[genneth]

This is "law" from an European (EU) perspective. The foundations differ in English and US law. I've always thought it would be interesting to compare them in the same way computer scientists compare the design choices in different operating systems. At the top level the same outcomes are desirable, but the lower levels and choices of abstractions are different.

[Cheer2171]

The book covers both. I think you were too hasty to get this criticism posted to HN that you made an assumption about the book by its cover. The author is in the UK and this was published by Oxford, which are common law jurisdictions.

For example, I turned to a random part about copyright:

"In the continental European tradition, the focus has been on the author and the work. This understanding of ‘authors’ law’ built on the Age of Romanticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where the singularity of creative im- agination of an individual author took precedence over the mundane business interests of a publisher. The idea was that ‘authors’ law’ is part of ‘natural law’ rather than being ‘posited’ by a legislator (positive law). The ‘authors’ right’, in that line of thinking, is constituted by the original act of creation of the author and should not be tied to formalities (such as registration), while the ‘work’ that is created belongs to the ‘author’s domain’. This is a matter of per- sonality rights (droit moral or moral right), rather than a matter of ownership (as Locke would have it).

In the common law that inspired the United Kingdom and the United States, the focus was not on the author and their work, but on the original and the copy. This was less a matter of personality and romantic imagination than a matter of pragmatism. Copyright was simply a choice made by a legislator (positive law), rather than a natural right inherent in the author’s act of cre- ation. This led to the requirement of registration and an emphasis on copy- right as an economic, not a moral right. Here, copyright law is about the domain of the ‘work’ rather than the domain of the ‘author’, and such work is considered original in the sense of not being copied, rather than original in the sense of being creative or novel"

[freejazz]

What does that have to do with actual US copyright jurisprudence?

[johndhi]

It's really hard to compare them. Just like it's hard to compare one country to another. So many factors.

[johndhi]

The common way people think about common law versus civil law is this:

-common law depends more on courts to make and refine legal decisions -civil law relies more on regulators.

In civil law countries it's more common for the statutes (governing text) to be longer and go into great detail. In common law countries you see some extremely short laws - like the Sherman act in US Antitrust law is like 2 sentences long.

That's the common understanding. These days though both EU and US are converging a bit in their approach.

[no_wizard]

I do take your point, but the Sherman anti trust act is roughly a page to two pages long[0]

Only wanted to provide an accurate take, your overall point I agree with though

[0]: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-3055/pdf/COMPS-305...

[johndhi]

Thanks for the fact check. I'm writing on my phone so I can't do this justice, but the operative wording of the Sherman Act (or its followup the Clayton Act) is something like: "unfair restraint on trade is unlawful," or something like that. That's the one to two sentences I'm referring to. My point is that it's extremely limited phrasing. In the 100 years it has been in place there have been thousands or court decisions explaining what it means - and refining and defining what that sentence means in the US legal system.

If the act itself is only 2 pages that is a marvel, though. Usually they spend at least ten explaining why they are passing a law and who they are.

[analog31]

I wonder if this explains the propensity for lawsuits in the US. It's basically our regulation and enforcement mechanism.

[johndhi]

Exactly. Yes. That's the idea.

The US legal system relies more on "ex post" legal enforcement - meaning, if you break the law then you get busted and you personally pay the victim. Europe is a more "ex ante" system - they rely on regulators to strictly define what the law should look like exactly and actually requires industry to do very specific things to comply with it. If someone gets hurt the system compensates them from a fund. The person who hurt them doesn't necessarily pay.

That's the theoretical underpinning and difference in our systems. But like I said the systems have a bit of both these days. Eu is flirting with more class actions, and US has more regulatory scrutiny in certain sectors, like California privacy laws for example being very detailed.

[eru]

UK doesn't seem to have quite as much suing as the US? And they also have a common law system.

In contrast, German military procurement is famous for its endless lawsuits.

[johndhi]

One different with UK is they use the 'English Rule' of fee-shifting. In English civil lawsuits, the losing party has to pay the attorneys fees of the other party.

In the US, there's basically no downside of suing someone if you can keep your own costs down.

[t8sr]

I'm not sure why you feel the need to double-quote that. At any rate, the book seems to cover UK law, and in fact is published at Oxford?

[pclmulqdq]

I'm not sure why you're attracting downvotes for correctly stating that the way law works in the UK is very different than the way it works in continental Europe. The UK is a common law country, like the US, while many EU nations use civil law systems.

The basic mechanisms of UK law are more similar to US law than to French law. The actual laws on the books are probably the other way around, though.