Where is the line between civil and criminal breach of copyright? My understanding is that acts can be a breach of copyright and can result in being held liable in civil courts (a civil wrong?) without being criminal and result in being found guilty in criminal court (a crime?). The BBC is reporting that the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) said on Tuesday that sharing passwords for online streaming services such as Netflix broke copyright law, and the IPO told the BBC it was both a criminal and civil matter. What features of an act would be considered in determining if an act was criminal, as opposed to being purely a civil matter?
united-states In US copyright law, criminal copyright infringement is defined by 17 USC 506(1), which reads: In general.—Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed— (A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain; (B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or (C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution. Note that there is a financial floor in subsection (B), that the infringing copies must have a retail value of $1,000 or more. However, my understanding is that, as a matter of policy and not law, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) only brings charges of criminal copyright infringement where the infringement is both extensive and lasting, in effect there the accused has made infringement a business. I am fairly sure that password sharing itself would not be copyright infringement under US law, but might well be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). But using a shared password to access protected content without authorization might be infringement, if a copy of the content is made. Sharing a password knowing that it will be so used is probably a violation of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, which has been incorporated into Title 17, the US copyright law. But that normally leads to civil liability.
Yet I publicly wear shirts with copyrighted designs all the time. I'm unclear about this; do you mean T-shirts you have made yourself using copyrighted images or T-shirts you have bought? If the former then it is a prima facie breach and you could be sued by the copyright holder. You would probably not be as it would be impracticable. If the latter then there are 2 possibilities: The manufacturer/distributer/retailer chain all hold valid licences to put the image on a T-shirt and display it in the usual way so there is no breach involved. The manufacturer/distributer/retailer chain does not hold a valid licence in which case there is a breach and the copyright holder would target, say Wall-Mart rather than you. what about displaying ... works of art in my yard? Notwithstanding that it can be viewed from a public space, your yard is not public; therefore this is not public display.
A contract that tells one party or another to do an illegal thing is void ab initio: courts will not recognize it or give force to it. A contract which doesnt explicitly tell either party to do something illegal but if during the course of fulfilling either party's end of the bargain they commit an illegal act it is up to the courts discretion what happens, whether to find the contract void or to maintain the contract (its a matter of public policy whether they allow the contract to continue existing, or if the contract was such that illegal acts were expected to be commited then the court will likely remder it void) Either way, you cannot indemnify someone for committing an illegal act.
To answer the last part of the question: Jurisdiction would be where the copied media is being producted and where it is being consumed/sold. Moving media from one jurisdiction with ineffectual protections to another jurisdiction is part of product piracy. The scheme you suggest might shield the company producing the counterfeit goods, leaving the importers holding the bag. If the importers and manufacturers are controlled by the same person, courts in jurisdictions with strong protection might hold that person liable for the whole criminal enterprise. There is a widespread assumption that the internet is 'beyond national laws.' That is wrong. Enforcement may be difficult in some cases, but the laws apply. If you try to make profits by skirting the edges of law, you need really good, really professional legal advice.
Quoting content may or may not constitute copyright infringement, depending on the various factors that go into the fair use defense. Short quotes which are made for the purpose of discussion, research and commentary and not for copy would be squarely in the domain of "fair use" under US law. That means that the copyright owner would not succeed in suing you for quoting them: under the statutory mechanism for recognizing his right to his intellectual product, there is a limit on how much control he can exert over your behavior (since the two of you have not worked out some kind of agreement -- copyright law creates rights even when there is no contract). As for Facebook, you have a contract with them, embodied in the terms of service. You have been given permission to access material that they host (permission is required, under copyright law), and their permission is conditional. It says "you may access stuff on our platform only as long as you do X": if that includes a clause "don't be nasty", then that limits your right to speak freely and be as nasty as you'd like. If it says "don't quote even a little", that means you cannot quote even a little, even when you would have the statutory right to quote a little (or, to be nasty). Fair use would mean that you can't be sued for copyright infringement of the stuff that you quoted a little of. You can, however, be expelled from Facebook. You probably cannot be sued for "accessing Facebook without permission". There is a federal law against unauthorized access of computer networks, and there was a failed attempt to construe violation of a TOS as "unauthorized access" – it isn't. But accessing Facebook necessarily involves copying (that's how computers work), and there is no "fair use" defense whereby everybody has a fair use right to access Facebook. Theoretically you could be sued for copyright infringement, for accessing Facebook's intellectual property without permission. Also, Facebook can rescind your permission to access their content (see this case), and once you have been banned, it is a crime to further access their network. This assumes that there is no overriding limit on contracts that would nullify a no-quoting condition. There is no such limit on contracts in the US, so such a contract would be enforceable. There is also nothing illegal (unenforceable) about a TOS which prohibits automated methods of access.
If you have sufficient grounds to fear that someone is about to infringe on one of your rights, you can go to court to obtain an injunction against that person. This is a court order to refrain from some particular action. In many cases, the point of this is just to have the legal debate on whether the anticipated action is actually legal or not before it happens rather than after. However, the punishment for violating the injunction is set by the relevant judge based on how important it is to dissuade the target from actually doing the thing, and how extensive the punishment needs to be in order to achieve this. After a few rounds of your guy doing the copyright infringement, getting an injunction against him doing it again should be quite straight-forward. And if he violates that, it would be reasonable to ask for a significantly higher fine next time, and then more, and more. Injunctions could also involve preparatory actions, eg prohibit the guy to even approach a computer, if this is deemed necessary to prevent reoffending.
A legal measure that can protect you is called a contract. See What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid? A formal contract will codify that you own the IP, they are working for hire, they are not to use or share the code with anyone else, etc., and will outline the penalties under international and Pakistani law. But good luck enforcing your copyright or suing for damages if they do take your code for their own. See Copyright law of Pakistan - Wikipedia.
In general, you cannot contract to do anything illegal. However, ... An argument could be made that permission has been granted to, for example, enter property and remove the item. If permission has been granted, entering property and taking an item is not a crime.