To whom do import laws apply? Let's assume in Country A the import of certain digital goods is restricted as with the Wassenaar arrangement. A person hosts such software on his server and has an export license. Another person downloads these digital goods in Country A. Who has broken the law; the server host or the other person who did the download? Is it ok for the host to specify that it cannot be imported to that Country A?
Import laws apply to the one who imports. In your scenario that is the person in country A only. The server owner does not cause the digital content to be transmitted to A. The one who downloads does.
The answer to this question would also heavily depend on which country the transaction is occurring. Supreme court of South Korea ruled in July 2009 that exchanging virtual currency for real world currency is legal, even though doing so was against the game's terms of service. Consequently, players cannot be held legally liable for trading their virtual currency into real money if the game is being serviced in South Korea. This however, does not mean the company cannot suspend your account for doing so. Likely, other countries have different laws about this type of transaction, which you should look into. Source: Official ruling of the case (in Korean)
In the US, there are provisions of criminal law especially 18 USC 2320 which make selling counterfeit goods a crime. Counterfeit goods are subject to forfeiture to the US government. However, this requires a formal legal determination that the goods are counterfeit, and no provision of the law excuses a seller for illegally seizing property that they hold in trust for a party. There might be a contractual provision that allows this, e.g. &quot;at our sole determination we may deem property to be counterfeit and will destroy it, without compensation&quot;. In that case especially with online services, it matters what the &quot;contract&quot; says. It is not sufficient to say &quot;It's somewhere on the web page&quot;. Generally there is an &quot;I agree&quot; button that links to a document: and that document may refer to other documents such as &quot;Community standards&quot;. So if the restriction is in the agreement or in a document referred to by the agreement, then it would be legal. The assumption is that the party agreeing to the terms reads &quot;the agreement&quot;, and also reads or understands any terms mentioned in &quot;the agreement&quot; (they become part of the agreement).
It's not clear exactly what you're asking, when you say "the company I work for" – i.e. are you asking "can they fire me?" (almost certainly they can, even if their TOS thinking is legally misguided – unless in your country there are laws that prevent firing employees). To be certain, you need to hire an attorney who is sufficiently savvy about web page technology that they can accurately judge what you are doing, and whether you can fruitfully resist their demands. You seem to be skeptical of their position because you are "not affecting their servers in any way". The TOS is not about affecting their servers, it is about affecting their intellectual property. It appears that your code does a number of the prohibited actions such as and perhaps most importantly "modify". If you have distributed a program that allows users to modify company content on their own computers, then the user might be in violation of the TOS, but not you (since you're not running a server that redistributes). However, I am betting that in order to create and test the program you had to violate the TOS. Additionally, you could be vicariously liable for the infringements of others, especially if this program can only be used to infringe on copyright, and you know this fact. That is pretty much the end of the legal part. As for how you should respond, your attorney, and not Law SE, deals in recommendations.
You can't, in general, know whether a distributor of a work has permission to distribute, or is a pirate site. I verified that they have posted an illegal copy of a work that I created, and I know that I did not grant permission to them (or anyone) to infringe my copyright. Both hosting and downloading works without permission is a violation of copyright law, so both parties are liable. Downloaders may erroneously rely on the "I didn't know!" defense, which in the US carries no legal weight. Even so, if you download my book, it will probably cost me vastly more to sue you for infringement than the damages that I might be awarded over your infringement. Usually, copyright holders go after the pirate sites, and only rarely go after particularly egregious serial downloaders.
A simple EULA does not absolve you from legal responsibility. The law that you need to be acquainted with, if you are dealing with the US (i.e. might be sued in the US), is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, in particular Title II, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act which states the "safe harbor" provisions. Aspects of DMCA safe harbor are covered in many Law SE questions. In essence, you have to provide a way for rights holders to complain that someone has infringed their copyright on there site, and you have to take down allegedly infringing material: and there are a number of legal formalities to attend to in doing this. The main point is that you can't just ignore the problem and hope it goes away, and you can't just say it is not your responsibility, which is what a simple EULA does. To be protected, you need a "designated agent" where complainers can contact you. You provide the information online (as well as stating the DMCA policy, which can be in the EULA), and also register that information with the Copyright office (online). The complaint has to be in writing, and most of the burden is on the author of the complaint, but you still have to be sure that the complaint is legally conforming. The complaint has to say what was infringed (e.g. the URL), the identity of the protected content (title of the book, for instance), and provide the complainer's signature and contact information. It also requires the complainer to say that they have a good faith belief that the material is illegally copied (no permission, and not otherwise allowed by law), and a perjury statement that the foregoing is accurate and authorized by the copyright holder. When you have a conforming notice, you must "expeditiously" remove / disable the infringing material (there is no definition of "expeditious"), notify the user, then wait for a proper counter-claim (same general form as the take-down claim but where the user denies the posting the material was illegal. If you get a counter-claim, you notify the alleged copyright owner and wait for them to file suit in 10 days. If they don't do that, you restore the material. Here is a sample complaint, and a sample counter notice. Also, this document (look for the download tab) reorganizes the legal language so that requirements are put in logical order and not randomly scattered throughout the US Code.
Yes. In the United Kingdom it is illegal under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. In other jurisdictions there may not be a law directly aimed at computer crime but if you sell it knowing that a crime is going to be committed with it that makes you an accomplice. Most computer crime is prosecuted under laws not directly aimed at computer misuse.
According to the information I was able to find, every zone, country, or even states, have their own taxation rules for sales made there. Correct. Well, in no way it's possible that small companies or individuals that sell products internationally deal with tax rules for each buyer, that would be a non-sense, and paying such taxes worldwide would be a nightmare not worth having a small business at all. You are required to comply with the law. If it is complicated, or difficult or expensive to do so then, it's complicated, difficult and expensive and you still have to do it. The answer is obvious: if it's not worth having a small business, don't have a small business. The main question, if someone buys a license from my web-site, is it considered a sale in the buyer's country/state which requires me to collect and pay some remote tax, or it's a purchase in my country/state which requires me to collect HST from that buyer? It depends on the law in both Canada and the destination country. In most cases, the sale will be an export sale from Canada (GST/HST exempt) and an import sale in the destination country - requiring you to comply with GST/HST obligations there. Another question is regarding invoices, I know that Canada requires certain information to be included into an invoice for sales in Canada. If my sales will be considered sales in a buyer's Country with some other rules, does it mean I have to manage tons of invoice templates? Yes. Let's say if my sales in UE exceed 30K EUR it looks like I need to register and pay VAT there. But what if I have less? Then you don't need to register and remit tax. Nor are you allowed to collect it from your customers. By the way, I have no idea what country in the Eurozone goes by the initials UE. In most jurisdictions, you need to register either when you reach the threshold in fact or reasonably expect to reach the threshold. Also in most, you can usually register even if you are below the threshold. For example, these are the rules for Australia. Anyone, please advice. Hire an accountant versed in international digital services. They will be able to give you the advice you need. They will also be able to recommend sales/payment platforms that can handle most of this for you (for a fee, of course).