Actually, as a matter of private international law, that's not necessarily true. You refer to the common assumption of laypeople that the only applicable law is that of the country where the server is located. This is often, though not always, incorrect. For example, a United States plaintiff could plead an infringement of United States copyright under the United States Copyright Act. If an exclusive right has been exercised within the territorial scope of that Act (eg, by unauthorised distribution or reproduction within the USA), there will, subject to any applicable defences, be actionable copyright in a United States forum having appropriate jurisdiction. The 'but it's legal where I come from' argument is not a defence -- it's a procedural argument appealing to a choice of law rule that would see the lex causae, rather than the lex situs, applied. While this might get up in a tort or contract case, it is almost certainly going to be rejected in an immovable property case (eg, intellectual property rights such as copyright). So, in short, the law of the server country is irrelevant unless the private international law of the forum where the action is brought actually determines that foreign law applies to the action, and that law is pleaded and proved by the plaintiff. For practical purposes, this is almost impossible, as foreign copyright cannot be enforced extraterritorially in the USA/UK/Australia/NZ/Singapore/Canada.