When the topic said "Mouse-Tronaughts" I thought that they've found a way to shrink humans and send them on the wonderful journey up a mouse's rectum.
As in the word astro-naut (note the spelling as well people!) the "astro" bit means space and refers to where the "naut" is going. Thus by similar reasoning, "mouse-tronauts" would be referring to a person that goes into a mouse.
When can we expect to have the first mouse gall stone landing? (Fully televised of course)
I thought I might just inform readers that the Australian position on copyright in a compilation of facts is that it is protectable subject matter as long as effort was expended in its compilation or there is some sense of order in the compilation. I think this is an important point for this discussion because no other Common Law country has a similar position to Australia.
The decision was handed down in the Federal Court decision of Telstra v Desktop Marketing and upheld on appeal in the Full Court of the Federal Court here. It was found in that case that the phone company Telstra had exclusive rights to its compilation of the White Pages residential telephone directories. The US case of Feist was mentioned but not followed and the UK case of Hotten was distinguished.
I personally think that it is, on the one hand, ridiculous that people should get people can get copyright for compiling facts, but on the other hand, sensible considering that copyright protects the expression of the ideas or facts rather than the ideas or facts itself (ie protectable if the way in which the facts are expressed is original).
I would like to point out that although authorisation of illegal copying is general regarded as a breach of Copyright in Australia, there are plenty of exceptions to this rule.
The exception of most interest here was introduced by the Digital Agenda copyright reforms in 2000. They are sections 39B (for works) and 112E (for subject matter other than works) of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). These sections preclude from the infringement by authorisation provisions anyone who provides a communication service.
The purpose of the introduction of these sections was precisely to prevent the big record labels going after ISPs for something which, as pointed out before, they legally have no control over (due to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)).
I personally cannot see how such litigation can be successful in the courts in light of sch provisions unless there is some other way of reading the wording "not taken to have authorised any infringement of copyright".
What is this!? I submitted this story 24 hours ago and it was rejected and now someone else posts it and it's put up?! What my post wasn't good enough was it?!
btw as I wrote in my post, Daryl Williams isn't exactly the best guy for the job, he wasn't a very good A-G and I don't think he knows anything about Communications and IT.
It doesn't matter if the company has gone belly up, the intellectual property (copyright) in the source code is owned by the person who created the code, not the company.
The original idea behind copyright in subject matter known as "works" (I'm in Australia, I know that this is the law in Australia and the UK, not too sure about the US, but should be similar) was that they are the creation of human intellect and thus the copyright which subsists in the work must be owned by a human, not a company.
The company can own copyright in subject matter know as "subject matter other than works" which can include the mode of production which can allow the company to bring an action against people to directly copy a CD on which a program is distributed but they can not do anything directly to anyone who copies source code because they do not OWN the source code.
As long as you are the programmer to produced the source code, you have every right to use it and distribute the programs which come from the source code. If you are not the sole owner of the copyright, you need the consent of the co-owners of the copyright and any profits which come from the use of the source code should be shared between the co-owners.
Maybe their courtesy is so that people who don't get warned feel that they aren't being overheard and thus are more likely to reveal information. Maybe they're eavesdropping on people who don't get the warning. Maybe they're eavesdropping on everyone!
Big Brother is watching you! (It's not just a really bad reality TV show!)
The real question isn't "why does this article have an AMD logo". The real question is "why do people post a question when it has already been posted by others?"
It's not that impressive! I've dropped my Powerbook G3 many times without any damage. It, in fact, has also been hit by a water bomb directly on the keyboard while I was doing work in a class room during my last few days at high school. The water didn't do anything to the computer. I was able to finish the essay I was writing (about 5 minutes), save the work and shut down properly before tipping the computer over and watching the water pour out of the speakers, quite a sight actually.
Para 180 onwards is the reasoning for Callinan J's judgement (He's the ultra-conservative one). Kirby J's judgement, I think, is the most useful (Para 66 to 168). Kirby J is I think the only judge who has extensively published on internet laws.
This also means that if the website can not be viewed in a particular country (I'm thinking of the Great Firewall of China), then a website defaming a member of that country can not bring an action for defamation unless that person also has a reputation in another country where the site can be viewed.
I don't think that a defamation action can legally be excluded by a choice of law clause. The purpose of a defamation action is to "refame" or remove the defamation of the claimant in the place where the action was claimed. See the judgement http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/200 2/56.html paragraph 6.
It does not seem likely that the publishers can say that they are free to defame in any jurisdiction other than the ones they choose.
As a lawyer myself and being the typical money driven, blood thirsty type of lawyer, I'd say that you always need a lawyer!
But being more realistic, the best way to realise when you need a lawyer is to study a bit of law yourself. All you need to do is find a few cases and statutes and read them. Just go through a bit of tort law, contract law, criminal law and property law, you probably won't really need the others.
I'm not very familiar with Canadian law, but I am familiar with Australian law and they are pretty close.
They are allowed to restrict your right to sue if the action is in common law, as in breach of contract, or tortious liability, but in many cases, where your action comes from breach of a statutory duty (legislation), there may be provisions in the legislation which do not allow for such a clause to take effect.
Furthermore, depending on how restrictive the contract is, it may be a breach of the long-standing common law doctrine of unfair restraint of trade, which is a recognised heading uner public policy considerations which may make the contract illegal and thus not valid. Again, I'm sure about Canadian law, but a recent Australia High Court case is Maggbury Pty Ltd v Hafele Australia Pty Ltd [2001] HCA 70. You can find a copy of this case at http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/high%5fct/2001/70.html?query=title+%28+%22mag gbury%22+%29
Furthermore, not giving you severance pay if you don't sign comes under the heading of economic duress and any contract made under economic duress is deemed to be invalid "ab initio" which means that any successful claim will give you compensation to attempt to place you in a position similar to what you were in before you signed the contract.
Well actually Johnny boy Howard is not the problem. In fact, Johnny boy Howard and Daryl Williams (Federal Attorney General) have no power here. The problem here is with Bracksy.
When he won the election, he promised to rid Victoria of the Kennett regime, but why get rid of something that nobody liked but worked so well?
I don't want to go to far into a political debate here other than to say that it's all the Labor party's fault. They're "the guilty party"!
(Anyone with knowledge of Australian politics would know what the quotes and the names come from)
I would just like to point out that contracts via e-mail were allowed under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996) - http://www.uncitral.org/
I personally don't see the fuss about contracts via email. I'm a second year law student at The University of Melbourne and we've just covered this area of contract law. The issue is a lot easier here in Australia since we, unlike the backward yanks, do have legislation regarding contracts through electronic transactions - Electronic Transactions Act (Victoria) 1999.
I think it is a good move to allow email as a method of agreeing to contracts as long as it is done in some kind of controled manner and as long as both parties can agree on the fact that the emails do exist.
Slashdot Mirror
When the topic said "Mouse-Tronaughts" I thought that they've found a way to shrink humans and send them on the wonderful journey up a mouse's rectum.
As in the word astro-naut (note the spelling as well people!) the "astro" bit means space and refers to where the "naut" is going. Thus by similar reasoning, "mouse-tronauts" would be referring to a person that goes into a mouse.
When can we expect to have the first mouse gall stone landing? (Fully televised of course)
If you take the Mark Latham (Federal Opposition Leader) approach, Australia is America's arse-licker.
I thought I might just inform readers that the Australian position on copyright in a compilation of facts is that it is protectable subject matter as long as effort was expended in its compilation or there is some sense of order in the compilation. I think this is an important point for this discussion because no other Common Law country has a similar position to Australia.
The decision was handed down in the Federal Court decision of Telstra v Desktop Marketing and upheld on appeal in the Full Court of the Federal Court here. It was found in that case that the phone company Telstra had exclusive rights to its compilation of the White Pages residential telephone directories. The US case of Feist was mentioned but not followed and the UK case of Hotten was distinguished.
I personally think that it is, on the one hand, ridiculous that people should get people can get copyright for compiling facts, but on the other hand, sensible considering that copyright protects the expression of the ideas or facts rather than the ideas or facts itself (ie protectable if the way in which the facts are expressed is original).
I would like to point out that although authorisation of illegal copying is general regarded as a breach of Copyright in Australia, there are plenty of exceptions to this rule.
The exception of most interest here was introduced by the Digital Agenda copyright reforms in 2000. They are sections 39B (for works) and 112E (for subject matter other than works) of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). These sections preclude from the infringement by authorisation provisions anyone who provides a communication service.
The purpose of the introduction of these sections was precisely to prevent the big record labels going after ISPs for something which, as pointed out before, they legally have no control over (due to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)).
I personally cannot see how such litigation can be successful in the courts in light of sch provisions unless there is some other way of reading the wording "not taken to have authorised any infringement of copyright".
What is this!? I submitted this story 24 hours ago and it was rejected and now someone else posts it and it's put up?! What my post wasn't good enough was it?!
btw as I wrote in my post, Daryl Williams isn't exactly the best guy for the job, he wasn't a very good A-G and I don't think he knows anything about Communications and IT.
It doesn't matter if the company has gone belly up, the intellectual property (copyright) in the source code is owned by the person who created the code, not the company.
The original idea behind copyright in subject matter known as "works" (I'm in Australia, I know that this is the law in Australia and the UK, not too sure about the US, but should be similar) was that they are the creation of human intellect and thus the copyright which subsists in the work must be owned by a human, not a company.
The company can own copyright in subject matter know as "subject matter other than works" which can include the mode of production which can allow the company to bring an action against people to directly copy a CD on which a program is distributed but they can not do anything directly to anyone who copies source code because they do not OWN the source code.
As long as you are the programmer to produced the source code, you have every right to use it and distribute the programs which come from the source code. If you are not the sole owner of the copyright, you need the consent of the co-owners of the copyright and any profits which come from the use of the source code should be shared between the co-owners.
Maybe their courtesy is so that people who don't get warned feel that they aren't being overheard and thus are more likely to reveal information. Maybe they're eavesdropping on people who don't get the warning. Maybe they're eavesdropping on everyone!
Big Brother is watching you! (It's not just a really bad reality TV show!)
The real question isn't "why does this article have an AMD logo". The real question is "why do people post a question when it has already been posted by others?"
It's not that impressive! I've dropped my Powerbook G3 many times without any damage. It, in fact, has also been hit by a water bomb directly on the keyboard while I was doing work in a class room during my last few days at high school. The water didn't do anything to the computer. I was able to finish the essay I was writing (about 5 minutes), save the work and shut down properly before tipping the computer over and watching the water pour out of the speakers, quite a sight actually.
Isn't the whole point of your server to share files? So what's wrong with looking like a wimp or a dinosaur? Just use the protocol that works!
Not quite the same thing.
That was the executive branch of government. This is the judiciary. Good old separation of powers.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely - I can't remember who said this. If anyone knows please help.
I'd like to correct this.
Para 180 onwards is the reasoning for Callinan J's judgement (He's the ultra-conservative one). Kirby J's judgement, I think, is the most useful (Para 66 to 168). Kirby J is I think the only judge who has extensively published on internet laws.
This also means that if the website can not be viewed in a particular country (I'm thinking of the Great Firewall of China), then a website defaming a member of that country can not bring an action for defamation unless that person also has a reputation in another country where the site can be viewed.
I don't think that a defamation action can legally be excluded by a choice of law clause. The purpose of a defamation action is to "refame" or remove the defamation of the claimant in the place where the action was claimed. See the judgement http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/200 2/56.html paragraph 6.
It does not seem likely that the publishers can say that they are free to defame in any jurisdiction other than the ones they choose.
As a lawyer myself and being the typical money driven, blood thirsty type of lawyer, I'd say that you always need a lawyer!
But being more realistic, the best way to realise when you need a lawyer is to study a bit of law yourself. All you need to do is find a few cases and statutes and read them. Just go through a bit of tort law, contract law, criminal law and property law, you probably won't really need the others.
I'm not very familiar with Canadian law, but I am familiar with Australian law and they are pretty close.
s /cth/high%5fct/2001/70.html?query=title+%28+%22mag gbury%22+%29
They are allowed to restrict your right to sue if the action is in common law, as in breach of contract, or tortious liability, but in many cases, where your action comes from breach of a statutory duty (legislation), there may be provisions in the legislation which do not allow for such a clause to take effect.
Furthermore, depending on how restrictive the contract is, it may be a breach of the long-standing common law doctrine of unfair restraint of trade, which is a recognised heading uner public policy considerations which may make the contract illegal and thus not valid. Again, I'm sure about Canadian law, but a recent Australia High Court case is Maggbury Pty Ltd v Hafele Australia Pty Ltd [2001] HCA 70. You can find a copy of this case at http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/case
Furthermore, not giving you severance pay if you don't sign comes under the heading of economic duress and any contract made under economic duress is deemed to be invalid "ab initio" which means that any successful claim will give you compensation to attempt to place you in a position similar to what you were in before you signed the contract.
Well actually Johnny boy Howard is not the problem. In fact, Johnny boy Howard and Daryl Williams (Federal Attorney General) have no power here. The problem here is with Bracksy.
When he won the election, he promised to rid Victoria of the Kennett regime, but why get rid of something that nobody liked but worked so well?
I don't want to go to far into a political debate here other than to say that it's all the Labor party's fault. They're "the guilty party"!
(Anyone with knowledge of Australian politics would know what the quotes and the names come from)
I would just like to point out that contracts via e-mail were allowed under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996) - http://www.uncitral.org/
I personally don't see the fuss about contracts via email. I'm a second year law student at The University of Melbourne and we've just covered this area of contract law. The issue is a lot easier here in Australia since we, unlike the backward yanks, do have legislation regarding contracts through electronic transactions - Electronic Transactions Act (Victoria) 1999.
I think it is a good move to allow email as a method of agreeing to contracts as long as it is done in some kind of controled manner and as long as both parties can agree on the fact that the emails do exist.