest of humanity...

I am Australian.  Not necessarily forever, yet, AU is an unavoidable part
of my heritage.

Should we all move to California in-order to participate wholly in the
world of groups such as RWW, Credentials and others...

How should W3C groups consider the role of democracies around the world,
whilst coordinating the development of global standards for the digital
equivalent of 'english' ("http") and are we developing global standards? or
american standards?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPBX47zSktc  comes to mind...

I hope that's an unfortunate situation... W3C seems to be an unincorporated
organisation, seeking to support global communications systems - not US
communications systems globally...

Please advise.

Tim.