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It's the UK. Surely having a TrueCrypt partition is a slam-dunk jail sentence under http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/49

After all they can keep asking for the key to the hidden partition they "know" is there and when you refuse to provide them (because there is no hidden partition) you get 2 years in jail (5 if they can make it look terrorism related)...

I would respond to that with "The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999"
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/2083/schedule/2/made
SCHEDULE 2
INDICATIVE AND NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF TERMS WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS UNFAIR
[...]
(c)making an agreement binding on the consumer whereas provision of services by the seller or supplier is subject to a condition whose realisation depends on his own will alone;

(d)permitting the seller or supplier to retain sums paid by the consumer where the latter decides not to conclude or perform the contract, without providing for the consumer to receive compensation of an equivalent amount from the seller or supplier where the latter is the party cancelling the contract;

About FOIA... I thought it was American legislation, but this is definitely a UK city. Is it called the same thing across the pond?

It is not a stupid question. In fact it is the most serious post here that I have read. The UK has the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In my own country of Australia we have the Freedom of Information act 1982. There are plenty of other countries that have something similar.

And this has been an entirely frivolous and annoying use the act.

Didn't know the federal law had jurisdiction in the UK.

That didn't stop your Parliament from enacting its own counterpart to this legislation in 2003, as section 296ZG of British copyright law.

Quoting a parliamentarian puts you in the clear under English case law. Quoting anything or anybody else does not.

Only if you're accurately quoting from Parliamentary proceedings or debates, and can prove you're doing so "in good faith" and "without malice".

Also, it's not case law, it's from the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840, which was passed after Hansard was successfully sued for something.

Why not have broad laws that cover these things that allow for opt-in (not opt-out) so we can stop hearing about this nonsense. It's the function of the government to define the rules of the game... where's my government!

Like the data protection act? (A somewhat more understandable version).It's not quite what you're talking about, but it's close.

Intercepted - British English (eg http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/56 )
Wiretapping - American English

As others have pointed out, this is pretty much rubbish. If you look in the actual law itself (which you helpfully linked but didn't actually reference), you see this isn't really the case. The only exemption that comes close is s29 which states:

(1) - Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for the purposes of research for a non-commercial purpose does not infringe any copyright in the work provided that it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement.

(1C) - Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for the purposes of private study does not infringe any copyright in the work.

Firstly, this is not personal use. This is either for non-commercial research, or for academic study. Secondly, "fair dealing" is not the same as the US-style "fair use"; i.e. permitting any copying within this case. There is no definition of fair dealing (anywhere in law), and it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis, but the cases on fair dealing in the other sense (for criticism, reporting and review) seem to require quite a high public interest test. Basically the defence (in that case) seems to exist only to allow some scope for freedom of expression.

The other exemption that might be worth noting is s50A

(1) - It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to make any back up copy of it which it is necessary for him to have for the purposes of his lawful use.

but this only refers to computer programs, and making a copy must be for backing up only, and must be necessary.

As others have pointed out, this is pretty much rubbish. If you look in the actual law itself (which you helpfully linked but didn't actually reference), you see this isn't really the case. The only exemption that comes close is s29 which states:

(1) - Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for the purposes of research for a non-commercial purpose does not infringe any copyright in the work provided that it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement.

(1C) - Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for the purposes of private study does not infringe any copyright in the work.

Firstly, this is not personal use. This is either for non-commercial research, or for academic study. Secondly, "fair dealing" is not the same as the US-style "fair use"; i.e. permitting any copying within this case. There is no definition of fair dealing (anywhere in law), and it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis, but the cases on fair dealing in the other sense (for criticism, reporting and review) seem to require quite a high public interest test. Basically the defence (in that case) seems to exist only to allow some scope for freedom of expression.

The other exemption that might be worth noting is s50A

(1) - It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to make any back up copy of it which it is necessary for him to have for the purposes of his lawful use.

but this only refers to computer programs, and making a copy must be for backing up only, and must be necessary.

Yes we do. It is called "fair dealing".

It is perfectly legal to make a copy if you own the master copy.

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Or a quick factsheet http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

Acts that are allowed

Fair dealing is a term used to describe acts which are permitted to a certain degree without infringing the work, these acts are:

        Private and research study purposes.
        Performance, copies or lending for educational purposes.
        Criticism and news reporting.
        Incidental inclusion.
        Copies and lending by librarians.
        Acts for the purposes of royal commissions, statutory enquiries, judicial proceedings and parliamentary purposes.
        Recording of broadcasts for the purposes of listening to or viewing at a more convenient time, this is known as "time shifting".
        Producing a back up copy for personal use of a computer program.
        Playing sound recording for a non profit making organisation, club or society.

        (Profit making organisations and individuals should obtain a license from PRS for Music.)

A court before which an organisation is convicted of corporate manslaughter or corporate homicide may make an order (a “remedial order”) requiring the organisation to take specified steps to remedy—

(a)the breach mentioned in section 1(1) (“the relevant breach”);
(b)any matter that appears to the court to have resulted from the relevant breach and to have been a cause of the death;
(c)any deficiency, as regards health and safety matters, in the organisation's policies, systems or practices of which the relevant breach appears to the court to be an indication.

There is however no personal responsibility assigned i.e. the employees aren't found guilty of aiding or abetting.

Here in the UK, the Supreme Court may be about to redefine the creative threshold. Unfortunately, publishing information intended to enable or assist persons to remove or circumvent [a] technical device gives the copyright holder the same remedies as infringing their copyright would. So you can't publish it anyway.

The holders of Linux copyrights (i.e. anyone who's contributed to the kernel) should start some hardcore enforcement.

As a rights holder, UK copyright law entitles you or your agent to seize unlicensed goods offered for sale without any kind of warrant provided you notify the police first. (It's the use/abuse of similar rights that makes the BSA so feared.) If you know that a particular brand of router, say, isn't complying with the GPL, let the police know, head down to PC World and confiscate the stock.

IANAL. But I was a professional press photographer - freelance and therefore well read of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents which was formulated in 1988 to keep the UK in line with European copyright laws.
The principle elements of this legislation are those that apply in the European Union and The Netherlands are part of that.
You can get an idea of what to charge them buy having a look at the London Freelance NUJ chapel site, which of course is not a church, http://www.londonfreelance.org/feesguide/index.php?section=Photography&subsect=Books.
You need to identify either the picture editor of the publication that used your pix (or the secretary to this person). If you can't find it on the internet, just phone them up and ask. Send the invoice directly to them. You can include a cover letter if you wish stating that you have enclosed the invoice for the use of the image with details of where and when. That's all a pro would do - because they are always TFB.
In your invoice you should identify the use of the image - Title, edition, date page number and with the price of your "reproduction fee". A legitimate newspaper will always pay because they know the law better than anyone. They know they would lose a court case, it would cost a lot of money and their unions wouldn't be to pleased with them either.
Oh and they are not stupid , they are unlikely to pay more than the going rate for a similar snap from Corbus.

A girlfriend once pointed out to me that A Certain UK Student Organisation had used one of my photographs without permission and had added the cross hairs of snipers rifle on to it. This modification is also protected against specifically, so I billed them 500 GBP for the use and another 500 for modifying the picture. Cheques arrived in three days.

The case is fair enough - it is the reporting that is rubbish. Which isn't really surprising; journalists tend to ignore the details when anything legal happens.

From what I can tell, he pleaded guilty to 4 charges under the CMA 1990; and 1 under the Proceeds of Crime Act (2003?).

I would imagine he was charged under section 1 CMA which makes it an offence to cause "a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer" provided that one knows "the access he intends to secure ... is unauthorised". I think it is quite clear he did this (if the facts are to be believed). There is no requirement under s.1 that he intends to do anything illegal once he has gained access, the unauthorised access is enough. I wouldn't be surprised if he was also charged with something under s.2.

Sadly I know very little about the Proceeds of Crime Acts, but I imagine there is an offence in one of them to profit from a crime; i.e. by then selling the imaginary chips he broke that law (possibly somewhere in Part 7 of the PCA 2003).

Either way, there wasn't any "theft" or "stealing". That requires property; and imaginary chips don't seem to count as property. Of course, the CMA has greater punishments available anyway...

The article's headline is "FBI Executes 40 Search Warrants" and neither the OP of this thread, nor any of the replies, specifically mentioned UK law.

Nevertheless, it is still a crime in the UK, and has been since 2006:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/48/part/5/crossheading/computer-misuse

For those interested, the relevant part is Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

"(1) A person is guilty of an offence if... (a) he does any unauthorised act in relation to a computer, (b) at the time when he does the act he knows that it is unauthorised; and..." he intends "(2)(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer;".

It doesn't need to be aimed at any particular data, computer etc. (4), "causing the acts to be done" is enough (5)(b) and the effects can be temporary (5)(c).

That sounds quite a bit like a DDoS attack to me (I am a law student, but not a real lawyer).

Oh, and if you plead guilty, you get at most 12 months in prison (6 months in Scotland - I guess because they don't have real computers up there). If you actually go to trial, that jumps up to 10 years. Bearing in mind that a jury system has at least an 83% uncertainty, it is actually better to plead guilty even if innocent.

Here in the UK, the RIPA already allows authorities to "compel" us to disclose our passwords and keys in what is basically judicial rubberhosing. I can see it coming to the US very soon.

In the UK (as with most of Europe) pedestrians always have right of way on a public road over wheeled vehicles.

You may well be correct about Europe but that's not strictly true in the UK. While the Highway Code makes provision for pedestrians, it is not criminal law but can be the basis for civil law. Section 38 of the Road Traffic Act 1988:

A failure on the part of a person to observe a provision of the Highway Code shall not of itself render that person liable to criminal proceedings of any kind but any such failure may in any proceedings (whether civil or criminal, and including proceedings for an offence under the Traffic Acts, the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 or sections 18 to 23 of the Transport Act 1985) be relied upon by any party to the proceedings as tending to establish or negative any liability which is in question in those proceedings.

IANAL but I think this confusion comes from rule 170 in the highway code:

Watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way.

The SNP administration stalls "seeking a referendum" because it knows it would lose any vote on an enabling bill in Parliament (because it's a minority, as you said), and (more importantly) they know that they don't have the power to bring such a bill forward, as it's outside the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament to enact legislation relating to independence (Scotland Act 1998, s 29(2)(b), and Schedule 5 para 1(b), and also Hansard, Lord Sewel at column 854)).

It is defined in the first section of the law:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/24/section/1

Meaning of 'Treasure'

(1)Treasure is—

(a)any object at least 300 years old when found which—

(i)is not a coin but has metallic content of which at least 10 per cent by weight is precious metal;

(ii)when found, is one of at least two coins in the same find which are at least 300 years old at that time and have that percentage of precious metal; or

(iii)when found, is one of at least ten coins in the same find which are at least 300 years old at that time;

(b)any object at least 200 years old when found which belongs to a class designated under section 2(1);

(c)any object which would have been treasure trove if found before the commencement of section 4;

(d)any object which, when found, is part of the same find as—

(i)an object within paragraph (a), (b) or (c) found at the same time or earlier; or

(ii)an object found earlier which would be within paragraph (a) or (b) if it had been found at the same time.

(2)Treasure does not include objects which are—

(a)unworked natural objects, or

(b)minerals as extracted from a natural deposit,

or which belong to a class designated under section 2(2).

The object found was at least 300 years old and "(i)is not a coin but has metallic content of which at least 10 per cent by weight is precious metal;". Thus, it will likely fall under the definition found in the statute.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/24/contents

Whoops, here's the proper link. The other was just section 10 of the Treasure Act.

Under the British Treasure Act of 1996, such a find like this belongs to the Crown. However, the boy may be compensated as a reward by the Secretary of State.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/24/section/10

Section 4 of the Treasure Act

(1)When treasure is found, it vests, subject to prior interests and rights—

(a)in the franchisee, if there is one;

(b)otherwise, in the Crown.

The same law also makes it a criminal offence to lie on the internet or over the phone in order to wind someone up, or to be indecent or obscene. I guess all those sex phone lines are illegal. And any crude comments on facebook or twitter.

I'm not making this up, read it for yourself here.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

WiFi sniffing may be legal where you live but Google definitely sniffed WiFi in places where it is strictly illegal. For example, running open WiFi is strictly illegal in Finland. In the UK, use of WiFi is strictly illegal unless you are the "intended recipient" of the data under the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Section 1(3): http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/1

Section 1(6)(b) would allow a WiFi router to be used as a navigational beacon by end-users if the owner of the WiFi router has given "express or implied consent". However, you cannot consent to something if you don't know it exists.

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he--
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or

The biggest threat to democracy is wilfully uninformed voters.

Any person who sends to another person—
(a)a letter, electronic communication or article of any description] which conveys—
(i)a message which is indecent or grossly offensive;

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
(b)causes any such message or matter to be so sent.

TFA mentions that his messages included references to having sex with the mentioned corpses.

Any person who sends to another person—
(a)a letter, electronic communication or article of any description] which conveys—
(i)a message which is indecent or grossly offensive;

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
(b)causes any such message or matter to be so sent.

TFA mentions that his messages included references to having sex with the mentioned corpses.

A news item claims that English Heritage regrets the photo ban. They so no such thing. The confirm that:

"'If a commercial photographer enters the land within our care with the intention of taking a photograph of the monument for financial gain, we ask that they pay a fee and abide by certain conditions."

The law says otherwise.

"See this doesn't work in Britain because they made it a crime not to provide the password period. If you fail to provide it, regardless of the reason, that's illegal. It was a specific law made for passwords. So can't remember? You are boned."

This isn't really true. The police have to have reasonable grounds to believe you have the information to be able to issue a notice- this may for example be as simple as getting computer forensicists to provide evidence that the encrypted content has been accessed recently, and that it's unlikely anyone else had access to it- if the file was for example, stored in a private documents folder specific to the user in question. See the relevant legislation, under 49.2 here which clearly states that someone pushing for a disclosure notice must have reasonable grounds to believe that person has it (part a) of 49.2):

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/part/III/crossheading/power-to-require-disclosure

It's also worth pointing out to date, that those convicted of failing to adhere to a section 49 notice have all actively refused to hand the key over, rather than claiming they have forgotten it. Of those that have claimed they're not in possession of the key, to date the case has either not been pursued, or the person in question has been charged/convicted for other crimes. This is a common story when it comes to computer crimes- many supposed attempts to prosecute based on new laws, or new twists on old laws don't actually succeed- look at the failure to succesfully prosecute the Oink admin, look at the fact that to date, file sharing cases in the UK haven't succeded in UK courts (although one supposedly won by default due to defendant not showing according to ACS:Law, there is no evidence that this is even true). Ultimately the police have to depend on either scaring people into accepting fault- i.e. if they say they've forgotten the password, reminding them that if they are found to be lying it could lead to an increase in their sentence, or depend on the person being stupid enough to incriminate themselves, or alternatively, for them to simply get caught for other crimes. The police mostly rely on ensuring people are confused about what the law actually says in the hope of making them waver and admit guilt or at least incriminate themselves- by touting convictions like the one in TFA as evidence of how you should always hand your key over without a fight, or without playing innocent they strengthen that idea amongst the public as to that's how it works. It's worth noting that in the words of RIPA itself if you can either demonstrate somehow that the police do not have reasonable grounds to require access to encrypted content (perhaps by use of a witness who would testify that the contents of that file were personal, or trade secrets maybe?), or if you can argue succesfully that giving access to the content is disproportionate to the crime with which they're attempting to charge you with, then you can also escape RIPA's clutch.

In these respects, RIPA is quite similar to a search warrant- the police can only get one if they have reasonable evidence to suggest they have a need to enter the premises, and if it's proportionate to the crime they're investigating. The actual text of the legislation also seems to suggest that providing the content in an unencrypted form is an alternative to producing the key under the RIPA also.

"However if you look in to it you discover that while there's little case law, indeed it HAS been ruled that that the 5th prevents you from having to give up a password. As such that will probably stay, in general courts abide by the rulings of other courts of competent jurisdiction."

This is true, but it's also true that much like with RIPA, a defendant can be compelled by a court to provide access to encrypted content if not provide access to the key itself, in this respect US case precedence is basically similar

I don't think it has been tested much; the important part may be this, in section 53 (2):

...if it is shown that that person was in possession of a key to any protected information at any time before the time of the giving of the section 49 notice, that person shall be taken for the purposes of those proceedings to have continued to be in possession of that key at all subsequent times, unless it is shown that the key was not in his possession

It seems that the prosecution needs to prove he has or had the key, then he needs to prove he no longer does. I would hope that the methods the police use to gather evidence mean the evidence is tamper-proof; if not every case should collapse.

Anyway, the relevant section of the law is on this page, feel free to have a read through.

I guess insisting on your privacy is taboo now. Even if you're a good kid, if you refuse to let the police into your private files just on principle, you're boned.

... or if you refuse to let the police into your house, on principle, when they turn up with a warrant.

This isn't just a case of a police officer saying "ooh you have password-protected files, hand over the password or we won't let you go", this is the police going to a judge (etc.) during an investigation into that person and saying "we have seized this material as part of an investigation and have reasonable grounds to suspect this guy has the key and that the information is important to the investigation" (actually, the judge needs the "reasonable grounds", but you get the picture). I would imagine that both the initial order (if granted) and the trial for non-compliance can both be contested.

Reading the (very limited) articles, there is nothing here to indicate he did this "on principle". No statement from him about how it is a stupid law, no obvious attempt to get privacy groups (PI, ORG, even PPUK) involved, no signs that this is anything other than someone deciding that six months in prison and a criminal record is less than what he would get if the information was made available.

Of course, I don't know if he contested the charges etc. but anyway; RIPA Part III is a tricky piece of legislation; it seems to be an attempt to apply the idea of a warrant to technology, whether or not successfully. Like a lot of other New Labour laws, it seems to depend entirely on how sensible those applying it are - which given things like this, makes me very glad that judges are involved, not just the police and the CPS....

(1)A person aged 18 or over (A) commits an offence if—
(a)he intentionally touches another person (B),
(b)the touching is sexual, and
(c)either—

(i)B is under 16 and A does not reasonably believe that B is 16 or over, or
(ii)B is under 13.

Of course, you may just be from the UK, where you have the options to state that acts of the government's definition of terror are wrong or to risk up to 7 years in prison.

Remember, kids, driving opinions underground is a great way of preventing angry words from turning into action.

Yes. Data Protection Act 1988, section 13:

(1)An individual who suffers damage by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this Act[1] is entitled to compensation from the data controller for that damage.

[1]: this would include the requirements (a) not to disclose the data to third parties without authorisation, and (b) to take reasonable steps to ensure the data is secure.

Now this is what I don't get. The Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 is the UK's implementation of the EU Copyright Directive and therefore our equivalent of the DMCA. It refers to 'effective technological measures', which I'm assuming is an attempt to deal with situations such as the one you are describing.

But isn't an encryption system that has been cracked, by definition, ineffective?

Does anybody know if any prosecutions have ever been made in the UK based on the anti-circumvention part of these regulations?

The act was passed in the last parliament. Section 15 gives the secretary of state power to determine how the costs are split. And he's taking 25% from the ISPs.

Labour passed the act and the Conservative/LibDem coalition is implementing it. That's all the major parties with a hand in this.

Or see the full list of shame.

The obvious solution to this would be for libraries to stop giving out library cards and start giving out eBook Readers. Give it a couple of years and one would imagine that you could get a very basic eBook Reader for about £50. Obviously you'd want to make it optional, and possibly giving it to those who couldn't afford one otherwise - I'm thinking pensioners etc. (who maybe have trouble reading the small print in books/turning pages anyway) and that sort of thing...

Of course, the stuff would legally be required to be covered in DRM ... It seems to me that this move has happened in the UK because of Section 43 of the Digital Economy Act 2010, which changed the definition of a "book" in the Public Lending Right Act 1979 to include

a work, other than an audio-book, recorded in electronic form and consisting mainly of (or of any combination of) written or spoken words or still pictures (an “e-book”).

Unfortunately, it also amends the definition of "lent out" to being for a "limited time", so that's your DRM requirement, and it specifies that lending "does not include being communicated by means of electronic transmission to a place other than library premises" - so no renting eBooks directly from your library website either.

Still, Sony DRM aside, it is nice to see some potentially-good things coming from the DEA...

The royal family is a 'family' and no control can be exerted over them - they marry whomever they marry...

... unless of course they marry a Catholic or an American divorcee, in which cases they lose their claim to the throne...

Yes, here it is. It passed in july.